Read Women discussion

We're welcoming 2021 with a quarterly challenge to read books featuring feminism or female sleuths, whether as a theme or in the form of characters and their activities. Let's use this thread to capture our plans, thoughts and conversations about it. Our challenge starts on 1 January, the date on which the New Year starts in countries and cultures that follow the Gregorian or the revised Julian calendar, and ends 31 March. Be gone, 2020!

Each participating member can choose to focus on one of our two themes, feminism or female sleuths, to the exclusion of the other or mix and match, as you choose. The rules and boundaries are up to you. For example, perhaps your book will include a female sleuth as a minor character or feminism may be one of 4 themes addressed in a work.

Feel free to set up your own threads to capture your progress, or comment here.

Do you plan to participate? Let us know what you're thinking about reading for these themes. If you have recommendations or the occasional, "recommend avoidations", share those as well.

For those who like to use widgets to track progress, this challenge's widget is available on our home page and also at this link.

https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

(it opens up 1/1)

Probably can't fit this one in Carol, but these are some of the articles/lists I've got bookmarked that might be of interest:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/th...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

https://bookriot.com/30-favorite-fema...

https://www.bustle.com/p/11-fictional...

I have several books in mind for this challenge, but am avoiding targets this next year to keep my reading a source of joy.

female sleuths

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole
The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka
Broken Places by Tracy Clark
Sun Storm by Åsa Larsson (Swedish, part of a series)
a Vera Stanhope novel by Ann Cleeves
American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
The Dime by Kathleen Kent

feminism
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda (short stories, Japanese Lit group read for Jan)

Alwynne wrote: "Probably can't fit this one in Carol, but these are some of the articles/lists I've got bookmarked that might be of interest:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/th......"

Thanks, Alwynne! I was feeling as though I've seen so many of these lists before, loaded with the same top 7 selling authors ad nauseum, that I became blinded to the good ones. These are great.

Thanks Carol I have the Matsuda btw, only dipped in so far but looking very promising. Will check out the others on your list.

I have been looking forward to the feminism side of this challenge as I read many feminist novels and they usually end up bring my favourites. I will set up a thread for my list of contenders. Here is a list I made of those I have already read:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

I have identified several books on my bookshelves which I will choose from for this challenge:

Feminism
Naomi Wolf – Vagina: A New Biography
Laura Bates – Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists, the Truth About Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All
Svetlana Alexievich - The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II
Miriam Toews – Women Talking
Lola Shoneyin - The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives
Siri Hustvedt – The Blazing World
Lissa Evans - Old Baggage
Sophie Mackintosh - The Water Cure
Ann Petry - The Street
Dorothy Whipple - High Wages
Katherena Vermette - The Break
Dulce Chacon - The Sleeping Voice
Angela Davis - Women, Race & Class
Assia Djebar - La Femme Sans Sepulture

Female sleuth
Elly Griffiths – The House at Sea's End
Carola Dunn – Death at Wentwater Court
Laurie R. King - The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Kerry Greenwood – Cocaine Blues
Kaite Welsh – The Wages of Sin

For feminism, two books I have loved are Rumena Buzarovka's short story collection My Husband and Mariama Ba's novel So Long a Letter. Any of Nawal el-Saadawi's writing would also be a great fit.

Hannah wrote: "I have been looking forward to the feminism side of this challenge as I read many feminist novels and they usually end up bring my favourites. I will set up a thread for my list of contenders. Here..."

That is a very useful list. Thanks for sharing it Hannah.

Valerie, both your lists rock. I’m scrambling happily to update my TBR to include these. Thanks for sharing !

I am planning to read the following three works for this challenge. If I manage to find extra time, I can always add something extra.

Hidden From History: 300 Years of Women's Oppression and the Fight Against It - Sheila Rowbotham 30/01/21
The New Feminism - Natasha Walter 11/02/21
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories - Angela Carter 12/03/21

So many excellent lists, and books I want to read because of them, thanks everyone and Happy New Year when it arrives in your part of the world. Look forward to hearing about your reading in 2021 : )

Ooh this is so great! I was a bit stumped for female sleuths but I might get waylaid by all the amazing feminism recommendations. Thank you everyone!

Just to check, is "sleuth" defined strictly (i.e. "someone whose job is to discover information about crimes and find out who is responsible for them" - from the Cambridge Dictionary), or can it cover anyone involved in an investigation?

For the feminism theme my plan is to go full nerd and tackle some of the following:
The Book of the City of Ladies and Other Writings by Christine de Pizan
"Femme, Réveille-toi!" Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne by Olympe de Gouges
Le Deuxième Sexe, Tome II by Simone de Beauvoir
The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain by Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie & Suzanne Scafe
A Thrice-Told Tale: Feminism, Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility by Margery Wolf
Killing Kanoko / Wild Grass on the Riverbank by Hiromi Itō

Cam wrote: "Ooh this is so great! I was a bit stumped for female sleuths but I might get waylaid by all the amazing feminism recommendations. Thank you everyone!

Just to check, is "sleuth" defined strictly (i..."

Oh Cam, your feminism list is very inspiring!

I agree. Cam, thanks for sharing your feminism list! In terms of female sleuths, I take an expansive view, eg a female deduces something related to a crime somewhere in the book. Other members may prefer a more narrow structured approach, a female cop or amateur detective is the primary solver of a violent crime.

Valerie wrote: "I have identified several books on my bookshelves which I will choose from for this challenge:

Feminism.."

These are interesting, thanks for sharing, Valerie.

Before knowing about this challenge, I already had the nonfiction Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story and The Art of Violence: A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel on my January calendar. The second book is by S.J. Rozan who alternates her series between her two PIs taking point; this installment is Bill's turn with Lydia in a support capacity. I have read the entire series, and I feel that Rozan did a decent job of creating her Chinese-American protagonist.

Happy new year everyone! My best wishes for you and your loved ones!
I don't know how many books I will read for this challenge, I am planning a more relaxed reading this year, but I started Nasty Women today (feminism) and I really like it so far!

I hope to read some female sleuths - pity I already finished my Miss Marple reads last year, but I got some others at home. Want to read at least three of these:

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King
Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood
A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen
Something by Agatha Christie

I also got a book that contains many female sleuths stories, where I might choose some: The Big Book of Female Detectives.

I have started reading Men Who Hate Women - From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All. It has been very interesting so far but it is not an easy read emotionally. It is hard to be confronted head-on with the levels of hate against women that exist in certain male communities. I would say it is an essential read though, for both women and men - because as Bates point out this degree of misogyny and toxic masculinity is also harmful to men.

That one has been on my TBR list since it was published, Valerie, but I'm having trouble working up the courage to read it.

I can imagine that Valerie I've put off reading it for similar reasons, particularly after following the 'rough sex' defence cases in England that I found horrifying and disturbing, and all the other countless examples of this kind of misogyny that manifests at institutional as much as individual levels. From reading earlier books about violence and masculinity it's not in some ways surprising but the way it now operates on group/community levels circulating via social media makes it more insidious although I suppose it also makes it easier to spot and to address?

I recommend this Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini. It's an interesting evaluation of competing theories and evidence in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology .

my review - www.Goodreads.com/review/show/3741142714

I'm currently reading Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez and I'm very glad I'm reading it with a friend, so I can discuss what I've read after each chapter. Because, wow! Sometimes it hits really close to home.

I'm not sure what I will read yet for the female sleuth challenge as the book delivery seems to be a bit spotty at the moment. I'll have to check what my library has for ebooks.

Sanne wrote: "I'm currently reading Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez and I'm very glad I'm reading it with a friend, so I can disc..."

That's an excellent book. I read it as my first book of 2020 with my nonfiction GR group. I rated that one slightly higher than Angela Saini's book because of the breadth of its coverage but that doesn't diminish the importance of Saini's book.

Alwynne wrote: "From reading earlier books about violence and masculinity it's not in some ways surprising but the way it now operates on group/community levels circulating via social media makes it more insidious although I suppose it also makes it easier to spot and to address"

Digging out people's assumptions is not an easy thing to get people to acknowledge. In Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story, Saini explicitly stated that, and I have seen it played out in my workplace.

Gender bias is so steeped in the culture, their results implied, that women were themselves discriminating against other women.

Woman Reading wrote: "That's an excellent book. I read it as my first book of 2020 with my nonfiction GR group. I rated that one slightly higher than Angela Saini's book because of the breadth of its coverage but that doesn't diminish the importance of Saini's book. "

It is! I'm really taking a lot from it (enjoyment is not a word I'd use for a book that constantly hammers how the way we organise society is not taking female experiences into account, but yeah). I've just read the first chapter on work/life balance and it's going to be so interesting to discuss this with my friend and take all what I've learned into discussions with colleagues as well. I've got a job that we're able to do (partially) from home, but we've never been able to work from home before last year. I heard from quite a few women that partially working from home makes their lifes so much easier - from the moms who have more time for their children, to my pregnant colleague who was able to take naps during her breaks.

Woman Reading wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "From reading earlier books about violence and masculinity it's not in some ways surprising but the way it now operates on group/community levels circulating via social media makes i..."

I can see that but what I've seen is more to do with the way women are further divided by issues of race, age, parent/not-parent, etc...which makes everything even more complicated.

I finished my first female sleuth novel for this challenge and discovered a good, new-to-me author as well: Val McDermid's Broken Ground. I'm not going to review it but I really enjoyed it.

Alwynne wrote: "what I've seen is more to do with the way women are further divided by issues of race, age, parent/not-parent, etc...which makes everything even more complicated."

Sadly, I agree. Humans seem hard wired to see differences before they ever see similarities.

It's not new. For the suffrage movement in the US, the white feminists downplayed, if not hid, the contributions from black female suffragettes.

One complaint within my group read of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men was that it was scant of experiences of women from diverse ethnicities or from outside of an US or European perspective.

I read The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie, and found out it had a female adventurer and sleuth in it, an independent woman, who has to fall in love nonetheless. Untypical Christie mystery.

Good to know, Michaela. I was thinking of reading it as it's just become available in the public domain and can be downloaded free from Gutenberg.org

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61168

Thanks Story, I had it from the library, never thought to look it up on Gutenberg! :)

I wouldn't have thought of it either, Michaela, had I not read an article about works coming into the public domain for 2021.

I finished Men Who Hate Women - From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All and think it is an essential read (I've put a review here). Bates makes a very strong argument about the extent to which extreme misogyny has become increasingly popular and normalised and the very real threat it poses to women and men alike. In the last chapter she also makes some concrete recommendations on the kinds of measures that can be taken to address the problem.

I look forward to also getting to Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story as it is on my list of books for this challenge.

I enjoyed the audiobook for We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - articulate, succinct, and illustrated with her Nigerian, but universal, experiences.

My review - www.Goodreads.com/review/show/3780963637

I just finished Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Before reading it, I had classified it as a psychological suspense novel. But now, I think Du Maurier's novel did contain a strong feminist theme in the contrast of the two key female characters - in their choices, behaviors, and their ways of determining their true selves - even if feminist priorities didn't prevail.

My review - www.Goodreads.com/review/show/3178309692

For those looking for ideas, this article might help -

https://bookriot.com/best-feminist-my...

Woman Reading wrote: "For those looking for ideas, this article might help -

https://bookriot.com/best-feminist-my..."

Thank you!

I just finished Hidden From History: 300 Years of Women's Oppression and the Fight Against It by Sheila Rowbotham.

Although it is a very thorough work, I only gave it 2 stars. Most of the work seems to focus on the history of gaining the vote. As we read the biography of Sylvia Pankhurst last year, a lot of this information felt repetitive. I also had the impression that the arguments of the work might be skewed by the political leanings of the author.

Last night I finished The New Feminism by Natasha Walter which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

While it does contain an overview of the history of feminism in the UK, that history serves as the basis for explaining where feminism needs to focus in the future so that it continues to work for equality for all women. It was a thought stimulating work and I found myself highly motivated to get out there and look for an opportunity to be a part of this.

Liesl wrote: "Last night I finished The New Feminism by Natasha Walter which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

While it does contain an overview of the history of feminism in the UK..."

Adding this to my TBR, in part because I'd like to know more about the UK experience of the movement vs. the American experience with which I'm so familiar. Thanks for bringing this one to my attention.

The subject of this biography isn't a sleuth but a spy who had neverending contention with the sexist powers-to-be. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell. This nonfiction reads like a thriller as it relates espionage and covert action in France during WWII.

My review - www.Goodreads.com/review/show/3834661011

I read another female sleuth, The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King, first in a series, and it was just okay. Well written, but definitely too long and boring, and the apprentice Mary Russell paints Holmes much better than he is, and Watson as a complete idiot. She isn´t really in the focus, but Holmes. Never liked any of the Holmes variations that I read.

Last night I finished The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter. This is a great collection of short stories, some better than others. The titular story in particular is incredible.

When I chose it for this challenge, I had seen it listed amongst Feminist works and I thought it would be interesting to throw a fiction work into the feminism theme rather than just reading non-fiction. I was surprised to read in the introduction to the collection that Angela Carter didn't set out to write a a feminist text but rather a collection of more horrific or gothic retellings of traditional fairy tales.

Michaela wrote: "I read another female sleuth, The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King, first in a series, and it was just okay. Well written, but definitely too long and boring, and..."

I read a later entrant last summer and was similarly unimpressed.

With a week to go in my challenge, I realized that I didn't do well on female sleuths per se, but I found a couple of new woman detective/crime authors that I like. It so happened that they chose male protagonists to star in their stories, but I wouldn't have prioritized reading them if not for this challenge. I haven't been in a good frame of mind for nonfiction reads, but have loved some of the comments and ideas from this thread on the feminism theme.

What has been everyone's favorite read or discovery?

I've completed my challenge of reading 9 books for this challenge! I think I'm the only one who has read exclusively feminist fiction for this but I have really enjoyed it and I just cannot manage reading non fiction at the moment.

My favourite was The Break by Katherena Vermette about a Métis family in Canada. The characters are really complex and their flawed strength and love in the face of terrible losses and violence helped me with a loss I was experiencing at the time

Hannah wrote: "I've completed my challenge of reading 9 books for this challenge! I think I'm the only one who has read exclusively feminist fiction for this but I have really enjoyed it and I just cannot manage ..."

That's very cool, Hannah. I can't focus on nonfiction for fun either right now. I'll check out all of our reads, but esp. The Break, for starters.

I still miss a book with a female sleuth, so hope to squash this in the last few March days. I read other female mystery writers with male sleuths and male mystery writers with female sleuths, but the combination female writer - female sleuth isn´t so easy to find, though I still have a few on my list.

Michaela, have you tried the Vera Stanhope books by Ann Cleeves? The later ones are (IMO) better than the early ones and you don't really need to read them in order.