500 Great Books By Women discussion

George's 2021 Old/New Challenge
Updated 08/12- now seven done which puts me half a book behind schedule.

Pre-1900:
Done Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl. Jacobs, Harriet Ann 1861 (US)
Done A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. Bird, Isabella 1879 (UK)
-Next: The Awakening. Chopin, Kate 1899 (US)

1900- 2000:
Done The Mistress of Husaby/aka The Wife & The Cross (no. 2 & 3 of Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy). Undset, Sigrid 1921 (Norway)
Done Kitchen Yoshimoto, Banana 1988 (Japan)
Done Journey into the Whirlwind Ginzburg, Evgenia 1967 (Russia)
Done Gorilla My Love Bambara, Toni Cade (US)
Done Owls Do Cry. Frame, Janet (New Zealand)
for later:
-Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe. Goodall, Jane (UK) [not in the official list]
-The House with the Blind Glass Windows. Wassmo, Herbjørg 1981 (Norway)
-The Twilight Years. Ariyoshi, Sawako 1972 (Japan)
-Excellent Women. Pym, Barbara (US)

alternates:
-A Thousand Acres. Smiley, Jane (US)
-Jubilee. Walker, Margaret (US)

I just joined the group today, didn't realize at first that the challenge books should be from the group list, so had to revise. I had lots of others from the list in my to-read list already though.
I didn't have 3 in my to-read list and the group list from before 1900, so added A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains- should interest me since I've lived in the Rockies most of my life. I've already started Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, but it was after Jan 1 when I started it.

Welcome to the challenges, George. If you're ever in need of more of the older great books by women, you can check out the group directory organized in descending order of chronology here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Each entry links to its specific group board and accompanying blurbs/reviews.

Aubrey wrote: "Welcome to the challenges, George. If you're ever in need of more of the older great books by women, you can check out the group directory organized in descending order of chronology here: https://..."

Thanks for the link Aubrey, that helped as I had to find a sub for Gosta Berling's Saga which I was surprised wasn't on the list (but another later book of hers is).

Yes, one critique of this list is how it seems to arbitrarily go for the lesser known/harder to acquire works of certain authors, and since there's a limit of one work per author, that's all you get. However, these challenges are not intended to limit anyone to only the official list contained within the original work, so it's more of a guideline than anything else.

Personally I am tracking authors on the list rather than specific books by those authors.

Annette wrote: "Personally I am tracking authors on the list rather than specific books by those authors."

That works as well, Annette. Of the books by women I have scheduled for this year's challenge, while likely quite a few of them are by authors represented on the original 500 GBBW list, only three of works are explicitly represented. I'll be glad to get to them, but as expansion of the original list is built into the mechanisms of this group, I also value doing my own exploration.

Well this looks like an excellent list. Incidents is very powerful, and one I've long wanted to read but haven't gotten ahold of is Jubilee. Hope you like it.

(And while I love tracking my reading of the 500 GBBW list, my challenge books/authors aren't necessarily from it. Perhaps they should be in the expanded list--we shall see!)

Finished Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann jaccobs 1861 (US). A very personal and affecting account of her slavery and escape around 1840-1850.

George, such a surprise to see you here. I agree about the list. I’ve added many works to it that Aubrey files because it is too arbitrary. Gosta’s Berling Saga should be on the list. If you want to buddy read in the second half of the year, I’d be up for it.

Brina wrote: "George, such a surprise to see you here. I agree about the list. I’ve added many works to it that Aubrey files because it is too arbitrary. Gosta’s Berling Saga should be on the list. If you want to buddy read in the second half of the year, I’d be up for it. "

Sounds good to me. I've got G B's Saga on my schedule for starting about the middle of the year but I'm flexible with it. I'll make a note of you on it.

I realized about ten years ago that the books I had read were overwhelmingly by male authors, yet some of those I most loved were by women authors (Mary Shelley, M. K. Rawlings, Margaret Atwood). So I have made an effort to include more women authors in my reading. By this summer I will have read 200 books by women authors.

Update 06/24
Finished Journey into the Whirlwind June 24, and have read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, second & third books of the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy (The Wife and The Cross) and also Yoshimoto's Kitchen.

I'm on a library wait-list for Gorilla My Love so might read Chopin's The Awakening next.
So have just 4 done and 8 left, so I need to pick it up a bit. The 700 pages of the Kristin Lavransdatter books slowed my pace.

I got the ebook of "Gorilla, My Love" from the library and am 1/3 through it now- liking it so far. That will be no. 5. Hope to start my no. 6 very soon, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, in Eaudiobook format via Librivox (non-professional reader).

I'm nearly done with my 12- book old/ new challenge. I finished Excellent Women by Barbara Pym five days ago and I'm reading The Twilight Years by Sawako Ariyoshi of Japan for my final book. See message one for my list.
This will be the first year in which I've read more books by women authors than men (27 of 49 at this point) and the challenge helped get that to happen.

12/29 update: now 31 of my 60 books read this year were written by women, so a bare majority, but still a first for me.