500 Great Books by Women

by Erica Bauermeister, Holly Smith, Jesse Larsen

Here is an articulate guide to more than 500 books written by women, a unique resource that allows readers the joy of discovering new authors as well as revisiting familiar favorites. Organized by such themes as Art, Choices, Families, Growing Old, Growing Up, Places and Homes, Power, and Work, this reference book presents classic and contemporary works, from Lady Nijo's thirteenth-century diaries to books by authors including Toni Morrison, Alice Hoffman, Nadine Gordimer, and Isabel Allende. With annotated entries that capture the flavor of each book and seven cross-referenced indexes, 500 Great Books by Women is a one-of-a-kind guide for all readers and book lovers that celebrates and recommends some of the very best writing by women.

Genres: Books About Books, Nonfiction, Reference, Womens, Feminism, Literature, Literary Criticism

425 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Erica Bauermeister is the NYT bestselling author of five novels -- The Scent Keeper (a Reese's Book Club pick), The School of Essential Ingredients, Joy for Beginners, The Lost Art of Mixing, and a new novel, No Two Persons, due out in May of 2023. She has also written a memoir, House Lessons: Renovating a Life and is the co-author of two readers' guides: 500 Great Books by Women and Let's Hear It For the Girls. She currently lives in Port Townsend, Wa with her husband and 238 wild deer.

Reviews

[Brina]

I thought it was appropriate during women's history month to bring to attention this reference book by Erica Bauermeister. Bauermeister has compiled what she thinks are the 500 most influential books written by women. I have made it a lifetime goal of mine to eventually read all 500 but I admit that it will be a challenge because these books are across all genres and do not include as many modern classics as I would have liked. That being said, this book is a wonderful edition to the library of any woman's studies herstorian and I wish you all continued happy reading of women this month.

[Luke]

If you've been friends with me for long enough, you know I like lists. A lot. Especially weird ones that I can send my army of you, my lovely bookish fellows, to amp up however you are able. So when I saw this book, I first thought list!, but backed off from the prospect due to the 100 vote limit and my unyielding need for control. Then came the pondering.

There's a singular shame to be felt when considering books written by women. Should a list, award, class or sale, shelf or school, not be solely devoted to works by women, they will be outnumbered ten to one, at the very least. The ones you do have were white, born centuries ago, died young via illness or suicide, and on the whole came into the scene very late when compared to Shakespeare and the like. These days they are a popular target, the J.K. Rowlings who in this day and age still need to hide behind an androcentric moniker, the Suzanne Collins and their overwhelming popularity, the E. L. James and the running gag of, yet again, women and their romance and their pitiful need to get through fiction what they cannot receive in life.

This year was the Year of Reading Women, trending on Twitter and various media platforms, likely met with the usual castigation consisting of gynephobia, rape culture, and death threats, for that's expected on the Internet whenever a woman makes herself heard, didn't you know. I did not participate, for a year is a year and I am in for the long run of popping up when the hashtags are forgotten and the next sex-starved psychopath shoots up a university out of sheer hate for women. I am in for a lifetime of it, if I'm lucky.

For that to occur, I require something bigger than myself. And so, instead of a list, I made a group, each and every entry of this book carefully inputted with two sentences of the respective review of my own choosing. I am a believer in the power of Internet enabled crowdsourcing/crowdoffering, and so I have made a database that consists of the 508 different works termed great by this book, all by different authors. That is a lot of women.

Now, considering the inevitable white heterosexual US-centrism, the statistics are surprising. 35% of the authors are persons of color, nearly 20% of the works were not written in English, but this was created in 1993, and we can do better. So, consider this an open call for submissions: if you feel a work is a great book by a woman, write a review, and send it in. If your favorite has already been chosen, no worries. I aim to have every entry contain at least one review by a fellow Goodreads reviewer. The more, the merrier.

In short, I made a thing. It is a good thing. For it to be a great thing, I need your help. The thing is public, and may be found here: (https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...) You don't need to like this review to express interest; I much prefer your participation to your clickety-click.

For those of you who do not identify as women, you are welcome as well. Simply keep in mind that my gynephobia radar is exquisitely honed and, in this group, I reign supreme.

Now, the true moment you have all been reading for: the works I added because of this book.

Artemisia
Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places
Daybook: The Journal of an Artist
Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography
The Writer on Her Work: New Essays in New Territory

Because it is Bitter, and Because it is My Heart
The Convert
From the Lanai and Other Hawaii Stories
So Long a Letter
The Waiting Years

Cleaned Out
Coming of Age in Mississippi
Half-Breed
The Land Of Look Behind: Prose And Poetry

Deals with the Devil, and Other Reasons to Riot
Hope Leslie: or, Early Times in the Massachusetts
Requiem
A Voice from the South

Circe's Mountain
The Group
Later the Same Day
Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories
Twilight and Other Stories
The Dangerous Age
Look Me in the Eye: Old Women, Aging and Ageism
The Twilight Years

The Changelings

Burger's Daughter
The Confessions of Lady Nijo
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

The Jailing of Cecelia Capture
Jerusalem Plays Hide and Seek
Nampally Road

The Iguana
The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution

After Henry
The Little Virtues
The Nocturnal Naturalist: Exploring the Outdoors at Night
The Time of the Doves
Women of Sand and Myrrh

The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of a Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars
Exile in the Promised Land: A Memoir
A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
Mountain Charley: Or the Adventures of Mrs. E. J. Guerin, Who Was Thirteen Years in Male Attire
West with the Night]
Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands

The Land of Little Rain
Stradbroke Dreamtime

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
Kelroy
Killing Color
Mean Spirit
Sofia Petrovna
A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story
Women, Culture, and Politics
The Women Outside: Meanings and Myths of Homelessness

Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills
Daughter of Earth
Journey into the Whirlwind
A Mountainous Journey: An Autobiography
My Father's House
Plaintext

Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape
The Butcher's Wife
A Chorus of Stones
The Loony-Bin Trip
The Montreal Massacre

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches and Diatribes
Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives
Man Made Language
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America
The Straight Mind: And Other Essays
Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind
Working-Class Women in the Academy: Laborers in the Knowledge Factory
Writing a Woman's Life
Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism

Indiana
The Works of Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Volume 1

Composing a Life]
Daughter of Persia: A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic Revolution
More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave

See you there.

[Sarah Fox]

OK, I'll admit it--I'm sexist. I've decided that I prefer books , for the most part, written by women. When I discovered this book I was in heaven. This gem has reviews of books written over some 300 years sorted by theme. Through this book I discovered a flock of writers unfamiliar to me and branched out into genres I wouldn't normally pick up. The only problem with this book is that it isn't replenishing each year. If the editors of this book could e-mail suggestions to me of the newest lit, philosophy, poetry, essays and memoirs I'd be on cloud nine!

[Stephanie]

This anthology brings to light many good female writers that have been forgotten. It also makes my list of books to read grow longer.

"No matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept...If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still...So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that."
- Ursula K. Le Guin from "Dancing on the Edge of the World: Thought on Words, Women, Places"

[Karen Witzler]

This is an older book and the suggested works stop at about 1992. I LOVE the thematic groupings and the selections remind readers of that great outpouring of previously unheard voices brought to the conversation by Second Wave Feminist publishing from 1960 to 1980. Many of these books are now out of print - but what a magnificent new small press could be founded on reprints from this book and this era.

Some of the themes are: Art, Choices, Families, Growing Old, Growing Up, Places and Homes, Power, and Work. Well-written reviews that elucidate the contribution each work makes to literature and to the historical record.

My teenaged and early twenties self owned and read many of these - now lost to time.

Thanks to Brina here on Goodreads for her review which alerted me to this title.

As an aside, this book is a goldmine for those doing some of the reading challenges like Book Riot Read Harder or the Reading Women Challenge and otherwise seeking to enlarge the male-dominated canon. Many global and BIPOC choices that I have not seen referenced in years and many that are wholly new to me. Alas, so many are not only out of print, but now lost to library purges. Here goes my used book budget for the foreseeable future.

I believe there is also a readers group devoted to this booklist here on Goodreads.

[Gloria]

Bauermeister is a college professor at the Univ of Washington/Seattle and is currently busy publishing novels. She is clearly an author who values women's contributions. In the mid 1990s however, she put together this collection of great books by women. It is well done. The only downside is that it is outdated already. Some of the books are by foreign female authors which means they are not widely available, and some of the books are quite old and thus not widely available. Would love to see something of this type hyping books written by women just in the last 50 years (or even 25 years).

[Susan]

I may never finish this book! It is a wonderful treasury of ideas for future reading, lovingly and thoroughly curated by three women with varied, and complementary, literary credentials. Of the 500 recommended titles in many genres, fiction and nonfiction, I had only read 28! After 50 years of adult reading! Clearly I need another lifetime . . . 😊

[Alexa]

Eh. Oddly organized, by thematic units, making it somewhat annoying to use as a reference. Heavily tilted towards the “meaningful” works, with some few popular works, rather than the literary. The authors also seemed to delight in sometimes choosing particular authors’ most obscure works.

[Ella]

A nice little resource. Sadly it was only published once, so it's way out of date and ends with a few books published in 1993.

Divided by theme, there are blurbs from a panel of contributors (all female) about 500 books: everything from Autobiography/memoir to oral histories, novels and nonfiction.

There are cross-referenced indices and lists at the beginning of every theme. Included are lists of books by women of color living in the US and a "list of some books about lesbian and gay people." Clearly time has not been kind to this particular listing, and that's the issue. The areas covered are way too broad, the 1990s overrepresented and marginalized people are just barely creeping into consciousness in 1993-94.

I truly wish someone would update this particular reference, but until then it's handy for finding books and authors I may otherwise have missed.

[Karen]

4.5 stars. I became aware of this book from a Goodreads group who is focusing on women writers. I am always interested in the work of women writers. This book is an impressive compilation of books by writers of many nationalities spanning several centuries. The researchers who prepared the compilation also have diverse backgrounds and interests.

Books are grouped in a variety of categories, including family life, relationships, violence, power and work. I was proud of myself when I came across writers I recognized in each category and was even more pleased when I came across a book that I have actually read. I was surprised by the variety and depth of the books highlighted in this collection. Most of the writers and their books were unknown to me. I had to stop myself from adding 450 books to my to - read list, but my list definitely expanded when I was reading about all these great books.

I have noticed two tiny drawbacks about this book. 1) it's too bad that this book doesn't cover any of books from the past 30 years. What we really need is a sequel or a Volume 2 (which would result in further expansion of the to - read list). 2) I would have liked it if the editors had included two or three sentences about each author along with a summary of each writer's book.

I am adding this book to my reference collection, next to my Norton's Anthology.

[Anetq]

A bit underwhelming really - here I was hoping for the definitive women's world litt, which granted may be a bit lofty for fairly slim paperback, but still... There is a lot of world litt to be found here written by women, but also just a lot of (more or less) American "ladies books" from the 80s. The years 1271-1979 take up two and a half page of the index by year, 1980-1993 makes up more than half - over three pages.
The selection also seems semi-random: Not wanting to define the "Great books" of the title, for asking people to recommend books they liked, and stating repeatedly in the foreword how subjective it is whether you like a book. (I wonder why we teach literature then, and want to object that something being a "great book" and me liking it is not necessary the same thing.)
That being said they have made an effort to try and cover many corners of the world, and diversity - just not in publishing years.
I may use the first two and a half pages of the index for inspiration, but this won't be my new reading list.

[reading is my hustle]

Well-organized and excellent resource for Readers' Advisory.

[Caryn Gonzalez]

Ok, this is not a book you read cover to cover, but one to use as a reference or for inspiration. It has pretty good representation for a book from the 90s. I like the organization of the books, and the various indexes provided to find what you are looking for. Very excited to include this in my collection of "books about books".

[Reet]

This is a fantastic book that brings to my attention many, many works by women that I would never have learned of without them being reviewed in this book. Reviewed by respected women writers, the titles are organized under themes such as "Power," "Love," "Work," "Ethics," and so on.

[Mckinley]

Divided into themes with several indexes.
Have read some.

[Amy Dance]

this book is exciting to me because it lists world literature written by women from the middle ages to 1990s. lots of new ( to me) & interesting authors & books.

[Cindy]

This will be a reference in the future. Out of the 500 books in this book, I've read 15. And I marked several others to read in the future.

[Amy in the Desert]

Meh. Outdated and didn't do a good job of getting me excited about any of the books.

[Lynda]

So many books, so little time.

[Christine]

*2015 year of reading women

- Reeds in the Wind by Grazia Deledda 5*
- Kindred by Octavia E. Butler


*2016 year of reading women

- The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
-

*2017 year of reading women
- Cosima by Grazia Deledda ( have only Italian version, need to polish my language skills first )
-

[Cherie]

A Annotated bib! Overwhelming!

[Betsy]

I've found a lot of good books here. And books that I normally wouldn't have picked up.

[Johnna]

I read this every now and again

[Beth Shields-Szostak]

also Jesse Larsen and Holly Smith

[Tamara]

so helpful in my search for inspiring works... would love if it were updated.

[Shanna Williams]

This gave me such great recommendations of authors I never heard of but fell in love with!!!

[Monica]

FABULOUS anthology!

[Kelsey]

A useful list but outdated in the sense that:

1) One of the requirements for inclusion was that the book be in print so that it could be easily purchased (which since the 90s has been kind of solved by the Internet), and...

2) ...that means the list is really weighted towards books from the late 80s and 90s.