I am a strong supporter of the idea that diversity doesn't come, in this society, as the norm. Diversity can be achieved, actively pushing boundaries and keeping an eye on the balance in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, class. This is, in my opinion, valid in any given situation, or activity.
Thinking about reading, and looking at my personal experience I can easily tell that my exposure to women writers was undoubtedly low, and without any excuse lower than acceptable. That's why is important to make the effort to read more books written by women, and the reason why this year I subscribed to the Women Challenge promoted by Valentina. I made my goal to read over 20 books, fiction and non-fiction, by women writers, writing them a simple review to help others to choose the best reads. It would be great if we could expand this list to have a small library of suggestions, maybe giving publicity to some forgotten writers who deserve attention.
- Sarah Mirk / Sex from Scratch – Make your own relationship rules
- Sherry Turkle / Alone Together
- Rosalind Cartwright / The twenty-four hour mind: the role of sleep and dreaming in our emotional lives
- Giulia Galeotti / Storia dell’aborto
- Margherita Hack / Libera scienza in libero Stato
- Virginia Woolf / A room of one’s own
- Caitlin Moran / How to be a woman
- Bettie Friedan / The Feminine Mystique
- Germaine Greer / The female eunuch
- Boston Women’s Health Book Collective / Our bodies ourselves
- Bell Hooks / Feminism is for everybody
- Joanna Russ / How to suppress women's writing
- Maxine Hong Kingston / The Woman Warrior
- Simone de Beauvoir / The second sex
- Anne Leckie / Ancillary Justice
- Kameron Hurley / We have always fought
- Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell / North and South
- Anna Katharine Green / The mystery of the hasty arrow
- George Eliot / Middlemarch
- Margaret Atwood / The handmaid’s tale
- Doris Lessing / Discesa nell’inferno
- James Tiptree / Up the walls of the world
- Octavia E. Butler / Kindred
- Emily St John Mandel / Station Eleven
- CJ Cherryh / Cyteen
- Joanna Russ / The female man
- Pat Cadigan / Synners
- Ursula K. Le Guin / The left hand of darkness
- Magnus Flyte / City of Dark Magic
- Maya Angelou / I know why the caged bird sings
- Zadie Smith / On Beauty
- Sarah Waters / The paying guests
- Agota Kristof / Hier / Yesterday
- Toni Morrison / God help the child
- Matilde Serao /
- Grazia Deledda /
- Paola Drigo / Fine d’anno
- Elsa Morante / History La Storia
- Sara Marcus / Girls to the front
- Viv Albertine / Clothes, clothes, clothes. Music, music, music. Boys, boys, boys.