Women writers have been highly creative throughout history but vastly overlooked. Many women writers have used pseudonyms to leave the impression that they were men, knowing that readers would not buy books written by women. This has been as recent as J.K. Rowling’s publication of the Harry Potter books. From 1901-2023 only 14% of winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature have been women and 15% of the Pulitzer Prizes. In both cases, however, women are catching up.
Over the last few centuries, there have been numerous female writers who have written books about women. Jane Austen and Emily Bronte come to mind, but by 2020 women are publishing more books than men for the first time. Book clubs have also become enormously popular, and women make up 70-80% of book club members. This month our nation celebrates women, so I’m going to shine a light on the wonderful books for, by and about women!
1. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend by Rebecca Romney
Author Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, and she is also a devoted reader of Jane Austen. Not only does she love reading Austen’s books, but she also studies them to find references to other women writers. This was a time of great writing by women, but so many of them have been lost to history. Romney introduces us to writers such as Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi and Maria Edgeworth, devoting a chapter to each and thereby recreating Austen’s bookshelf!
2. Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory
In our study of history, there is often a paucity of references to women. Historical novelist Philippa Gregory works to correct that with this study of women throughout British history. For example, there are more men than women depicted in the famous Bayeux Tapestry, but the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was actually started and maintained by women in protest of taxes on women. Gregory sets forth 900 years of British history and focuses on women for the first time — elevating them to the place they deserve as 50% of the population!
3. The Bluestockings: A History of the First Women’s Movement by Susannah Gibson
During the 1700s in England, women were considered unnatural if they were intellectual, wrote professionally or aspired to anything other than being a good wife and mother. A group of women who did aspire to something more than being just a homebody came together and created a group called the Bluestockings. They formed salons to discuss and debate as equals to men, and fought for women to be educated and to assume public roles in society. The author introduces us to some of these women, like Elizabeth Montagu, who formed a salon so popular that royals clamored to attend. Women writers emerged who we are rediscovering today. This is just one of her examples of women who helped support each other, while defying mores of the day.
4. Women Who Read Are Dangerous by Stefan Bollmann (Author), Karen Joy Fowler (Foreword)
Bollmann explores how artists, over the centuries, have often depicted women in the art of reading. He discusses artists such as Rembrandt, Edward Hopper, and Henri Matisse and shows numerous examples of their works. You will be delighted to see women doing something so radical, from a 1333 painting of the Virgin Mary with a book in hand, to 20th-century works like a photograph of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses.
5. Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
Since 1964, Anne Tyler has written 27 books, many winning numerous awards including the Pulitzer for Breathing Lessons. Those of us who have read many of her books are excited about her newest one, Three Days in June. Gail Baines, on the eve of her daughter’s wedding, is having a bad day. She’s lost her job, the groom’s mother has left her out of the spa day for the women of the bridal party, and then her ex-husband shows up looking for a place to stay. With sensitivity and a dose of humor, Anne Tyler reminds us of the reasons we love to read her books.
6. The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
In the 1960s, Margaret Ryan appears to her suburban neighbors to have it all. But since she doesn’t feel that way herself, she decides to meet the new family in the neighborhood, as a way to bring a few ladies together to get to know the newest one. Over cocktails and chats, and a discussion of the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique, the group discovers that the American Dream they have been sold isn’t really what it’s cracked up to be. Their book club, the Bettys (after Betty Friedan), becomes the glue that holds them together as a group and individually.
Read CityView Magazine’s “The Women’s Issue” March 2025 e-edition here.
