BOTNS Books Podcast #52: In praise of women writers

Books on the Nightstand, Episode 52 (22:04)

Publishers Weekly, the trade journal that covers the book industry, just released their list of Best Books of 2009, with a new "top ten" list to go along with the announcement. We're happy to pat ourselves on the back, since we've talked about 6 of the top 10 here on Books on the Nightstand, but like many others, we question the lack of women authors in the top ten.

You can follow the controversy about the lack of women by reading twitter messages that are tagged with #fembook. Out of the brouhaha comes The Willa List Wiki, started by Women in Letters and Literary Arts (link goes to Facebook group) as a way for people to list their favorite books by women that were published in 2009.

Other takes on the topic:
Laura Miller in Salon, Lizzie Skurnick, author and critic, in Politics Daily, and Bunch of Grapes Bookstore presents 10 Great Books by Female Authors.

What books written by women in 2009 do you think should top the Publishers Weekly list? Let us know in the comments, or call our voicemail line at (209) 867-7323 so that we can play your message on a future show.

In segment 2, Michael and I look at our own bookshelves to see how many women writers are represented. We also ask, are women marginalized for writing in a specific genre, or even for writing at all? One book that examines the history of women writers and looks at some of these issues is A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter.

For those of you interested, Women Unbound is a reading challenge where participants are encouraged to read nonfiction and fiction books related to the rather broad idea of ‘women’s studies.’ It runs for an entire year, so do check it out if you want to examine the topic a bit more closely.

In our "Two Books We Can't Wait for You to Read" segment, we recommend two books we love that are written by women. Michael talks about The Secret History by Donna Tartt, one of his favorite books of all time that still deserves attention today. Ann discusses Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro, her newest collection of short stories.

  

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We encourage you to write down or print out the title information and shop at your local bookstore. Titles link to LibraryThing, a social networking site that allows you to catalog your home library. LibraryThing also links to various online purchasing options. Here are the books from this post:

A Jury of Her Peers, Elaine Showalter,Knopf hardcover
The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Vintage trade paperback
Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro, Knopf hardcover

(all information is for the U.S. editions).