Top Classic Novels by women, written in the last 50 years

[gingerclementine]

Hi

I want to read more novels this year, and a lot more by women. What would you sya are the absolute classics. Especially keen on modern classics, as I've read most of the 19C ones except Middlemarch and am hoping to find some that I've missed.

Who's been writing really outstanding stuff in the last 50 years? What are your favourites?

I think Where'd You Go Bernadette is a classic - I love it. I don't think Dodie Smith would fit into your time frame but I Capture the Castle is a fantastic, atmospheric coming of age book.

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

These suggestions are a little before your time-frame, but:
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith;
The Jacobite Trilogy by D. K. Broster;
Daughter of Time is probably her most famous but, IMO, anything by Josephine Tey;
to my mind, Gaudy Night or Busman's Holiday by Dorothy L. Sayers;
one of Barbara Pym's;
something like Wild Strawberries (1934), August Folly (1936), Summer Half (1937) or Pomfret Towers (1938), one of Angela Thirkell's early books;
something by Miss Read, like Village School or Village Diary.

Anything by Penelope Fitzgerald or Beryl Bainbridge. Some Muriel Spark is brilliant.

Molly Keane's 'Good Behaviour' is also wonderful.

There are some brilliant ideas here. Lots I've read and loved; some I've never read but meant to (Pat Barker trilogy; Beloved.) Plenty to keep me going.

I like the suggestions for what may become a classic later.

Thank you.

I rate Ann Patchett's writing highly - Bel Canto in particular.

Small Island by Andrea Levy

The Observations by Jane Harris

Fingersmith by Sara Waters

Rose Tremain is also excellent, and Sue Gee deserves to be more widely known.

Iris Murdoch

Agree about the following: Margaret Attwood, Pat Barker, Hilary Mantel, Jeanette Winterson.

What about The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, Angela Carter, Marjane Satrapi's 'Persepolis'?

There are lots of writers that I love that I don't know if they will become classics, e.g. I love Sarah Waters but not sure how future generations will view her, think her historic pastiche might become dated? But I will forever be grateful for The Night Watch bringing alive what my grandmother did in the war (Ambulance driver).

poster HarrietSmith Fri 19-Jan-18 15:01:21
"Some of these books are not novels, but works of non-fiction.
Some were written well over fifty years ago.
Some are popular best-sellers, but it is unlikely that they will achieve classic status.

I am particularly fond of Margaret Atwood's 'Surfacing.'"

Hey everybody! thank goodness we have the delightful @HarrietSmith on this thread telling us where we're all going wrong.

Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Adrian Mole Diaries, for social commentary rather than literary merit (they are not badly written at all, but they are very easy reading).

Yy to Satrapi's Persepolis. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is not as influential but still an important graphic memoir from the past 20 years.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang.

Anita Brookner - particularly Brief Lives and A Misalliance

Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Angela Carter - my favourite is The Bloody Chamber (collection of short stories)

Zadie Smith - my personal favourite is White Teeth

To Kill A Mockingbird

The Handmaid's Tale

I think Bridget Jones's Diary deserves a mention too.

Nonfiction - Once In A House On Fire (Andrea Ashworth's memoir). Wow.

Obviously How to stop Brexit is not by a woman or likely to be a classic!! Sorry wrong thread!! Have reported myself!

Penelope Lively's The Road to Lichfield. Read it recently and really enjoyed it. It was one of those books that really pulled me in. I'm not sure if it would be regarded as a classic but I did identify with one of the characters as I was going through a similar experience at the time.

Agree with a lot of these, but I want to throw in a wild card.

Shirley Jackson.

Particularly "The lottery" (banned in apartheid South Africa because, as she said, "they were the only ones who actually understood it") and "We have always lived in the castle".

She wrote horror, which is why she isn't "literary", but I think she's possibly one of the most influential writers of the 20th century because her ideas crept into everything. You could argue she created the haunted house trope.

Ursula Le Guin is also another leader in the field; her sci-fi is fascinating. For lesser known writers, try persephone books.

PickingOakum I'm wandering off-thread here but your name has reminded me of a book I read many years ago .. I have a hazy memory of some children being asked what they're doing and replying "picking oakum". I think it was an amusing scene? I'm racking my brains to try to recall the book.

PS was it a Just William book maybe?

I love Small Island! Agree Margaret Atwood - and I’m recommending one eve though only halfway through at the moment... The Power by Naomi Alderman. Really enjoying it

Slightly outside your time frame, but anything by Doris Lessing.