Reading list for International Women's Day--or any day: "Drunk with Love," Ellen Gilchrist; "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant," Anne Tyler; "Wuthering Heights," Emily Bronte; "The Portable Dorothy Parker"; "The Little Foxes," Lillian Hellman; "Return Trips," Alice Adams; "Bushworld," Maureen Dowd; "Plain Text," Nancy Mairs; "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior," Judith Martin; "And Then There Were None," Agatha Christie; "Send Bygraves," Martha Grimes; "Bartleby in Manhattan," Elizabeth Hardwick; "Poets in Their Youth," Eileen Simpson; "The Shadow Knows," Diane Johnson; "Up We Grow," Deborah Hodge; "High Times and Hard Times," Anita O'Day; "Happy All the Time," Laurie Colwin.
Apologies for many notable absentees (Jane Austen, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Alice Munro, Hannah Arendt, Joan Didion, et al.) but this is our own quirky list.
We could do a list of great female characters--Lady Brett Ashley, Daisy Buchanan, Carmen, Marjorie Morningstar, Miss Marple, Fanny Yokum. Maybe another time, another International Women's Day--which, in our far from humble opinion, should be every day.
Late additions: "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" and "I Lost It at the Movies," both by Pauline Kael. Often brilliant, often contentious film criticism, but chosen here mainly for the titles.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mr. PD!
ReplyDelete