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Best Women Author Recommendations

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”

—Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, 1818

Historically, women (and people of color) have been sorely underrepresented on many reading lists. To help change that, we're highlighting women authors who more than deserve your attention. 

Discover classic women authors who flew under the radar with male pen names, and re-discover those who broke the mold and dominated their genres (hello, Agatha Christie!) or invented new ones (see: the history of Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein). 

You can also browse books by Black women, by early Irish female writers, or even books by royal women. For more modern and global women’s fiction, we suggest books that pass the Bechdel test, books by Elena Ferrante, and even books by women crime writers. Regardless of what you’re looking for,  all of the recommendations below will add some much-needed feminine perspective to your reading list.

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5 Incredible Books by War Correspondent Martha Gellhorn

"I have no intention of being a footnote in someone else’s life.” —Martha Gellhorn, on her relationship with Ernest Hemingway

Every Book by V.C. Andrews, In Order

It’s been said that much of her real life was just as tragic as the lives of the protagonists in her debut novel Flowers in the Attic. 

11 Books by Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Alison Lurie 

“You can't write well with only the nice parts of your character, and only about nice things. And I don't want even to try anymore. I want to use everything, including hate and envy and lust and fear.” ―Alison Lurie