What books should a budding feminist read?

[kickassangel]

As I get more back in touch with my feminist side, what would be the 'top ten' books on feminism to read?

I have just bought Beauvoir's 'the Second Sex' which looks interesting, if a little demanding.

I once tried The Female Eunuch, but found ti too dense (or maybe I was).

So, what are the BIG feminist texts to read? Or lesser know, but make good points etc. Is there a 'top ten' that I should read to 'really' know about feminism?

ok, so what novels do you recommend? I'm in the US so have a different selection of books available to me, but getting increasingly weary of the same old stuff.

watching dd watch Barbie earlier - so the Barbie fairy saves the day, BUT the male fairies/merpeople were darker skinned than the females, just to make sure that the wimmin look more delicate, I'm sure!

I'm getting ridiculously hard to please, these days

Valenti's book sounds easier to read, the Second Sex requires me to have a dictionary by my side, and I have a degree in English

Marilyn French - The Women's Room
Susan Faludi - Backlash
Jill Tweedie - In the Name of Love.

I like the idea of a fiction & non-fiction together, then discuss them.

I very much prefer fiction, but think I need to do some thinking, and not just coast along.

'Woman on the edge of Time" Marge Piercy - a bit Utopian, and specific, BUT a really great novel to devour. Indicates the realm between the outside world and the inside world as experienced.

The Handmaids Tale is standard. For everyone.

Simone de Bouvoir's " Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter" - her first part of her recollections, as a child up to, I think about 21 yo. Quite heavy going in places. I think.
"The Second Sex" gets much easier to attach to, IMH male Opinion. Less immediately personal, and so accessible.

stick with "Second Sex"? iirc, it goes into BIG generalities, which can seem a bit lofty, but distilled down are just as relevant today, though she wrote it 60(?) years ago.

ooh, SGM, how did I not know about the feminist book club?

On my way over there right now (there can never be too many book clubs)

Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth is very good, and a nice, easy read

On the fiction side, anything by Marge Piercy or Margaret Atwood.
"Small Changes" chronicles the emergence of Feminism in 1970's America, "City of Darkness" is the French Revolution from a female perspective (both Piercy)
"Oryx and Crake" with it's sequel "Year of the Flood" are near-future dystopias, from a male and female point of view respectively. "The Robber Bride" examines woman's position in society through several different female archetypes (Atwood)

I'd agee with "The Women's Room" and "The Handmaid's Tale". "The Female Eunuch" is good too, as is "The Whole Woman" (also Germain Greer).