My DH has expressed an interest in reading a book by a woman

[ringle]

He is an academic and very well and widely read. Save that he has never read a book by a woman.

He likes classic texts basically. Stuff that would make him better read.

Where to start? Could you help me make a shortlist?

There are plenty of modern female writers that deserve to be read. I can think of quite a few commonwealth writers

Agree that it suggests a dismissive attitude to women which will be parent in his dealings with students

I think it's more about society than him as an individual

Poppycock. You can't make excuses like this once you're over 40 - not about this sort of thing anyway. It's so easily addressed - you just pick up a fucking book.

Have to agree with PP - I'm afraid there's no way he can be a "superb lecturer" if he hasn't read any books by women (and I'm amazed you can't see that). He might be a competent one.

Actually, it's somewhat dismissive of the OP's husband (sorry OP, this dissing is not personal, I don't know him and as you're still married to the man I guess he must have some good qualities) to assume that books written by women in a 'female' voice are entirely representative of womanly literature. Someone above mentioned Persephone Books? One of the greatest pieces of fiction in the whole history of time (honest!), 'Little Boy Lost' by Marghanita Laski, has a male protagonist (), though written in the third person. I wouldn't say it was 'gentle'.

I have never conquered Middlemarch (tried many times) and I have read just about everything in print from the C19th.

I know academics like the OP's husband, unfortunately. The books are not the problem.

I'm not a fan but Lionel shriver is quite brutal in her subjects. (Apologies if spelt her name wrong!)

is this a wind up?
Obviously someone is not 'very well and very widely read' if they have never read a book read by a woman are they?

Donna Tartt, The Secret History

Haven't read the full thread so apologies if this has been suggested already.

Off the top of my head, Silas Marner and The Handmaid's Tale are two other great novels with broad appeal.

Well melony I could suggest a long long list, as, I am sure, could others.

But fuck him frankly. If he cba I don't see why we should.

Guest still here... back in an hour.

Ps I have read Middlemarch several times (apropos of nothing really).

Guest gone!

Ah, my multiple-Middlemarch claim has reduced you all to silence I see...!

"In my late teens or early twenties I had a sudden realisation that I couldn’t remember having read anything by a man for years. It wasn’t a conscious choice, I think I was just trying to work some stuff out about life using books and unconsciously I didn’t think a man would have anything useful to offer at that point."

Similar here.

I think DH did this in reverse. Trouble is, when the boys who did this grow up and get the best jobs, it affects lots of things.

"You say he is in the arts. Does he dismiss other creative works by women aswell?
This must restrict his academic research somewhat."

He doesn't dismiss, he just hasn't engaged, and I have challenged him about this.

Sadly, a choice to study only male authored works would not limit research much, that's surely the problem?

I can understand avoiding/not reading much work of authors of a certain sex. I tend to get on better with the works of male authors. It's not really a conscious choice, if I find one book I like I am more likely to read another by the same author so it immediately becomes much more likely that I will select works of male authors. Then you become used to certain writing styles (obviously not all male authors wrote alike and not all female authors write alike but I've noticed that very generally speaking I tend to prefer writing styles adopted by male authors for some reason, just confidence I guess). But that doesn't mean that never read female authors, a few of my favourite books are written by women despite the majority of books I read being written by men. It also doesn't mean that, even if I wanted to, could I manage to never read a female author. Theought school and university a number of books/text books have been on compulsory reading lists.

He likes classic texts basically

Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
To Kill a Mockingbird
Middlemarch
Little Women
North and South
Frankenstein
Mrs Dalloway
Rebecca

Widely read my fiddle.

Sadly, a choice to study only male authored works would not limit research much, that's surely the problem?

Perhaps in number but not in content. You could hardly overlook the impact of To Kill a Mockingbird, for example.

Is your DH Eddie Izzard? This thread reminds me of nothing so much as a line from one of his shows:

“Most people are widely read. I'm thinly read. I've read fuck all, and I'm very proud of it.”

So he's got some catching up to do. Once he's whisked through Austen, Shelley, the Brontes and Eliot, he can move on to, for example:
The Handmaid's Tale
Oryx and Crake
We Need to Talk About Kevin (that will blow his tiny mind)
Half of a Yellow Sun
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Song of Achilles
Jamaica Inn
The Lovely Bones
Asking For It (let him really start to see the consequences of male privilege)
Regeneration (woman writes about war! woman does it bloody brilliantly!)
Brokeback Mountain (that'll test him too)
Angela Carter (evil laugh)
Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife (for the irony)

How does someone get to adulthood, regard themselves as well read, and has never read a book by a woman? That is utterly ridiculous.

Your DH is not well or widely read if he has never read a female author