Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

I want to see some children clothing sale

Ooh and Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. I bet he'd agree this was an important novel!

Skipped to the end of this thread but in addition to Beloved and To Kill a Mockingbird I would add The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

Also, what exactly defines an "important" novel? I'd love to hear his definition!

I've got to this thread late. Has anyone mentioned that this guy sounds like an arse yet?

I'm very fond of Olivia Manning, but he'd probably say that her books are too much about women's stuff.

Pat Barker, if he wants proof that women can write about things other than women's experience.

Throw The Red Tent at him (by Anita Diamant)

Following on from my Doris Lessing post. She won the literature nobel prize last year, so you can't really get more serious than that.

Anyone point out Doris Lessing? The Golden notebook, the 4 gated city...

I read the thread title and just shouted "FGS Harper Lee." I see that I wasn't alone

Sorry, have not seen this thread before... But just wanted to join in general approbation and go <aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!> at your arse of a bookclub member.

As you were (lots of brilliant suggestions here).

Ooh! Or Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker...that ought to make hi squirm...!!

Haven't read whole thread, but I'd put my vote n for Beloved by Toni Morrison, or even a less well known one of hers called Sula. If her are not important novels, I don't now what is!!?

Failing that the Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood, which I know has already been mentioned.

Sorry. Just realised I'd forgotten Isabella Allende, though I think she's a bit quirky myself rather than an all time great.

Also, only just read the thread. Glad you loved Margaret. I'm currently catching up on my back-catalogue and am on Cats Eyes.

Squilly - you are quite clearly a barbarian and need to step away from this thread now!

There are ten of us and only two men. The Git and Sci-fi guy who is sweet and shy and I think he will leave as Git picks on him a bit.

it is more fun than it sounds, honestly!

Another vote for Handmaids Tale or anything by Margaret Attwood. I loved Alias Grace.

Ann Tyler is fab.

George Eliot I adore.

Don't even go there with Jane Austen.

The man clearly has ishoos and is missing out on some great literature if he's pigeonholing like this. I feel sorry for him. Does he still live at home with his mum???

it is an excellent word!

I silently smited him many times that night!

He sounds like a complete arse. I hate to admit this, but I am kind of glad there are no men in our book group.

Don't ya just love the word 'smite' - tis a word that makes one feel better just to think it!

Middlemarch may have been a better choice to smite him but I wanted to read The Handmaid's Tale so that is the main thing!

Oh I'm so glad you came back to update us.

And the carrot cake must have helped to make it all worthwhile!

The Tenderness Of Wolves eh? I didn't think much of it tbh. Glad you enjoyed the Atwood.

I have been meaning to post back and report how my book choice went at book group. Especially with the comments made by Mr Book Group.

Anyway I did choose Handmaid's tale and I really enjoyed it. I have read Cat's eye and alias Grace since and loved those even more! So you can see I thought it was wonderful. I love her style and the way she adds the details to create really vivid characters.

The majority enjoyed it. A couple of religious women found it 'anti-christian' (their interpretation) and for that reason it made them uncomfortable.

Everyone finished it which is great as some don't.

We talked a lot about all different visions of the future and oppression.

anyway the man said:

he found it easy to read but he thought it was over-rated. He could see it raised interesting deate about women being oppressed but he found it dull. Too much description of small things, clothes, rooms, this is a common problem with female authors !! He thought the ending was boring as well and he was disapointed as it had been fairly interesting at first.

!!! so I failed slightly, but I think he is a lost cause. His wife made a great carrot cake so there were some plus points.

Next month we are reading The tenderness of wolves (not his choice, he has to wait another 9 months yet!!)

Just thought - has anyone mentioned Isabel Allende? My all time favourite author and I completely forgot about her She is amazing and I don't care whether she's 'important' or not! I do think we have to thank that silly little man for generating some really interesting ideas and reminding us just how many signifcant and superb female writers exist. I've been thinking about this loads!

What does 'important' mean?

firstly paddad I am utterly ashamed to admit I have never read any Eliot or AS Byatt, and I've been meaning to read the Poisonwood bible for ages and ages.

There were also a few I've not heard of like fugitive pieces and the one about the curtains.

What books does he define as "important"?

I bet they are unreadable and self important.

I second (third, fourth, ninenteenth) Middlemarch.

I loved AS Byatt's Possession, and wish the film hadn't tarnished it a little in my memory.

The view that fiction written by women is too narrow in its genre; that women write mostly about the intimate, internal world, whereas fiction by men sets standards for “quality, narrative and style”, just plain riles me.

I’d second the AS Byatt suggestions. Also how about Nadine Gordimer - A Guest of Honour, The Conservationist or The Pick Up. Nice, big epic themes there.

Cosmosis,

Which ones are you going to add to your wishlist?

Has anyone mentioned Alice Hoffman - blackbird house is v. good

Much as I hate to say it, I have to thank the man for this thread though. What an amazing list of authors, and a few to add to my wishlist.

(nice to hear of some others who like Vinters Luck though)

I couldn't read it because I found it too upsetting. I had just had a baby though so I might try again one day. What I did read was certainly very powerful.

oo I second that. The Bone People is very powerful, a wonderful read. Love it although it was almost too painful to read in parts.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme?

Me too!

How would he define 'important' in relation to novels?

If he means interesting and well written I'd recommend Maggie O'Farrell 'After you'd gone'. He's made of stone if he doesn't have an emotional response to that one.

Then there's 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy. Excellent and highly acclaimed (Booker Prize).

Has he neve heard of Jane Austen, Maya Angelou, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, George Eliot, Colette, Simone De Beauvoir...??!

He sounds horribly pompous and misogynistic. I'd find another book group if I were you. What an annoying little man!

iris murdoch.... anyone mentioned her yet?

Personally, I think The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer might do the trick.

At risk of sounding miserable - I bloomin' hate 'Middlemarch'.

This is an interesting discussion. Part of me wonders if it's worth trying to convince him. And what's his term of reference anyway? Virginia Woolf is well thought of in critical circles but you need to be a pretty literary person to "get" her I think. I don't think someone as thuggish sounding as this bloke would see the point of her. [hmmm]

Agree Margaret Atwood an excellent choice as modern and accessible and has also been writing for decades. Oryx and Crake would be my suggestion, not least as it's quite a man's book. As well as being fantastically written, agree with twinmam about its themes' merits. I read it just after Cloud Atlas, which I hated, and so much more excellent and chilling a vision than that damn futuristic section in Cloud Atlas, which was also hideously written.

And To Kill a Mockingbird another great choice.

Not sure you could say that Uncle Tom is "perfectly written" and with an "excellent plot" though...

Oh yeah and Shelley's Frankenstein of course.

JK Rowling and Agatha Christie?!

Do me a favour!

Eliot's middlemarch.
Gaskell.
Harper Lee.
Aphra Behn's Ooronoko.
Virginia Woolf
Austen's P&P

All vitally important, not just a good read.

Ooh, or Uncle Tom's Cabin; flawed in its message but Lincoln said of Stowe that she was "the little lady who made this big [American Civil] war" so unarguably v. important.

Certainly lots to talk about anyway, despite (and including) the book's horrendous stereotyping.

VERY good point Sis tho it has inspired a really interesting discussion on here and reminded us all of how many incredible women writers there are!

why would you even want to respond to such a comment? select a book that you think you and most of the others will enjoy, find things to discuss etc. Surely someone who made a such a comment only did it to be controversial.

How about the poisonwood bible by barbara kingsolver?

Any Agatha Christie novel should do it.

That's why I suggested Woolf and Orlando and the Western Canon, a few posts ago. There's a much greater weight of critical opinion behind Woolf than more recent writers most people have been nominating.

True nkf but then he may just consider anything written by a woman to not be important anyway just because it is written by a woman..... Anyway, bet he hasn't read any of the books mentioned on here so obviously has no evidence for his ridiculous statement!

The sort of man who says such things will consider A Handmaid's Tale to be feminist and therefore not big. That would be my take anyway. I may be wrong.

But Atwood does do 'big world themes' - what better illustration of religious extremism than the Handmaid's Tale not to mention Oryx and Crake and its all too believable terrifying vision of the future? What a knob this guy is - obviously doing it for attention and effect. Don't engage!!! Although proving him wrong far too satisfying to resist!

oh no, not rowling. She really can't write that well

Men and their "big world themes". Nothing but trouble!

By important, he probably means big world themes rather than the human heart. So Atwood and Austen won't cut it. I'd suggest A Place of Greater Safety.

Haven't read this thread but, JK Rowling. Lauded recently by Sarkozy, seated next to Obama for dinner and praised around the entire world for getting children to read and rather amazingly causing huge numbers of grown ups to read a children's book!

2nd, or third, Middlemarch. Utterly beautifull writtten, and set the standard for the age. Prompts new ideas on just about evey page. The man's a plonker.

Or "Woman on the Edge of Time" Marge Piercey. Conjures a utopia for both genders.

Someone earlier in the thread said unfortunately you would have to engage him on his own terms.

The way to do that might be to have a look at Yale professor Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon".

This deliberately sets out the 28 most important writers in the west (Dante, Shakespeare, Joyce etc). Lots of people have criticised this book, but it is exactly what you are debating.

Get the group to read the chapter on Virginia Woolf and why she is so strikingly important to the Western Canon. Bloom goes on to select Woolf's novel Orlando as the most innovative (ie important, in your adversary's terms).

Maybe that one should be your selection, in tandem with the chapter on Woolf?

BTW in a previous book Bloom also identified the first 5 books of the Torah/Bible as having been written by a female author.

I mean, other than God! who is clearly female . . .

What about Oroonoko by Aphra Behn? So 'important' it lays claim to being the first novel ever written? Difficult to absolutely prove this of course but nevertheless...

What a ridiculous man. Hope you choose something marvellous.

Anyone mentioned The Red Tent by Anita Diamant?

Will third 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'. Hard to read but worth it.

Yes, I meant to include Doris Lessing too

Which book have you chosen?

I agree with JuxaLOTmoreChocolate, both those authors ought to make him revise his opinion.

Or how about any of Doris Lessing's sci fi?

I'm itching to know what you've chosen?

The thing is, you want to persuade this bloke that women writers are not complete crap, not miserable man-hating dykes, or simply too silly to produce anything beyond Brigette Jones, Mills & Boon type romantic tosh; and this guy sounds like he has assumed all those things.

So you need to steer clear of anything which he can look at from those POVs. That's why I say avoid A Handmaid's Tale, because quite a few men read it as being man-hating and dismiss it out of hand as a result.

I would say Eliot or Gaskell would be your best bets. They are good solid authors who tell a good story dealing with important subjects alongside. If he argues about either of those, then you know he hasn't understood them.

Ali Smith 'The Accidental'

Frankenstein

Joyce Carol Oates is an amazing writer and up there with John Updike in terms of literary accomplishments. Try The Falls for starters - it's a great book charting a woman's life.

I second all suggestions for Margaret Atwood. Carol Shield's The Stone Diaries is also fantastic charting the lives of several generations of women through the 20th century.

Frankenstein? One of my favourites!
Mary Shelley was exceptional.

Jane Eyre: it brought changes in the ways schools were inspected.

Tenant of Wildfell Hall: addressed drunkeness in a way most male writers never had up to that point.

Wuthering Heights (yes, I'm a Bronte person!)

you could just try smacking him one to shut him up. He sounds like a total cock

Jux, yes, I was thinking of suggesting An Infamous Army by Georgett Heyer but then remembered that despite it containing one of the best descriptions of the Battle of Waterloo, it is still a romance at heart. Likewise with The Spanish Bride (which describes some of Wellington's Peninsular War in similar accurate detail) - so probably he would ignore the historical research and description and focus on the "romance" side.

Great thread. I think you should make him read Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed or The Left Hand of Darkness. Science fiction, feminism and a woman writer - it will blow his mind, or failing that, piss him right off.

no offence daffodilli, but this guy is the type to refuse to touch a Heyer assuming that they're Regency romantic rubbish; and even if they're not, that's how he'll read them.

Well exaxtly MissBossy - important to WHO exactly? Why does literature have to make itself important to him?

Anything by Austen or Eliot,(or even Heyer) they all knew the ins and outs of human nature and probably would have loved this fool of a man for a subject!

Jane Eyre (esp the bit with the big rant about women being as good as men).

What an arse.

The secret history by Donna Tarte fantastic read very well written.

Pauline Réage, Anne Frank, Daphne du Maurier, Ursula K. Le Guin, Agatha Christie, Beatrix Potter and Sappho.

Now I admit they are not Shakespeare, Gothe, Dickens and Homer. But you can hardly dismiss women's contribution to literature as unimportant.

Middlemarch by George Eliot was seminal and groundbreaking

Ooo yes, Elizabeth Gaskell. Good one.

Elizabeth Gaskell dealt with social ills of the time. Her writing is perfect. Suggest either North and South, or Wives and Daughters.

Suspect this guy will hate Handmaid's Tale - doesn't seem to go down well with any but the most enlightened of men.

Love all mentioned, especially To Kill a Mocking Bird and both Doris Lessing ones. would like to add

Flannery O'Connor- The Violent Bear it Away. A Good Man is Hard to Find (short stories).

Arundhati Roy- The God of Small Things.

George Eliot Silas Marner or Mill on the Floss.

Iris Murdoch, esp. The Unicorn.

Jean Rhys- Wide Sargasso Sea

Katherine Mansfield- The Garden Party (short stories).

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinkers Creek.

There are so many aren't there? I guess he has a small dick

He is therefore saying that women's history and their perspective on social history is irrelevant. If he isn't interest in understanding a feminine account of life, it's going to be hard to get him interested but...

I second recommendations of anything by Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen or Alice Walker. He could also try The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy).

Excellent plot... anything by agatha christie, patricia cornwell, PD James or ruth rendell... surely the stats speak for themeselves!

Other ideas:

Shikasta, or possibly The Sirian Experiments(Doris Lessing)

Still Life (AS Byatt, much better than Possession imo)

Villette (Charlotte Bronte) would be apt in these circumstances

Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)

The Bell Jar (Plath)

Try him on some Ayn Rand. Get him to read The Fountainhead and see if he even spots it was written by a woman. She was mad, of course...but it is exactly the sort of self-important writing that he clearly thinks women don't produce.
Or maybe Atlas Shrugged. But you'd all have to read it too

he can't possibly have read Middlemarch.

idiot.

Only read the op so sorry if I repeat what others have said already but:

Jane Austen (obviously!);
The Handmaid's Tale;
Frankenstein;
One of the Bronte books but prob not Withering Heights (deliberate typo);
Rebecca;
The Historian.

Any book tbh
just ram it in his gob.

going to look up Vintner's Luck...

Anyone seen the Squid and the Whale? This bloke reminds me of the father [and son] in that.

I really couldn't even be bothered to engage with him, his argument is so ludicrous.

Frankenstein
(That should shut him up)

Beloved IS an exceptional novel.

As is Austen and Oh my God even beginning to think of this subject is ridiculous.

Just tell him he's a poor dear and don't play his testosterone fuelled games.

Glad someone else likes Vintner's Luck though

Totally agree with Pruners et al, this guy doesn't deserve your carefully considered thoughts as they will never penetrate the thick dunce's cap he has lovingly placed upon himself. However, if you can stand to read it you could always put forward The End Of Alice by AM Homes. Quite possibly the most disturbing piece of writerly craftsmanship I've ever read and most certainly not something he will expect from a woman.

On the other hand, thanks for this thread as it is full of brilliant suggestions of things I've never heard of! My Amazon wishlist is swelling by the minute

The Poisonwood Bible is very, very good.

I had a colleague (well educated academic, lots of silly letters after his name that made him puff out his chest rather regularly) who said that there were no truly brilliant novels by women and it could never happen.

He was a deeply unattractive man in every way.

Middlemarch. Just re-reading it and it's wonderful.

Can you not just pick up the heaviest tome suggested above and twat him round the head with it?

(sorry for irritable, sweary input, am sleep deprived and not mincing words!)

I am reading The Poisonwood Bible at the moment - it's breathtaking

Middlemarch is probably then most unimpeachably 'important' book that he can't say is actually about 'women's issues' (even though those are important FFS).

I'm sure someone worthy said it was the most important novel in the English language. Though it may have been Woolf, who he probably would think doesn't count.

Luckily it's brill too. But he sounds like a wanker.

I imagine the reason Jane Austin, George Eliot etc would wash over him is that it's political from a female perspective. If you have a man-centric world, you're not going to be able to appreciate how pervasive the politics in some C19 literature was, eg entailed property etc.

Similarly with feminist authors like Margaret Atwood. Your man just won't see it.

So if I were you I'd go for Pat Barker (and as a bonus he'll probably be unable to deal with the gay relationships). Or if you're feeling less childish than me, Iris Murdoch or AS Byatt.

At least if you tell him to read Middlemarch it will keep him busy for a while. Tell him that you saw an interview with Milan Kundera in which he opined that anyone who hasn't read Middlemarch isn't fit to comment on literature

I always wonder what important novel means though. One that addresses "issues"? Because your bloke is not going to be impressed by great women's novels that address relationships and the status of women, because he won't think that's important will he, but I do. In that vein I think Jane Eyre and Rebecca are both huge novels that everyone should read, especially men.

But it doesn't have to be just "women's" stuff - Middlemarch and Toni Morrison's Beloved are both "important", about society/religion and slavery.

Something that helped me to avoid DH Lawrence like the plague at Uni (I think he'd probably qualify as an important bloke's writer, all that simmering passion and dark bloody fire) was the notion of the "implied reader" - ie that writers write with a reader in mind. It might be a very broad reader indeed (hence popularity of Dickens, Austen etc etc) or focused (horror readers) or so absolutely narrow in their high-minded dictates that no person in their right mind, apart from pompous eejits, would think they mattered at all (obviously, Amis, Rushdie, Banville, possibly McEwen, the list goes on. Believe me, I have tried to get on with these people but absolutely can't.) And I don't think that's my fault: I think it's theirs. I think they're writing for people who want to feel important and intellectual and I frankly can't be bothered with all that posturing.

On the other hand, you could try another tack and point out how many women writers for children ARE considered "important" (standing the test of time? meaning a great deal to millions? Still not sure how to define it) (although this might fuel his fire when it comes to adult books) - le Guin, Nesbitt, Ingalls Wilder, Jaqueline Wilson, Blyton and Rowling - you can't deny their importance or their impact - and perhaps Malorie Blackman, Noughts and Crosses. I'm going to suggest this at my next book group - really hope they go for it. It's political, it's surprising, it deals with the greatest themes of humanity blah blah - and I'm looking forward to reading it! Would it pass the test?

And isn't it interesting that there's a test that women writers have to pass?

agree with effie and pruners. he sounds like an unreasonable arse.

Robin Hobb Liveship traders. Fab trilogy.

He's probably one of these failed writers who think that the reason he can't get published is becauase 'publishers are only interested in women/ethnic minorities these days, no one wants to spend the money on Important Books' (what he means is: no one will publish his 90000000-word wank about the essentialism of his knob and his record collection because it's crap).

prob with people who say stuff like 'women can't write important novels' is that they are not very bright. You have tgo come down to their level (which may involve a bit of concentration and some gardening implements)

God I don't know how you manage a bookclub! Sounds way too like school (and I gave up English as soon as I could). What's wrong with just enjoying books!!

a bit like those irritating 6th formers who lounge about saying 'y'know, Shakespeare is sooo overrated'

why not ask him what he thinks books are for

if he says 'to explore things that are important'

say 'important to who? you? so you only read books that confirm your own prejudices?'

(add pitying smile and gentle shake of head at insurmountable ignorance)

A S Byatt?

Agree though that he is prob trying to wind you all up and the best approach is causal disdain. Because he is obviously a twonk.

Oh I'd sock him some SF then. Ursula Le Guin has written some great stuff, I really enjoyed Marge Piercy's Woman on the edge of Time, and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel is excellent too.

I remeber Handmaids tale!

It was just sooo grim, as I recall, although i had just had a baby when I read it, but even so.

Oh, forget about The Handmaid's Tale. She was still playing at amateur then.

The Blind Assassin.

If he gives you any more grief then read him Stephen King's adoration of his wife, Tabitha, before Dumas Key and leave him to it.

Oh, forget about The Handmaid's Tale. She was still playing at amateur then.

The Blind Assassin.

If he gives you any more grief then read him Stephen King's adoration of his wife, Tabitha, before Dumas Key and leave him to it.

Their eyes were watching God is an amazing book. Loved it!

How can he think sci-fi (and I'm not a fan really) isn't important? Has he ever read any? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is brilliant!

Can't abide Zadie Smith (White Teeth needed a better editor to rid it of the last 6,000 pages... okay I exaggerate, but that's what it felt like).

Pride and Prejudice... amazing! And the Pat Barker trilogy.... FANTASTIC!

(sorry Soph.. I'll adjust the oversight in my reading and get the Vitner's Tale forthwith!)

So many great suggestions. I particularly like the Mills and Boon idea or the largest tome written by a female being taken and shoved in his gob!

Must say I agree with retiredgoth.

Isn't the general consensus on Kundera now that he was over-rated and his misogyny was passed over owing to the historical moment in which he was published?

That particular political moment having passed, he's generally viewed as dressed-up dirty bits with a pseudy veneer?

...he chose 'Unbearable Lightness of Being'??
gh
Crikey.

It sure is unbearable, but does have some good dirty bits. James Herbert's works spring to mind...

...a second for Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea is a marvel, all the better for being sat upon (or perhaps worked on) for thirty-odd years before being published by an elderly lady...

'The Bell Jar' is a thing of wonder, too......

<Milan Kundera. Sigh. Honestly...>

I think if you present any of these books to him and say "Look! There you go!" he will pick holes in your choices - he is not bright enough to show consistency or rigour in what he says, so it's a free-for-all for him. He's obviously got you all (and women) pegged as uncritical and unimportant, and if you engage with that you give him credence. Just shrug him off, shut him down, ignore and move on to talking about what you want to talk about.

"Speed of Dark" by Elizabeth Moon is sold in SF sections of bookshops. It's not really SF, more near-future thought-experiment, about autism. It's interesting and thought provoking.

what was that old epic poem about the fairies called again?

driving me demented

by a woman....

ah yes, remembered

The Goblin Market

"A Small Island" Jamaica Kincaid; beautifully written, about colonialism.

"The Siege of Azadhi Square", Manny Shirazi, about how the revolutionary moment, full of potential freedom, is closed down (Azadhi Square was/is the big square in Iran, and was filled with various groups, with contesting ideas of what "freedom" should be in the weeks around the Iranian revolution).

"Shimmer", Sarah Schulman; does something really interesting with the idea of political identities/discourses being unsayable/suddenly coming into being in history.

Though I agree with Pruners that you should ignore, ignore.

Or why not "A Village Affair", Joanna Trollope, and argue that it's a powerful exploration of female existentialism?

Start a breakaway book group and don't invite them.

Well he's important enough for all of us, isn't he?

I can see good looking. Can't see charismatic as that involves opening his mouth and the charisma clearly stops there!

"He thought it was too focused on small insignificant situations"

What, like WWII? Hmmm. Anyway, isn't that what Proust did?

Clearly there is a lot of projection going on here and either he feels small and insignificant himself, or he's talking about his penis.

She thinks he is wonderful (he is very good looking and charismatic which is why I think most of the women in the group do not seem to hear his nonsense.)

there is only one other guy and he is quite shy. He told everyone that he liked tolkein and pratchett (as do I !) and opinion man told him sci fi / fantasy novels were not.. important

!!

Apart from all the obvious classics, Eliot, Wollstencroft, the Brontes, Austen, Woolf, oh loads of others, I have to add another vote for The Handmaid's Tale - definitely about Bigger Issues and utterly relevant and topical if you look at what the Taleban are imposing on women in present times.

God, there are loads of important women writers. I'll have a think about some more.

I absolutely over The Yellow Wallpaper- it is gloriously creepy, and also offers a retort to the tossers who say that women shouldn't write, and how repressive that attitude is...

Dale Spender wrote a superb book I read in the nineties called something like Why You Dont Have To Read Women's Writing To Know It's No Good, (I think)...I thoroughly recommend looking it up for some solid arguments to floor sexist buffoons like your book group man!

He's just a tosser, isn't he?
I'd just ignore him and get on with reading what you fancy.

Yep and I bet he has a shed and a very interesting hobby. But that's men's stuff innit. Isn't she embarrassed by him? DH is "forced" out to the pub when my book group turn up, they are far too scary for him.

We read suite francais already. I enjoyed it and thought it was insightful. He thought it was too focused on small insignificant situations and said we should read Schindlers Ark if we wanted to read something 'important'

(can you tell how I hate his use of the word important??)

anyway this shoudln't rile me so much

I must sleep before previously mentioned crying child is up again

night

Well, children and relationships obviously have no importance, do they. None at all. Let's ban all books about children and relationships and see where we are.

pat barker.

How about Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky about the German occupation of France in WW II.

I know just his type.

Do not pick an obvious feminine/feminist type thing. Show him immediately that female writers span teh full range of genres!

his main theme (that he often waffles on about and unfortuantly he is the husband of the main founder of our book group so we cannot sack him)

is that women concentrate on boring domestic issues like children and relationships but not relationships in an important way but in a boring domestic way...

<<sighs deeply and shakes head at utter idiot>>

I know - I was just speculating, pointy, on the kind of writing he might previously have liked, 'twas all, as he sounds like a kind of blinkered blokey bloke..

or were you not recommending him? (I like a bit of AMis)

merrylegs, we need female writers. Amis will nto do!

I agree that you can thwack him with George Elliot, or alternatively introduce him to some feminist literature. There is the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, or how about Ice and Fire by Andrea Dworkin?

If he's going to attack women, get in his face. Anyhow his books seem to be men's things, not about society as a whole. Clearly he thinks men = society.

Does he like Martin Amis? Always struck me as a 'blokes' writer, as does McEwan.

As yes, the Unbearable Longness of Bonking, I think we renamed that after seeing the film.

If he wants contemporary - I just read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Twas brill. Serial killers mixed with domesticity. Covers all bases really.

And frightfully important.

Just read the amazon review for the vintner's luck and now I want to pick that one too! and the poisonwood bible and alias grace...now I have too many to choose from!

thank you ladies!

I will come back and post his review in time!

i totally mean sadie jones! i'm so so sorry for that terrible and completely unrealistic blunder!

I thought that was a joke post. Like My Boooky Wook or something

Sophable I think you mean Sadie Jones

the outcast by sadie frost is an extremely important novel imo.

Might have guessed there was an Ian McEwan there. I like his work, but... just the sort of writer that this guy would choose.

Testament of Youth, Vera Brittan. Amazing book, it changed my life.

anything by rose tremain would work but esp music and silence. or restoration.

i guess he wants a bit of politics in there.

If he thinks women write about women's things (as I suspected) Mocking Biord would be excellent choice. And he may well think author is a man so you could try to show him up.

What about E Annie Proulx? SHipping News. Or her short stories. Not obviously feminie

Dear lord.
I have never read Crime and Punishment.
But the other two...Kundera makes me cringe now, loved it as angsty, keen 18 yr old obv. McEwen I cannot do. (Though I have only tried Atonement and I am told this is his worst.)

so i am glad by a l kennedy will knock his socks off.

Gone With The Wind

A l Kennedy - fantastic writer,

I LOVED The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi....

Cailleachna - I agree totally the series went downhill as it went on - started off really good but by book 4 I was struggling with it and didn't bother with the 5th one at all.

i do love milan kundera and ian mcewan. however he is still a wanker.

sorry been tending to crying child

his choices have been:

crime and punishment
unbearable lightness of being
enduring love

yes he thinks women write about womens things not for society as a whole.

Thank you for all suggestions, I think I am going to pick handmaids tale as I have always wanted to read itbut i had forgotton about it! as I said mind blank. I just about manage to get the book read every month!

How about We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver? An Orange Prize winner with superbly crafted characters and clever plot line that is, all-round, a very powerful book.

Small Island - Andrea Levy. Or is that a woman's book?

Doris Lessing - her early books or any of them really. Or are they a minority interest?

WTF is an "important book"? Something so dreary that no-one reads it but everyone says they have?

What a complete and utter knob.

Either that or tell him you're reading a Mills and Boon, then give everyone else a good book, then say 'Oh, well, as you thought women don't write importnat books we thought you'd be more comfortable with this...'

Thumbunny Got to agree about Auel's sex scenes, when I started reading the series (aged 12) I was fascinated but by the time I was a "grown-up" I found myself skipping them all to get to the herbal medicine info! The stories have gone downhill as the series has gone on but the first one, particularly, makes some amazing philosophical points about evolution.

Sophable Anything by Virgina Andrews (or not-Virginia-Andrews, as most of "her" work was written after she died...) is seriously twisted, but you're right, Audrina is probably one of the worst.

Forever by Judy Blume?

yeah pat barker cause it's about war and blokes innit. so he might geddit.

Don't know any titles but i have a great suggestion.

Find the thickest novel written by a woman and cram it in his gob.

Silence.

Or how about Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys? The story of the first Mrs Rochester would work on several levels for your purposes...

How about making the tosser read some feminism? Go back to first principles with Mary Wollstonecraft and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Or Gertrude Stein, or Simone de Beauvoir or Andrea Dworkin or A Room of One's Own...

Otherwise I think Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy has the scope this twonk is looking for. Also agree with suggestions of To Kill A Mockingbird and Middlemarch/Silas Marner.

hmm tough one there Liath

I did always wonder wtf she was on, Virginia Andrews

I can lend you the entire Earth's Children series, Pruners. Or alternatively you could spend a more productive few days chewing toenails .

solidgold, i've blocked that out...all i remember is the 12 (count em) page lesbian scene. whooooar to my young little mind at the time.

pruners exactly. frigging virginia andrews. insidious awfulness.

Eek Sophable
No I think I will pass!
Life is short etc

Sophable: but oh, the remembered joy of the farting scene in Princess Daisy. Actually, in its own way, that was a not-unfeminist moment...

Flowers in the Attic wins an award for most disturbing images at such a tender age, surely? I don't recall the writing at all, but the mental image is seared into my brain, sadly.

pruners just get the valley of the horses out of the library and let it fall open at the relevant bits. the clan of the cave bear is rubbish for sex (neanderthal rape probably doesn't do it for anyone). valley of the horses and the mammoth hunters (i could be getting these wrong but sadly i doubt it) are your boys. let them fall open.

haven't laughed so much in days...thanks ladies.

Jean M Auel - by the 3rd book, her sex scenes were so unutterably repetitive that I could just turn over 2 or 3 pages and carry on with the story. <yawn>

Anyone read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zorah Neale Hurston? Mind-blowingly good.

And Anne-Marie MacDonald - Fall On Your Knees and The Way The Crow Flies - I think is a staggering and woefully under-appreciated writer.

princess daisy judith krantz wins prize for longest and most explicit sex scenes in my young life. and they worry about boys and porn...check out your mum's terrible trash and then start to worry about the influences...my sweet audrina anyone?

I think To Kill a Mocking Bird covers all bases - perhaps he thinks Harper Lee was a man?

hate secret history.over stated twaddle

gawd yes to Ayla and Jono-whassis-face

<adds Auel mammoth-sex shocker to reading list>

While my reading tastes are frankly Not Intellectual, if blokey likes sci-fi or speculative fiction then force-feed him the Gwyneth Jones Bold As Love books, because they are fabulous (and I want to make everyone read them).

pruners, you have to persevere a little and then you will be rewarded with the best read of your life. it is so fabulous.

I think Jean M Auel gets the award for the most ludicrus sex scenes ever, if nothing else . The one with the mammoths was eye-wateringly bad.....

Oh yes, and A Secret History

Lots of good reading ideas here btw, ta
<never heard of The Vintner's Luck>

Just don't bother to engage with him, he sounds like an irredeemable bellend who is merely seeking a reaction. Yawn, pat him on the head and say 'yes dear'.

I really would like to know how he's defining 'important novels' - obviously in a way that's completely dismissive to the wonderful, important and treasured books written by women . Not sure why you're trying to shut him up actually - he sounds a loss cause to me.

My list of important novels by female authors -

To Kill A Mockingbird
Rebecca
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
Pride & Prejudice

Or, as Florence said earlier A Scret History by Donna Tartt. It is a fabulous book.

oh no please don't do j m auel. he will masturbate to the (very long and explicit) sex scenes between ayla and jondalar!!! lmfao

when I've re-read it, I will most definitely let oyu knwo

or the hugely underrated "Knowledge of Angels" by Jill Paton Walsh (cruelly robbed of the Booker the year it was shortlisted by James Kelmans How Late It Was How Late) - it speaks of theology and philosophy and it is so much more readable than some of the macho tripe that ends up cluttering up the literary fiction shelves.

See, my guess is that he's the kind of phallocentric tit who will look at your list of incredibly important, socially relevant novels and say something like, "oh, well, obviously they were all important for WOMEN...I meant something important to society as a whole."

So...

JK Rowling - the Harry Potter series influenced the imaginations - and literacy levels - of an entire generation, ESPECIALLY the boys

Jean M Auel - her Earth's Children books are basically a weird blend of naff romantic fiction and meticulously researched, fascinatingly realistic, prehistoric social commentary

Jane Austen - without her, the romcom would not exist as we know it (okay, in some cases this would not be a Bad Thing)

My personal choice would be for the Handmaid's Tale, but to really knock his argument out of the park, unfortunately you need to know his parameters. Damn men. They always make you fight on their terms...

I'd have to vote for the Blind Assasin by Margaret Atwood or Alias Grace.

you know that now we are forever joined and sealed in our love for that book. pointydog to thee i pledge my troth. and i'm going upstairs tonight to get it out and read it again.

at 'Riders'

Actually I think this is probably the best response.

I came on to say A Handmaid's Tale as well. That novel profoundly affected me, and I think will come to be seen as more important than it is nowadays.

Kate Mosse, Dan Brown, Jeffery Archer...we just discount stuff like that, don't we? Male or female, it's all toss.

yes! For a storyline so unbelievable, it was so compeltley believable

Big Themes - how about The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) - it's immense in scope as well as power.

cor blimey do you remember lucifer??? that scene. where he cuts the wings off. god.

Possession by A S Byatt is fantastic

yeah cause lets face it rivals is so important!!!

pmsl

yes, soph. I read it quite a few years ago now and always mean to read it again. It was beautiful and strong.

a bloke at a women's book group? shouldn't you be at home knitting dearie?!

the golden notebook by lessing

or the Riders trilogy by Jilly Cooper

Ask him why so many Booker prize winners have been female if they can't write 'important' books - and why so many of them are on the lists of books for students to study. If he asks you to name any Booker winners - Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker, Iris Murdoch, A S Byatt to name but a few...

It sounds to me as if he is uncomfortable with the idea that a woman could be more erudite than him - perhaps he thinks women should all be chained barefoot to the kitchen sink rather than having high falutin' ideas of writing a novel when his dinner's not on the table. ;-)

mind you, Labyrinth is complete shite and is unfortunately written by a woman

OHMYGOD POINTYDOG YOU'VE READ IT TOO!!!

it is my all time favourite book and no one knows it!!!!

and jaysus pat barker of course!!!!

arghhh. what is an important novel. historical context? the evolution of the novel as a genre (all credit to women on this one)?

Middlemarch is amazing. I'm so glad I read it pre children when I had the time to read it in one chunk.

I would choose a book that does not have a particularly feminine story. If this guy is as big a nob as he sounds, you don't want to have to put up with any objections to a womanly plot.

I agree with The Vintner's luck - a super duper strong book

i dont read by gender,i try read good books

he probably rates Tony fecking Parsons

The Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker
Unless - Carol Shields

But I suspect your man is not looking for psychological insight, he's looking for grand themes.

Victoria Woolf Apologies. Sleep deprivation.

silas marner by george eliot

The tit would probably get his rocks off with the Well Of Loneliness

frigging proust i imagine. or conrad.

Middlemarch. 'One of the few English novels written for grown-up people' (Victoria Woolf).

What a tit.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler. The description of his grief at his son's death makes me shrivel inside with imagined pain.

white teeth zadie smith

(Disclaimer, haven't read any of these but they are all widely regarded as 'important' ie wideranging social comment etc)
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
The Women's Room - Marilyn French

Also pretty big, stood-the-test-of-time books (which I have read and liked)
Most Jane Austen
Another vote for The Handmaid's Tale
Another vote for To Kill A Mockingbird

What does this bellend think of as an Important Book, though? Martin Amis? Charles Dickens? Nick Hornby and all the rest of the self-obsessed masturbators?

clearly to kill a mockingbird would shut him right up.

but somehow i feel something more contemporary would be a better quality of victory.

bastard !
Jane Austen ! Maggie Gee !

grass is singing-doris lessing
rebecca-daphne du maurier
to kill a mockingbird -harper lee
frankenstein -mary shelley

To Kill a Mockingbird.

Possibly the most important novel ever written. So perfect, she wrote no more.

what a tit. he has dh and i riled up now.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt! If you ignore her name, it's perfectly executed.

3 of the most important novels ever written were by women, wuthering heights, pride and prejudice and jane eyre.

beloved is a very important book.

rose tremain the long road home is fab as is music and silence

fugitive pieces by anne michaels is stupendous.

the vintner's luck by elizabeth knox

anything by a l kennedy

lets shut the pig up.

OMG. What a twat.

I also love Margaret Atwood, but Alias Grace is my fave. I go back to it over and over again.

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson is amazing. Such beautiful prose.

Beloved by Toni Morrison.
"Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name. Diremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if they were, how can they call her if they don’t know her name? Although she has claim, she is not claimed. In the place where long grass opens, the girl who waited to be loved and cry shame erupts into her separate parts, to make it easy for the chewing laughter to swallow her all the way.

It was not a story to pass on."

Still makes me weep inside.

Mary Shelley Frankenstein

George Eliot Middlemarch

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

To kill a mocking bird Harper lee(?)

Does he mean self-important novels? I struggle with the idea that there is a self-evident canon of 'important' novels. Does he mean novels that deal with the big themes, or the fundamental problems of existence or other such pompous tripe?
Or just novels that are so bloody boring that you have to feel they have done you good just by getting through them?
Ask him to define his terms.

Consensus there then

Wuthering Heights
or The Bluest Eye

The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood

oooooh at x posts

Margaret Atwood is a fine writer. Handmaid's tale is a classic.

Any Jane Austen obv

The chap is a loon

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

I need a book, an important book, perfectly written, excelent plot. By a woman.

I thought of Mrs Dalloway
Beloved
the grass is singing

but what do you think?

It is my choice next month and I want to silence the pig who said this, Women don't write important novels'

The problem being my mind is blank (sleepless nights) and I cannot think of a really exceptional novel to smite him with...

help