What books written by women should my husband read?

[MrsDrThorne]

By his own admission my well educated and pretty well read husband has read naff all books by women. He went to a boys only school with a teacher who was obsessed by a certain male author and didn't study English Literature past GCSE. So bar some Val McDermid, Wolf Hall, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and some Sarah Walters he has read NO books written by women. He reads a lot and likes crime, historical crime eg CJ Sansom, surrealist literature and dry humour. Among his favourite writers are Mikhail Bulgakov, Ian Rankin and Henning Mankell. (He loves a series). He doesn't want to read anything too 'challenging' but is going to try The Handmaid's Tale as we are both loving the C4 adaptation. I don't think he would like Eliot or Austen but am going to insist he tries Wuthering Heights. What else do you think he should try??

I think to persuade a man who has never read female writers then classics and award winners are the way to go. Make it seem important to them! Agree if he likes crime there are plenty of female crime writers (has he never read Agatha Christie?) and that would be the best place to start. Will be interesting to see if the male protagonists seem real to him. There's plenty male writers who can't write women, I wonder if the reverse is true.

Depending on his taste I'd suggest George Elliot (possibly Daniel Deronda), some Beryl Bainbridge (e.g. The Birthday Boys), Pat Barker (Regeneration Trilogy), Harper Lee (such a perfectly formed novel and a classic that should be read by everyone at the right age), Iris Murdoch (The Sea, The Sea), Annie Proulx, Mary Shelley, or Sarah Waters (The Little Stranger, although no lesbian sex to entice him in that one!).

If he gets on with those then it's time to read more feminine or feminist novels. Much as I love Margaret Attwood or 'The Wide Sargasso Sea' I think a lot of men will find them too challenging to their view of the world.

Bit puzzled how you end up only reading authors of one sex tbh - esp for crime where there seem to be so many female authors. Is he realising that he's been subconsciously trained to steer away from them or something?

Re: historical crime, is there any particular period he prefers? Lindsay Davies (Falco series) and Ellis Peters' Cadfael series are both very well known, well written and there are gazillions of them if he likes them.

This thread makes me so sad. Imagine a man posting to say his wife doesn't read male writers and did anyone have suggestions? And no, my dh doesn't read many women either