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- Jane Addams. Twenty
Years at Hull House
- One of the most important books ever written in the Unites
States, Twenty Years at Hull-House remains a classic because it
addresses large questions of human destiny and social justice
in terms that are as relevant today as they were one hundred years
ago.
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- Louisa May Alcott. Little
Women
- Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as
they grow into young ladies in nineteenth-century New England.
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- Isabel Allende. The
House of the Spirits
-
The magnificent saga of proud and passionate men and women
and the turbulent times through which they suffer and triumph.
They are the Truebas. And theirs is a world you will not want
to leave, and one you will not forget.
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- Maya Angelou. I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Tenderly, joyously, sometimes in sadness, sometimes in pain,
Maya Angelou writes from the heart and celebrates life as only
she has discovered it. In this moving volume of poetry, readers
discover the multi-faceted voice of one of the most powerful and
vibrant writers of our time.
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- Hannah Arendt. The
Human Condition
- In her 1958 study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt
considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which
it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then--diminishing
human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human
powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry,
we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions--continue
to confront us today.
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- Jane Austen. Pride
and Prejudice
- A headstrong young woman and her aristocratic suitor must overcome
their respective impediments to a happy ending--his pride must
be humbled and her prejudice dissolved. The consummate artistry
of the author transforms this effervescent tale of a rural romance
into a witty, shrewdly observed satire of English country life.
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- Simone de Beauvoir. The
Second Sex
- This triumphant and genuinely revolutionary book began as an
exceptional woman's attempt to find out who and what she was.
It ended up shocking, infuriating, and galvanizing millions of
readers and dramatically revising the way women talk and think
about themselves.
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- Ruth Benedict. Patterns
of Culture
- For
more than a generation, this pioneering book has been an indispensable
introduction to the field of anthropology. Here, in her study
of three sharply contrasting cultures, Benedict puts forward her
famous thesis that a people's culture is an integrated whole,
a "personality writ large."
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- Boston Women's Health Book Collective. Our
Bodies, Ourselves
- The
definitive consumer health reference for women of all ages and
ethnic groups, this book encompasses such controversial issues
as "managed care" and the insurance industry; breast cancer treatment
options; recent developments in contraception; and much more.
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- Charlotte Brontë. Jane
Eyre
- Charlotte Bronte characterized the eponymous heroine of her
1847 novel as being "as poor and plain as myself." Presenting
a heroine with neither great beauty nor entrancing charm was an
unprecendented maneuver, but Bronte's instincts proved correct,
for readers of her era and ever after have taken Jane Eyre into
their hearts.
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- Emily Brontë.
Wuthering Heights
- Heathcliff comes to the brooding mansion of Wuthering Heights
as an orphan child. Cathy is the daughter of the wealthy family
that takes him in. They fall in love but cannot be together, and
yet they cannot stay apart.
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- Susan Brownmiller. Against
Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape
- Stands as a unique document of the history of politics, the
sociology of rape and the inherent and ingrained inequality of
men and women under the law. In lucid, persuasive prose, Brownmiller
has created a definitive, devastating work of lasting social importance.
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- Pearl S. Buck. The
Good Earth
- This great modern classic depicts life in China at a time before
the vast political and social upheavals transformed an essentially
agrarian country into a world power. Nobel Prize-winner Pearl
S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life--its terrors, its passions,
its ambitions, and rewards. Includes biographical and historical
information and more.
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- Rachel Carson. Silent
Spring
- When it was first published, Silent Spring alerted a large
audience to the environmental and human dangers of indiscriminate
use of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws
affecting our air, land, and water.
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- Willa Cather. My
Antonia
- Tells the story of a remarkable woman whose strength and passion
epitomize the pioneer spirit. Antonia Shimerda returns to Black
Hawk, Nebraska, to made a fresh start after eloping with a railway
conductor following the tragic death of her father. Accustomed
to living in a sod house and toiling alongside the men in the
fields, she is unprepared for the lecherous reaction her lush
sensuality provokes when she moves to the city.
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- Mary Boykin Chesnut. A
Diary from Dixie
- The
author, a citizen of South Carolina during the Civil War, shares
her experiences and opinions about the war, slavery, and the people
around her.
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- Kate Chopin. The
Awakening
- A novel that scandalized America because of its sexual frankness,
and because of the unconventional behavior of its female protagonist,
The Awakening (1899) has enjoyed vast popularity in the 20th century.
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- Agatha Christie. The
Murder of Roger Ackroyd
- Shattering traditions, this ingeniously tricky masterpiece
startled fans, stunned critics, and has remained one of the most
controversial mysteries ever written...
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- Emily Dickinson. The
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
- While it is today universally acknowledged that Dickinson was
a poet of the highest order, the startling originality of her
poems doomed her work to obscurity in her own lifetime.
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- Mary Baker Eddy. Science
and Health
- First published in 1875 and read by more than eight million
people, this nondenominational book has a 119-year history of
healing and inspiration.
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- George Eliot. Middlemarch
- With sure and subtle touch, Eliot paints a luminous and spacious
landscape of life in a provincial town, interweaving her themes
with a proliferation of characters: an innocent idealist; a self-defeated
young doctor; a naive young woman; and a cold man, who "lives
too much with the dead".
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- Fannie Farmer. The
Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
- A pioneering work in the culinary field, it was the first cookbook
to provide level measurements and easy-to-follow directions.
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- Frances FitzGerald. Fire
in the Lake
- This landmark work, based on Frances FitzGerald's own research
and travels, takes us inside Vietnam -- into the traditional,
ancestor-worshiping villages and the corrupt crowded cities, into
the conflicts between Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics
and Buddhists, generals and monks -- and reveals the country as
seen through Vietnamese eyes.
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- Dian Fossey. Gorillas
in the Mist
- Inspiring the award-winning film, Fossey's 13 years experience
in the remote African rain forests with the endangered mountain
gorillas are accounted in this classic work, which remains an
enduring testament to one of the longest field studies of primates.
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- Anne Frank. Diary
of a Young Girl
- Anne Frank's extraordinary diary, written in the Amsterdam
attic where she and her family hid from the Nazis for two years,
has become a world classic and a timeless testament to the human
spirit.
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- Betty Friedan. The
Feminine Mystique
- This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name,"
that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and that
has been awakening women and men with its insights into social
relations, which still remain fresh, ever since then.
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- Emma Goldman. Living My Life
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- Germaine Greer. The
Female Eunuch
- Positing that sexual liberation is the key to women's liberation,
Greer looks at the inherent and unalterable biological differences
between men and women as well as at the profound psychological
differences that result from social conditioning. Drawing on history,
literature, biology, and popular culture, Greer's searing examination
of women's oppression is a vital, passionately argued social commentary
that is both an important historical record of where we've been
and a shockingly relevant treatise on what still remains to be
achieved.
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- Radclyffe Hall. The Well of Loneliness
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- Edith Hamilton. Mythology
- A collection of Greek and Roman myths from various classical
sources arranged in section on the gods and early heroes, love
and adventure stories, heroes before and during the Trojan War,
and lesser myths. Includes a brief section on Norse mythology
.
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- Betty Lehan Harragan. Games Mother Never Taught You
-
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- Karen Horney. Our Inner Conflicts
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- Zora Neal Hurston. Their
Eyes Were Watching God
- Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford
sets out to be her own person-- no mean feat for a black woman
in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three
marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
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- Helen Keller. The
Story of My Life
- A remarkable account of overcoming the debilitating challenges
of being both deaf and blind, has become an international classic,
making Helen Keller one of the most well-known, inspirational
figures in history.
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- Maxine Hong Kingston. The
Woman Warrior
- Sensitive account of growing up female and Chinese-American
in a California laundry.
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- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. On
Death and Dying
- One of the most famous psychological studies of our time, this
classic grew out of one of the author's interdisciplinary seminars
on death. Sample interviews and conversations provide a better
understanding of the effects which imminent death has on patients
and their families.
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- Frances Moore Lappe. Diet
for a Small Planet
- With the new emphasis on environmentalism in the 1990's, Lappe
stresses how her philosophy remains valid, and how food remains
the central issue through which to understand world politics.
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- Harper Lee. To
Kill A Mockingbird
- The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and
hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's
struggle for justice.
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- Doris M. Lessing. The
Golden Notebook
- The experiences
of two women provide the framework for an intense literary study
of liberated womanhood.
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- Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Gift
from the Sea
- Since it was first published in 1955, Gift from the Sea has
enlightened and offered solace to readers on subjects from love
and marriage to peace and contentment.
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- Audre Lorde. The Cancer Journals
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- Carson McCullers. The
Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
- A sensitive teenage girl discovers the meaning of loneliness.
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- Katherine Mansfield. The
Garden Party
- Mansfield concentrates on young Laura Sheridan on the afternoon
of her family's garden party. The story follows the family through
the preparations. This perfect idyll is broken, however, by news
of a fatal accident down the lane. A young workman has been killed,
leaving a wife and five children. Into Laura's perfect Eden, death
comes whispering and her reaction to it is both subtle and surprising.
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- Beryl Markham. West
with the Night
- Markham grew up in East Africa, apprenticed as a horse breeder,
piloted passengers and supplies in a small plane to remote corners
of Africa, and became the first person to fly solo across the
Atlantic from east to west.
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- Margaret Mead. Coming
of Age in Samoa
- Details her historic journey to American Samoa, taken where
she was just twenty-three, where she did her first fieldwork.
Here, for the first time, she presented to the public the idea
that the individual experience of developmental stages could be
shaped by cultural demands and expectations.
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- Golda Meir. My
Life
- Personal account of the woman who helped found the state of
Israel.
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- Edna St. Vincent Millay. Collected
Poems
- Compiled
by her sister after the poet's death and originally published
in 1956, this is the definitive edition of Millay, right up through
her last poem, Mine the Harvest .
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- Margaret Mitchell. Gone
with the Wind
- A monumental classic considered by many to be not only the greatest
love story ever written, but also the greatest Civil War saga.
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- Marianne Moore. Complete
Poems of Marianne Moore
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- Toni Morrison. Song
of Solomon
-
In Song of Solomon, Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison
creates a new way of rendering the contradictory nuances of black
life in America. The novel's earthy, poetic language and striking
use of folklore and myth helped establish Morrison as a major
voice in contemporary fiction.
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- Lady Shikibu Murasaki. The
Tale of Genji
- One
of the world's oldest novels and the greatest single work of Japanese
literature, this 11th-century romance centers on the lives and
loves of an emperor's son. It offers a vast tapestry of the intrigues
and rivalries of court life, as well as an exquisitely detailed
portrayal of a decaying aristocracy.
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- Anaīs Nin. The
Early Diary of Anaīs Nin
- The
author reveals the experiences and associations of her extraordinary
life and literary career in her personal journal.
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- Flannery O'Connor. The
Complete Stories
- Taken together, these stories reveal a lively, penetrating
talent that has given us some of the most powerful and disturbing
fiction of the twentieth century.
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- Zoe Oldenbourg. The World Is Not Enough
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- Tillie Olsen. Silences
- In this classic work, Olsen broke open the study of literature
and discovered a lost continent -- the writing of women and working-class
people. From the excavated testimony of authors' letters and diaries
we learn the many ways the creative spirit, especially in those
disadvantaged by gender, class and race, can be silenced.
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- Elaine Pagels. The
Gnostic Gospels
- A provocative study of the gnostic gospels and the world of
early Christianity as revealed through the Nag Hammadi texts.
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- Emmeline Pankhurst. My Own Story
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- Sylvia Plath. The
Bell Jar
- This extraordinary work chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood:
brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful - but slowly
going under, and maybe for the last time.
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- Katherine Anne Porter. Ship
of Fools
-
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- Adrienne Rich. Of Woman Born
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- Margaret Sanger. Margaret
Sanger: An Autobiography
- Story of a remarkable life and the history of the birth control
movement.
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- Sappho. Sappho:
A New Translation
- Called the "Tenth Muse" by the ancients, Greece's greatest
female lyric poet Sappho (ca. 610-580 B.C.E.) spent the majority
of her life on the famed island of Lesbos. Passionate and breathtaking,
her poems survive only in fragments, following religious conspiracies
to silence her.
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- May Sarton. Journal of a Solitude
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- Mary Shelley. Frankenstein
- A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies
develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and
hate his creator. Includes illustrated notes throughout the text
explaining the historical background of the story.
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- Susan Sontag. Illness as Metaphor
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- Gertrude Stein. The
Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
- Stein's most famous work; one of the richest and most irreverent
biographies ever written.
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- Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle
Tom's Cabin
- Harriet Beecher Stowe's stirring indictment of slavery and
portrait of human dignity in the most inhuman circumstances.
|
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- Barbara Tuchman. A
Distant Mirror
- The 14th century gives us back two contradictory images: a
glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry,
and a dark time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world plunged
into a chaos of war, fear and the Plague. Barbara Tuchman anatomizes
the century, revealing both the great rhythms of history and the
grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived.
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- Sigrid Undset. Kristin
Lavransdatter
- Over the three volumes, the reader follows Kristin from girlhood
(The Bridal Wreath), to her 15 years as Mistress of Husaby, and
finally as she rearranges her life after the Black Death devastates
her world in The Cross.
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- Alice Walker. The
Color Purple
- This landmark work is Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
that also won the American Book Award and established her as a
major voice in modern fiction. The New York Times Book Review
hailed its "intense emotional impact", and the San Francisco
Chronicle called it "a work to stand beside literature of
any time and place".
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- Eudora Welty. Delta
Wedding
-
Here is a vivid and charming
portrait of a large Southern family, the Fairchilds, living
on their plantation in the Mississippi delta land. The year
is 1923. A young relative, Laura McRaven, is visiting and is
soon thrust into the midst of numerous cousins, uncles, aunts,
and great-aunts as they prepare for the marriage of Dabney,
the prettiest of the Fairchild girls. The story is exquisitely
woven from ordinary events of family life, leading up to a perfect
moment in time.
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- Edith Wharton. Ethan
Frome
- This classic novel is a sharply-etched portrait of the simple
inhabitants of a 19th-century New England village. Written with
stark simplicity, "Ethan Frome" centers on the power
of local convention to smother the growth of the individual.
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- Phillis Wheatley. The
Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley
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- Mary Wollstonecraft. A
Vindication of the Rights of Women
- First published in 1792, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman"
was received with a mixture of vociferous outrage (Wollstonecraft's
detractors called her "a hyena in petticoats") and ardent enthusiasm.
In what is the first major work of feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft
dares to apply the egalitarian principles of her day to women.
The result is an argument for sexual emancipation -- in short,
a women's declaration of independence.
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- Virginia Woolf. A
Room of One's Own
- Eloquently states Woolf's conviction that in order to create
works of genius, women must be freed from financial obligations
and social restrictions.
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