75 Books Every Woman Should Read

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Jezebel, 75 Books

Jezebel lists the 75 books every woman should read. Here's their description:

We started you off with 20 culled from our editors' suggestions, and you guys took the ball and ran with it. A few notes on the compendium of 75 that you helped us compile below. As we said in the original post, most of the extant rosters of must-read classics are full of old white dudes. So our list is going to be mostly women. Which doesn't mean there are not myriad male-written must-reads! A second note: we're aware that "The Lottery" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find" are short stories. We were referring to the eponymous books that contained those stories as well as several others. Finally, we're in no way implying that this is the final word in amazing, rich, edifying books for women, so please refrain from the "OMG I can't believe you morons forgot X," comments, mkay? The alive 75, in no particular order,after the jump!

This list was originally published in 2008 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1073 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
217 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
1020 Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion 1968 American English
691 Excellent Women Barbara Pym 1952 British English
103 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
1129 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
3382 Like Life Lorrie Moore 1990 American English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
1731 Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin 1977 French English
1000 A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley 1991 American English
208 A Good Man Is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor 1953 American English
488 The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1993 Canadian English
17152 You Can't Keep A Good Woman Down Alice Walker 1981 American English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
827 Fear of Flying Erica Jong 1973 American English
5759 Earthly Paradise Colette 1966 French French
1643 Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt 1996 American English
14985 Property Valerie Martin 2003 American English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
1889 Annie John Jamaica Kincaid 1985 Antiguan English
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
1563 Runaway Alice Munro 2004 Canadian English
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
1037 The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston 1976 American English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
17152 You Must Remember This Joyce Carol Oates 1987 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
4057 Bad Behavior Mary Gaitskill 1988 American English
4139 The Liars' Club Mary Karr 1995 American English
521 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou 1969 American English
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
191 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 1939 British English
722 Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison 1992 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
1885 Little Disturbances Grace Paley 1959 American English
5360 The Portable Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker 1944 American English
772 The Group Mary McCarthy 1963 American English
670 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
7664 Against Interpretation Susan Sontag 1966 American English
1917 In the Time of the Butterflies Julia Alvarez 1994 Dominican English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
13543 Three Junes Julia Glass 2002 American English
774 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft 1792 British English
803 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 American English
2629 Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Susann 1966 American English
1208 Love in a Cold Climate Nancy Mitford 1949 British English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
9856 The Red Tent Anita Diamant 1997 American English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
14822 The Face Of War Martha Gellhorn 1959 American English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
166 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
15910 The Harsh Voice Rebecca West 1935 British English
17152 Spending Mary Gordon 1998 American English
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
2125 Tell Me a Riddle Tillie Olsen 1961 American English
269 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
1155 Three Lives Gertrude Stein 1909 American English
480 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 British English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
718 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English