Books by men with female main characters...

[TrilllianAstra]

... what do you think?

How To Be Good by Nick Hornby. Lefty liberal woman stunned and alarmed when her husband brings a [homeless?] faith healer to live in their house.

As I recall, the reviews said Hornby didn't get the voice quite right, after several novels from a male POV, but I remember thinking the book was a lot better on the second reading.

'Course, what would I know about the female voice?

A thousand splendid suns. Reading it now and can not put it down.

Do you know, I can't think of one? Thats not good.

I think some Victorian male writers wrote surprisingly well about women; they're all very different but Henry James, Wilkie Collins and George Gissing all had strong women as central characters.

Dr Northerner .... ohhhh my God you are in for harrowing tears

Vanity Fair - Thackeray
Little Dorrit - Dickens
Far from the Madding Crowd, and others - Hardy

Whit, Canal Dreams, The Business - Iain Banks Whit is great but The Business is one of his worst. Canal Dreams not bad but it's a non-quirky novel not like his usual work.

The Eyre Affair (and all the following Thursday Next books) - Jasper Fforde

The Kathryn Dance books (can't think of titles) - Jeffrey Deaver

A number of Stephen King's actually: Carrie, Cujo, Lisey's Story. A couple of times, I have read passages in his novels and thought that he has got the female voice exactly right.

Never Let Me Go.

Northern Lights.

Madame Bovary.

Anna Karenina.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Glad you like the Jasper Fforde books, I'm going to be reading them soon (some again, soem for the first time)

Tess of the D'Urbervilles, really? I always thought that the narrator hated Tess. At every turn he keeps saying "if at this moment she had xxxx, everything woul dhave been ok, but she didn't and so her life is even more fucked than it was before". (not the narrator but the author, but it was present in the voice of the narrator IYSWIM)

Ms Smilla's Feeling for Snow(?) - Peter Hoeg.

Whit by Iain Banks.

Douglas Kennedy: Leaving the World; A Special Relationship

I hate the judgy tone of Tess of the Ds. I think Hardy hated her and hated women.

The millennium trilogy (girl with dragon tattoo etc), are books by a man with female main character. I am not sure about those either tbh.

alice in wonderland

narnia

wheel of time?

I apologise for bringing down the cultural tone, but I've always thought that Pratchett writes women well.

Under the Skin - thought she is an alien