A Reading List From You, For Esquire [UPDATED]

by Akhlispurnomo (own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Last week, Esquire landed in the GenderAvenger Hall of Shame for their list "80 Best Books Every Man Should Read". Out of 80 books, only one was written by a female author: Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

Thanks to @esquire naming 1 female author in 80 books men should read, I now know of 1 magazine that neither gender should read #HallofShame

— Dara Conduit (@daraconduit) July 16, 2015

Yes, I think Flannery O'Connor is fab. Plenty of male writers are great too, but @esquire, not so much. https://t.co/hOpM5P9hWa

— Nancy Freund (@nancyfreund) July 18, 2015

Is a good book by a female author hard to find? Of course not. In just 48 hours, the GenderAvenger community sent us the titles of 40 books by women, the names of 50 can’t-miss women authors, and three additional lists of books by women (including one with "100 Books By Women").

After a significant flurry of angry and frustrated  tweets, Facebook posts, and book recommendations from GenderAvengers, Esquire still hasn’t responded or apologized.

The Esquire comments section starts with a question in all caps: WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Let’s tell them.

Leave a comment on Esquire’s "80 Books Every Man Should Read" and let them know what you think of their staggeringly terrible gender ratio. Share women authors and books by women that you would’ve added. Or use this sample comment:

One female author out of 80?! Dismal and disappointing work, Esquire.  GenderAvengers put together a list of 50+ female authors in two days. It’s not that difficult. Try harder: http://www.genderavenger.com/blog/how-to-read-books-by-women

As many of you pointed out, with 80 book titles, you have to try really hard not to include women.

@GenderAvenger @esquire @VIDA_lit Wth? With 80 books they must have had to try pretty hard to leave women out. #shameful

— Lynn Melnick (@LynnMelnick) July 14, 2015

Cormac McCarthy appears twice instead of including a second female author. The lack of women is so egregious, some of you wondered if Esquire was even aware of Flannery O’Connor’s gender.

@GenderAvenger @esquire Here's the real question... Did they know Flannery O'Connor was a woman?

— dave cormier (@davecormier) July 14, 2015

Thank you GenderAvenger community for your hard work and awesome suggestions. Here’s the list of authors, books, and book lists that you sent us. Missing anyone? Leave us a comment and let us know who else you would add.

Special thanks to Amanda Bennett, Ruth Ann Harnisch, Soraya Chemaly, VIDA, Cindy Gallop, Lucy Drummond, Lex Peters, Stephanie Bodeen, Whitney Anne Postman, Melissa G. Stanton, and Gara LaMarche!

UPDATE: More titles recommended by the GenderAvenger community have been added below! 
 

Charles Dana Gibson [public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

51 Books By Women
Every Man Should
Read:

1. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

2. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

3. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

4. Beloved by Toni Morrison

5. The World Split Open by Ruth Rosen

6. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

7. The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell

8. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

9. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

10. The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer

11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

12. Romantic Jealousy: Causes, Symptoms, Cures by Ayala Malach Pines

13. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander and Cornel West

14. The Love Affairs of Nathanial P by Adelle Waldman

15. Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin

16. The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

17. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

18. Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior by Marimba Ani

19. Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape by Susan Brownmiller

20. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

21. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism by Melanie Joy Ph.D.

22. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

23. Sign of the Labrys by Margaret St. Clair

24. Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

25. The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

26. Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape by Charlotte Pierce-Baker

27. The End of Men by Hanna Rosin

28. Against Love: A Polemic by Laura Kipnis

29. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich

30. Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

31. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

32. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

33. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

34. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

35. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

36. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

37. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

38. Caucasia by Danzy Senna

39. Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

40. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

41. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

42. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

43. The Low Down on Going Down: How to Give Her Mind-Blowing Oral Sex by Marcy Michaels and Marie Desalle

44. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

45. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

46. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

47. The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr

48. A Tree Born Crooked by Steph Post

49. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

50. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

51. Kindred by Octavia Butler

52. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

53. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

54. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

55. Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur

56. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undsett

50 Female Authors
Every Man Should
ead:

1. Zora Neale Hurston

2. Arundhati Roy

3. Harriet Beecher Stowe

4. George Eliot  

5. Edith Wharton

6. Alice Munro

7. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

8. Emily Dickinson

9. Alice Walker

10. Emily Bronte

11. Anne Bronte

12. Charlotte Bronte

13. Margaret Atwood

14. Maya Angelou

15. Toni Morrison

16. Doris Lessing

17. Amy Tan

18. Chimamanda Adichie

19. Lorrie Moore

20. Rebecca Curtis

21. Amy Hempel

22. Joyce Carol Oates

23. Grace Paley

24. Jhumpa Lahiri

25. Annie Dillard

26. Tillie Olsen

27. Isabel Allende

28. Andrea Lee

29. Anne Sexton

30. Louise Gluck

31. Jorie Graham

32. Lee Smith

33. Sharyn McCrum

34. Julia Alvarez

35. Hilary Mantel

36. Barbara Kingsolver

37. Keri Hulme

38. A. S. Byatt

39. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

40. Zora Neale Hurston

41. Annie Proulx

42. Flannery O'Connor  

43. Wendy Wasserstein

44. Ayn Rand

45. Morgan Llywelyn

46. Patricia Cornwell

47. George Sand

48. bell hooks

49. Maya Angelou

50. Alice Walker

51. Virginia Woolf
     

Need more? 
Check out these three lists of books by women:

• 28 Feminist Writers Recommend Books Every Man Should Read

• One Hundred Books By Women

• 18 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Books by Women You Should Read Right Now