100 books like The Manningtree Witches

This novel, by Meg Wolitzer, offers such a twist at the end, I’m not sure how to write about it as an example of a woman writer finding her voice without giving too much away.
The Wife is the story of a Noble Prize-winning author, Joe Castelman, and his wife, Joan, who have kept a terrible secret for all the years of their marriage. Because you know the topic of my selections here, you can surmise that Joan is also a writer, though she hides that fact. Her character tells the story, and we only slowly see the facets of their strange and deceptive marriage. It becomes clear that Joan is a very good writer indeed, and she’s tired of keeping her secret.

This clever tale will make you think about what it means to invent a life both on and off the page. And that there’s no stopping a… show more.

For me, this book had it all: a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible investigative journalism by NY Times journalists Jodi Cantor and Meghan Twohey, who exposed Harvey Weinstein’s decades of sexual assaults.

And the courageous journey of the survivors who chose to tell their stories—which ultimately ignited the #MeToo movement.

Unrecognised female labor is also the subject of this captivating non-fiction book by Hochschild, a sociologist drawing upon decades of research with fifty heterosexual couples in the Bay area. Hochschild is well-known for identifying ‘the second shift’ of childcare and domestic chores that working women often perform at home, on top of their professional commitment. This results in a rampant inequality of leisure time, and compounded with unequal pay in the workplace, exacerbates gender injustice in contemporary American society. But Hochschild also provides powerful examples of couples who counter-act this norm, while showing how individual attitudes towards gender and domestic responsibilities are influenced by class, ethnicity, and upbringing. Fascinating and illuminating. 

I loved this atmospheric debut, often described as a collection of interlinked short stories. Set on an isolated group of islands off the coast of Virginia, the stories span more than two centuries of the same family’s history: from the 19th century and far ahead into a post-apocalyptic, post-pandemic future. There are intimations that a supernatural ‘second sight’ runs in the family and the book’s Southern Gothic vibe is nothing short of intriguing. But for all the hints of magic realism, the focus on female characters contending with obstacles of class and gender at different points in history is rooted in an understandable reality. Beautifully written descriptions of the natural environment, poignant characters, and local color all demonstrate Taylor’s imagination to be visionary and impressive. 

Jo Carney’s book is a wonderful way of appreciating both Shakespeare and contemporary literature that responds to the themes he developed all those centuries ago. This study explores more recent adaptations published in the last decade whereby women—either authors or their characters—talk back to Shakespeare in a variety of new ways. Carney puts modern works such as Prospero’s Daughter, Desdemona, Hag-Seed, The Gap of Time, The Porpoise, Station Eleven, and Hamnet into dialogue with the plays Othello, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, and King Lear. This beautifully written and very accessible book allows us to think about contemporary issues of sexual assault, gender expectations, and differences in new and very exciting ways as well as allowing readers to develop a new appreciation of Shakespeare.  

I knew this book was going to grab me from the first lines, and it held my attention the whole way, through essays on a singularly hyperbolic experience of being a woman in a body.

There is a frankness here, and a persistent scratching at the surface of her own motivations and complicities, that helped me understand some of my own complicated feelings about attention, and insecurity, and what it means to be a creative. If you’ve ever had an uncomfortable relationship to your own beauty, this book is a floodlight and a microscope for that experience. 

This book is a typical first-person account of a student in a program (medical, in this case) who encounters some discrepancies between the idealistically-drawn portrait of how a medical school is supposed to operate and the actual realities in which jealousies, territoriality, and the ongoing scramble to acquire and defend power within the institution play a major role. The main character is naïve to such considerations until they are made apparent to him. 

Many women continue to embrace a radical feminist perspective, and one of the important feminist writers today is the UK journalist and organizer Julie Bindel. Her reporting on sex trafficking has been essential to understanding the worldwide exploitation of women and girls.

She published this book in 2021 to restate the liberatory goals of feminism and critique the impediments created not only by conservatives but also by liberals. Bindel pulls no punches and takes no prisoners—she’s never afraid to confront the powerful and respond to her critics. One of the great experiences of the past year was being interviewed by Bindel for her podcast on men and feminism. Finally, Bindel reminds us that one of the biggest lies about feminists is that they have no sense of humor. 

This excellent collection of essays brings some of the key readings of Sophocles’ Antigone in an ethical and feminist key. It includes, among others, interpretations by Tina Chanter, Luce Irigaray, and Bracha L. Ettinger. In the fascinating lineup of chapters, the book guides us through political, psychoanalytical, and sexual genealogies and classical interpretations of this Greek myth, thus providing the authoritative scholarship on a female figure of Antigone.  

This book is so expansive, Audre Lorde invented a whole new genre for it. She terms it “biomythography,” bringing together autobiography, mythology, fiction, poetry, and other forms of writing to tell her story of queer life.

I fell in love with Zami in college back in the day and have been re-reading it ever since. From her childhood in 1930s and 40s Harlem to her coming out as the self-proclaimed fat black lesbian “warrior poet,” who would come to shape black feminism in the late 20th century and beyond, Zami charts the life, loves, and transformative ideas of one of our most important writers.

Zami is both muse and guide, showing us how the iconic feminist writer came to be, and how pleasure, power, creative expression, and community are indispensable to our own freedom today.