Bathsheba Everdene, sure. Tess of the D'Urbervilles? Hmm. I remember finding her very insipid when I read the book at high school but my adult self might be a bit more sympathetic to poor Tess.

Michael Cunningham, The Hours.

Patrick White.

Thoughts?

It's hard to say that I 'liked' it. I didn't hate it, and it was an easy read in the sense the characters were familiar, if a little disappointing. Scout spends a…

Probably a bit late to happen upon any copies that were "enhanced" by rogue borrower Joe Orton. Dorothy Sayers seems to have been a favourite target.

I've also had that kind of conversation with someone who claims to be a serious crime/mystery reader. I was literally lost for words — and everyone here should…

And still going strong! I wish I could find the link again,…

Classic books by women I love, "Passing" by Nella Larsen, anything by Sigrig Undset,I love Rumer Godden. Virginia Woolf of course.

If we're still adding recommendations, I enjoyed Elizabeth Knox's Wake a lot (sci-fi/horror set near Nelson).

That's it! That's the column I read, didn't bookmark, and then couldn't find again. And as usual, the comments justify the article.

Indeed, although the results are not always as fabulous as was the case for Munro. The same motivation also applied to Agnes-Mary Brooke, who…

Elizabeth Moon was an officer in the US Marines.

She tells a story on one of her blogs about why she joined the Marines. Coming out of University, she decided to join the military, and…

That's a very good reason for writing anything — if nobody else is writing what you want to read, why not give it a poke? :)

True — but it's kind of depressing anyone would have to. As far as I'm aware, she's the only person to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature who worked entirely in the short story form. And started building her formidable reputation when the conventional wisdom was…

Notes from an Island revisits the same territory. Those who found The Summer Book too short won't be disappointed.

Sun City from 1974 was a real surprise. Set in Miami, where Jansson had holidayed, her local characters are so intricate and believable you could be…

Picked up 'Can't and Won't' earlier in the year on the recommendation of a woman writer friend (who, scanning my modern fiction bookshelves full of Barnes, Hornby, Gee, Amis, Lodge, teased…

Eyah – she's great. She came to the NZ SF nat con a few years ago. She's an almost professional level…

There's Karen Traviss – whose wess'har series contrasts a powerful, matriachal alein species that take justice very seriously with a typical human corporate/military space expedition that includes a female British police superintendent who also takes justice very seriously....…

Thanks for that Craig, my curiosity is now firmly focused.

The irony is that she had another historical novel — A Place of Greater Safety, which…

Also close to home: just finished Jane Higgins ‘Havoc’ – sequel to ‘The Bridge’. Lots to like about both books. It was oddly fitting to find Higgins warmly thanked in the acknowledgements of ‘Roger, Ruth and Me’, which popped up on the reading list…

Julian May is great. I found SotE a bit melodramatic though, and only came back and re-read it after the related and SFfy Galactic Mileu series. That knocked my socks off.

Also, if you haven't read…

Eeek! Been looking on & off for yonks, either no luck or hugely pricey. Just looked again on eBay, got one for 99p. Thanks Emma et al for providing the kick in the arse.

It was a VERY popular book...in the school library, and containing some really interesting language and themes.

As long as they know it's a work of fiction written by Mormon youth counselor Beatrice Sparks, and not an actual diary written by 'Alice', which it's often presented as.

Memorable here for the remarkable Lud-in-the-Mist. Are you familiar with anything else she's written?

Another one-off author, Theresa Whistler, for The River Boy. I hope to live long enough to find another copy.

Anne Frank..." I want to go on living after my death. And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift....of expressing all that is in me."

Gwyneth Jones, especially the Aleutian stories, one of my favourite authors.
Elizabeth Hand
Suzy McKee Charnas (The Vampire Tapestry offers an alternate Dr Lecter...)
Lisa Tuttle
Vonda McIntyre
Hope Mirlees
Anna Kavan
C(atherine) L Moore
Suzette Elgin
Elizabeth Lynn
Elisabeth Vonarburg
Ellen Datlow
Nancy Kress
Melissa Scott
Kate…

+1 for Julian May and Mary Gentle

and, um, Anne Rice...

Anyone mentioned Cynthia Harnett or Joan Aiken yet?

I read and re-read 'Saga of the Exiles' half-a-dozen times as a young teen.

I agree. With the works she had produced, at 51 you’d think the world was ahead of her. Fuck cancer.

If we’re making lists, some perhaps not mentioned above:

Janette Turner Hospital ( Due Preparations for the Plague, The Claimant)
Lionel Shriver.

Téa…

Sadly I never discovered her until around a decade ago. Some of her stuff reads like backstory for something she seemed to be working up to, which only adds to the sense of her being cut off…

Bad analogy?

After Ursula Le Guin, Angela Carter probably had the strongest impact on me as an early reader. It was a long time ago now, but reading The Passion of New Eve…

ETA: Oh, also Eli Monpress for the fantasy category (same author). Great series.

And the Mary Poppins books. Fabulous fantasy – entirely unlike the movie – and I admire PL Travers editing them to get rid of the racist tinges in more recent years.

Grabbed this a while back, I reckon Ronald Searle nailed her.

All seconded. DWJ rocks. Also, Diane Duane.

Diana Wynne Jones, Karen Healey, Emily Roddha, Tamora Pierce.

I’ve found it interesting that I have never judged book by the gender of the author, and that people actually do this??

If…

Tanya Huff writes good solid space opera (and even manages to write space elves in such a way as to not put me off the book).

Margaret Mahy was a genius.

Which turned out, in hindsight, to have a huge contribution from Leigh Eddings.

And now for me to sideline the actual column topic. How about people not whining 'why won't…

I tried them but actively hated the OTTness of Raistlin. My pulp of choice at age 15 was Forgotten Realms' Dark Elf series and David Eddings.

While I was looking for something a bit better, I ran…

Although reading Jackie Collins, or Shirley Conran, or any of those similar airport bonkbusters at a young age certainly…

You've rounded up some of my favourites there Joe. A few more of mine:
E.Annie Proulx
Anne Tyler
carol Shields
Penelope Lively
Arundhati Roy
Pat Barker

That fits with the two books of hers I remember from my childhood. In a more adult vein,…

Although reading Jackie Collins, or Shirley Conran, or any of those similar airport bonkbusters at a young age certainly broadens one's horizons, espcially if you're looking for a creative use for a goldfish....

I was embarrassingly fond of the Dragonlance books when I was a lad.

Also Rosemary Sutcliffe is an interesting one as nearly all her protagonists were young-teen boys who ended up as exiles from their tribe, or outsiders only just within it, if memory serves.…

But as tastes developed I've tapped many more, especially in speculative…

does this count.....?

Hum... I'd criticize Bellow, Miller…

You can easily fill a month with titles from Persephone Books, which not only has a damn impressive list but…

Did you know there's a new Cordelia book coming out next year? Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.

Joanna "How to Suppress Women's Writing" Russ, Named my daughter after one of her heroines.

And for hardcore scare your pants off detective/horror....anything by Mo Hayder.

Mary Russell comes to mind, she's written some fantastic hard SF. The Sparrow (and its sequel) are the most moving SF I've ever read. Basically: Jesuits go into space to meet aliens. It doesn't go well.

George Orwell
George Eliot
George Sand

They get me.

I'm not all that keen on the Miles books, but Shards of Honour and Barrayar I've bought multiple times to read and give away (lose) and want to read again...

Cordelia is one of my heroes.

Fair call.

No, the orcish ladeez were great. The "pass me another elf, this one's split" jokes were a little de trop, however.

I have to confess I haven't read either. Women doing hard SF tend to gravitate to cyberpunkish themes: Justine Robson, Tricia Sullivan.

Space opera, Bujold, of course, MJ Locke.

Elizabeth Bear does both, although I bounce off her…

Teh orcish ladeez were not developed well enuff 4 youse?

As for Hobb, I bounce off all her stuff, so she tends not to spring to mind.

As for 70s feminist SF that was more about polemic than plot, I'd put Russ and many others with Tepper. Still have a fondness for The Wanderground,…

This is like Authors I had Forgotten I Loved. Vonda McIntyre! Sarah Monette! Mary Gentle!

Also. Karen Healey, and Jacqueline Carey's Santa Olivia.

gender flipping book covers

I kind of lost it over the…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/coverflip-maureen-johnson_n_3231935.html

Except for Grunts. That is a book I never should have read.

The writings of Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter had more of an influence on the larval Son of Dad than any other authors. They really opened my world.

Not to say that women authors can't be wall-bangingly sexist as well, but these days I don't read the kind of genres were I'd encounter that (traditional romances being one).

But I'm…

If I can be so bold, does anyone have…

GRUNTS!

It might have been clearer if I'd said "absence of awful female characters". Because the default setting of any female characters in traditional populist pulp genre fiction (unless you're talking romance) is awful, and that's the annoying part.…

Mary Gentle is pretty damn awesome, with lovely detailed late medieval/early modern…

Which is a fair call. But sometimes all I want from a book is an idea to play with, sure the…

Also Ursula Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre and Ann Leckie (being read right now) ...

Hell yeah.…

And of course George Sand.

I hesitate to…

ETA: Also how amazing was the return to fitz this year?! So amazing.

Had to throw in Jack Reacher as the latest incarnation of the hyper masculine comfort read (dick lit?)

I'm pretty sure Lee Child is the pen-name of a bloke in the UK, and Lee Childs is a (male) tennis player...

True, but if you haven’t encountered Sheri S Tepper, Octavia Butler, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffery, James Tiptree Jr, CJ Cherryh or Mercedes Lackey (amongst many others) then you’re probably deliberately avoiding female authors…

Nope I was thinking at the time of Susan R Matthews. I'm pretty sure I've read Nicola Griffith's Ammonite but it appears to have gone from my memory. Which is cool because I can read it again :).

Pat Barker
Jeanette Winterson
Annie Proulx
AS Byatt
Janet Frame
Lee Childs.

And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.

I grew up reading Asimov. Still like the old bugger, although his portrayals of women were limited. Although better than many of the era. At least he had Susan Calvin as a lead character, with a brain,…

But also genres with some amazing authors who don't have penises. I rarely think about the gender of the author although I have to say I've been bemused that some of my favourite…

Which is probably just bad writing...