On the back of a thread bemoaning fiction's obsession with violence/rape/murder, can we recommend great books that centre women?

[ToriTheStoryteller]

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. Set in 1940's New York, following a group of young women trying to follow glamorous dreams.

Sex Wars by Marge Piercy. Brilliant fictionalised story about various women against the backdrop of the emerging womens rights movement in the US, also weaving in real people to the story.

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. About a female pilot and her extraordinary spirit to live the independent life that she chooses.

The Queen of Bloody Everything. Tells the story of a dysfunctional mother/daughter's relationship. Amazing references to the 70s and 80s.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova. Told from the point of view of a female academic who is diagnosed with early dementia.

Saree by Su Dharmapala. Follows the lives of various women who are all connected to one saree.

Will try to think of more.🙂

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, and also Orlando.

I love Anita Brookner as well. She is so underrated. Superb stylist. Her Hotel du Lac is very much about a woman making her own decisions.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (main character also African-American)

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Also could say the Hunger Games series.

Thought of The Handmaid's Tale and The Color Purple but they are definitely 'rapey' novels.

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson

The Girl With The Red Hair by Buzzy Jackson

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Oh yes, Liane Moriarty! I loved What Alice Forgot, gives me hope that I can change some negative habits that I sometimes think have become ingrained into my character.😂

The Help by Kathryn Stockett was brilliant too.

Longbourn by Jo Baker. I can't seem to get into classic/old fiction so this was fascinating to me, an imagined story of Pride and Prejudice from behind the scenes.

Non-fiction - The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. The story of the lives of Jack the Ripper's victims. Almost zero mention of him or the victims' deaths. The author deliberately wanted to bring the women to life and make it all about them.

Jamaica Inn Daphne Du Maurier
South Riding Wilfred Holtby
The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho Pip Williams
A Spoonful of Murder and A Pen Dipped in Poison J M Hall
Paper Cup Karen Campbell
The Number One Ladies Detective Agency series Alexander McCall Smith
Her Majesty Investigates series S J Bennett

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

The Fair Botanists & The Secrets of Blythwood Square both by Sara Sheridan. Both place women front & centre & romance is but a mere frippery compared to their exploits.

There's so many, but I'd recommend The Observations by Jane Harris.
What I'd like to hear about are books that centre older women.

Of Women and Salt, by Gabriela Garcia.

Bernardine Evaristo Girl Women Other

All Lianne moriaty books imo
Very complex women even though they are Middle Ages middle class

Sophie kinsella usually light hearted

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Nightwatchman by Louise Erdritch

are two I've read recently.

Circe by Madeleine Miller

Tom Lake and The Dutch House by Ann Pattchett

Most of Anne Tyler’s books she’s amazing if you haven’t discovered

Everything by Kate O Brien. Especially That Lady and The Land of Spices.

Elizabeth Taylor is good. As is Elizabeth Bowen.

Trollope is pretty good on women for his time - they are generally real fully-rounded characters who have agency.

Norah Lofts is excellent - and a fabulous historian.

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie. Based on meeting between Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. Best book I've read in a long time.

Jodi Taylor's Chronicles of St Mary's. And her frogmorton farm series.

For something literary but also really gripping, I've just read 'Fingersmith' by Sarah Waters. It's like a darker, more feminist Dickens - with some lesbian erotica! It was Booker shortlisted, but is also unpretentious, and so convincing in its depiction of the lives of the female protagonists (East End thieves and poor people, and a young woman brought up by her rich uncle in the country), with some brilliant twists that I did not see coming at all - the characters are so complex not stereotypes.

Lissa Evans books! Old Baggage, V for Victory

Mary Wesley
Barbara Trapido
Sarah Walters
all write great female characters.
Also Maggie O Farrell

Gaudy Night - Dorothy L Sayers
Sisterland - Curtis Sittenfield
The Elegant Gathering of White Snows - Kris Radish

I've just finished Dorothy Whipple's They Knew Mr Knight. Lots of perceptively-written female characters.

Anita Brookner - yes!!

I've read most of her books and adore the seam of sadness that sort of glimmers underneath everything.

Norah Lofts is excellent - and a fabulous historian.
This can't be said often enough.
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain
I so wanted to like this, I even bought it in hb. But didn't.

She's a superb stylist as well. Her prose style is exquisite. Heretical I know, but I think she's a better stylist than Virginia Woolf.

The Neopolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante about the lifelong friendship between two girls.

Wilkie Collins writes excellent women if you are looking for classic but since he wrote 'sensation' novels I can't promise there won't be a murder or two.

Kristin Lavrandatter by Sigrid Undset is about the life of a woman in 14th century Norway. Read the Tiina Nunnally translation, not the older translation which is all a bit ye olde worlde.