Books: my to-read list for #readwomen2014

I always have a large pile of books on my to-read list, and this month is no exception. I'm currently making a conscious effort to read books written by women as part of #readwomen2014, so here's the ladies on my to-read list at the moment. The Blind Assassin will probably be the first of these I finish, as I have a newly acquired physical copy which I have marked for reading after I finish The Three Musketeers (Luke Pasqualino told me to!). I've also read several of Atwood's novels before and thought they were excellent (particularly Cat's Eye).

Shockingly, for a former literature student and classics lover, I haven't read Little Women or Jane Eyre. This fact remained a secret until now, as it's often amusing what conversations you can bluff your way through when people assume you have knowledge of [insert classic book here. As long as it's not James Joyce's Ulysees. No-one's read that.]. I have seen the 2006 BBC mini series adaption of Jane Eyre, but that doesn't make up for my lack of having read it. Little Women is the classic I'm most looking forward to reading, though. Joey's experience of reading it in Friends always makes me laugh.

The next book on my list is Evelina, or the history of a young lady's entrance into the world. I hadn't heard of this novel until recently, and decided I had to give it a read. I've already read the preface and really enjoyed it. Fanny Burney is extremely funny and clever in a very British way, much like Jane Austen. I also decided I had to read it as I share the same name as the character of the title - Eve.

If you've read any of these I'd love to know what you thought of them, and which you would recommend. You can also see the books I've already read as part of #readwomen2014 here.

#readwomen2014 Donna Tartt, P.D. James, Edith Nesbit and Jane Austen

I first heard about #readwomen2014 on Twitter at the start of the year. It's a campaign started by Joanna Walsh (you can read her original blog post here), which aims to increase the awareness of fiction written by women.

Equal representation of women in literature has always been a problem, from the pseudonym of George Eliot, to Joanne becoming "J.K." Rowling, to the still persistent lack of female authors being critically reviewed in the mainstream press. This is doubly frustrating when you take into consideration the current thriving community of female authors sharing their knowledge and experience online. Contemporary fiction also has a huge community of female readers; the majority of Booktubers (book-reviewing YouTubers) and their viewers are women. All this adds up to an exciting and diverse community of female writers and readers, which is one of the reasons #readwomen2014 really resonated with me. As Joanne said in The Guardian, "Everyone wants equality but few are willing to take responsibility or do the hard work." readwomen2014 holds you accountable- who will you read? What will you do? Which books by women will you recommend? I challenge you to take a look at your bookshelf (physical or virtual) and view the amount of authors that are male vs. those that are female. It's against the odds that the majority on your shelf will be by women, but now can be the time you change that for the better.

I won't pretend that all the books I've read this year have been by women. One of the major challenges for me so far this year has been the fact that my favourite genre is classics. Last year, despite my disinclination, I made a conscious effort to read more contemporary fiction. I discovered some gems and some duds, but I always return to the classics- and, of course, in the light of what has already been said- the majority of classics have historically been written by (dead, white) men. Keeping track of what I'm reading on Goodreads (you can follow me here) has held me accountable to the read women project though, and so far this year I've read:

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (review here)
Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James
Northhanger Abbey by Jane Austen (review here)
The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit
and I'm halfway through Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg.

I'm going to end this post with a (non comprehensive) list of female authors that I wholeheartedly recommend. Please feel free to recommend me female authors in return in the comments, or you can tweet me @evemariadust. I'm always looking for recommendations so I'd love to hear what you're reading for #readwomen2014.

Margaret Atwood, Donna Tartt, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, Virginia Woolf, Edith Nesbit, Doris Lessing, Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Mitchell, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anna Sewell, Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Maya Angelou, Sarah Walters, P.D. James, Hilary Mantel, Audrey Niffenegger, Zadie Smith, Phillipa Gregory, Suzanne Collins, Gillian Flynn, Ursula le Guin.