Fans pick 100 books like The Clan of the Cave Bear

This masterpiece is a story of the Grimké sisters, Sarah and Angelina—path-breakers in the abolitionist and women’s rights movements—interwoven with the story of Hetty, a young slave girl given to Sarah on her 11th birthday.

Hetty and Sarah find their way through the prejudice and barriers of a patriarchal society that views them as less than. Both learn to soar.

This book affected me deeply as a writer. Kidd is simply a master of words. But the story itself stripped away my naivety about what our society would look like had these women not taken on the patriarchal system. It is jolting to realize that the fight for women’s rights is not over, but ongoing.

We owe such a debt to those who struggled through the painful and sometimes deadly slings and arrows of culture to stand up for what was right. And we are not done.

Anne Shirley is the most optimistic character in literature, and I have an unwavering love for her. Despite her circumstances, her boundless imagination and deep gratitude for the beauty in the world and people inspire both those around her and me.

When I read Anne of Green Gables, the world seemed brighter and more hopeful. I was overjoyed when my children were old enough for me to share this book with them. Her character's transformative power is undeniable, and her poetic view of life stays with me long after the last page.

I love that it was written by a woman. I always appreciate it when female authors write female characters. Every time I read Anne of Green Gables, I feel a pang of grief when it ends.

This book opened my eyes to see introversion as a strength rather than a weakness. But more so, it gave me the permission to question how things that we took as “just the way things are” might have been positioned incorrectly from the start.

If it wasn’t true that introversion is inherently worse than extroversion, what else might popular culture and mainstream workplace practices have gotten wrong? I felt seen by the book and hopeful of what more honest conversations about how people are wired might both reveal and help heal. 

This is a book of poetry, but it speaks so deeply to the exquisite beauty, simple joy, and profound presence available at the heart of us all, if we are quiet and still enough to listen.

People who are already sensitive seem to drop into this space more fluidly than others, more consumed by the outer world because they are, by nature, closer to the source and often more aware of the subtle forces that run beneath the surface. These ‘ecstatic’ poems always help me return home to the space inside that reminds me what a blessing it is to have the capacity to feel so deeply.

I read this for a women’s study class and LOVED it. The telling of a story back in the biblical times from a woman’s perspective… sign me up.

This one took me through an emotional journey, blending fact with fiction to the point where I didn’t know where one ended and the other began. My heart was put through the ringer. I cried. I laughed. I fell in love. I felt the bond between mother and daughter and the rage of the oppression the FMC went through. It made me take a look at these biblical stories in a whole new light. 

I was twelve when I fell in love with the old fashioned allure of the 19th century that I discovered in this book, which provided an early template (1868), for generations of books to follow that break down female stereotypes.

I identified with different aspects of all four March daughters, but most powerfully with Jo, the writer, who secretively pursues publication, prevails as a successful author, and no doubt provided a template for my own development as a writer.

And Marmee’s nurturing model of mothering was especially consoling to me as I grew up entangled in a difficult mother/daughter relationship, later to be recycled in my own books.

I first read this extraordinary, heartwarming story of self-reliance and survival when my own children were growing up, and I’ve returned to reading Island of the Blue Dolphins often throughout my adult years, typically at times when I find myself struggling to regain my footing as I face personal problems and challenges.

Published in 1960, this book tells the story of a young girl named Karana who spends nearly two decades abandoned and alone on the desert island her tribe evacuates after a deadly conflict with Aleutian otter hunters. I’ve often recommended this slight but powerful tale to women friends suffering from feelings of desolation and helplessness, and Karana’s courage, resilience, and creativity have succeeded in lifting their spirits and inspiring hope.

This is a four-book series, and once I read the first one, I had to read the rest! Robin Hobb’s version of dragons is unique and imaginative, unlike the dragons in any other book I’ve read.

I immersed myself in her detailed, creative world. This series offered me an escape unlike any other. 

No list of crows and ravens in fiction can ignore this book. While I don’t like crows being depicted as the bad guys, I do love King’s depiction of crows throughout this thriller as powerful and intelligent. However, those abilities come in part or maybe wholly because the crows are in service to the Devil. 

In this ultimate Good vs. Evil story, villain Randall Flagg is a shape-shifter who sometimes appears in the form of a crow. Crows have other, somewhat vague, and therefore scary roles in the saga. Sometimes, the crows come across as spies for Flagg’s army, and sometimes, they seem to appear as harbingers foreshadowing an appearance by Flagg. The birds in this book definitely lean sinister, but hey, it is a Stephen King novel, after all.

I fell in love with the characters. Even the ones I didn’t necessarily like, I wanted to read more about.

More importantly, for me, this book came out at a time when I was having difficulties in my own relationship. The idea of being apart from the one person I thought would be forever shattered me. Reading Bella’s emotions for Edward and the crushing heartbreak she felt, was like reading about my feelings on the pages of the book.

Of course there’s vampires and I love all things vampire.