Which feminist book would you recommend?

[Chocladoodle]

Being fairly new to feminism I would appreciate your input on which books are good. I looked at the Book Club section on MN but couldn't find a feminist book club. I'm going to the library tomorrow so wouldn't mind having a few titles to search out. Thanks.

The Equality Illusion is a great starting point.

There are some good book threads on here and there is a Feminist Book Topic. I can't link easily because I have a bit of a duffer of a netbook at the moment, but I'm sure someone else will.

Kat Banyard's The Equality Illusion is a good general intro: it's up-to-date, UK-centric and covers a wide range of issues.

For more of a polemic try Germaine Greer's The Whole Woman

Are you looking for something fairly general or do you have particular issues that interest you more than others?

Whereabouts is the thread? I did look, honest. I'll go look again, save everyone repeating no doubt what's been said many times before.

Feminist Book Club :)

I got GG The Female Eunuch and got about half way through .... then, well, I think I'll need to go back and start again.

I think something more current is what I'm looking for.

Thank You Adelpha for the link - Just what I was looking for.

Thanks too Aye Robot - that's two out of two recommendations for The Equality Illusion - think that's where I'll begin.

Another one for The Equality Illusion.

Also love Living Dolls by Natasha Walter.

Living Dolls, very current and perhaps an accessible place to start.

I think two books changed my life, when I was a no-nothing student.

Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach and Backlash by Susan Faludi. Historical gold.

Another recommendation for the Cordelia Fine: I think it's great (and very balanced and calm when she's writing about some things that would make me shouty!).

No-one's yet mentioned Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman: I have some reservations about it (in particular, she's just so wrong on pornography that it's hard to know where to start), but it's very accessible and funny, and she makes a lot of good points too.

Thanks everyone - That's a list of 10 so far - that should get me started!! I'm going to the library today, wonder how many they'll have in?

I have Female Chauvinist Pigs upstairs, but haven't got round to starting it yet... Soon...

I really need to start reading one book at a time.

Also, The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. is slightly dated, and I do find her prose a little... erm... weird(?) at some points, but she does raise some good issues.

Yes, I agree with everyone who says The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard is an ideal starting point. I've just recently read it myself - excellent and a real page-turner at that (in its way). And it will make you angry. And a bit despairing if you have DDs.

And another vote for Cordelia Fine Delusions of Gender. Superb analysis and also bitingly funny.

Immacualda - I do have daughters, and I think they are the very reason why I'm more and more interested in feminism. Before they were born I would just put up with the shit, but now I want to at least prepare them for the world and give them the tools they'll need. (Just wish somebody had done the same for me all those years ago)

I really liked Female Chauvinist Pigs.

Anything by Jessica Valenti who founded feministing.com.

I think Gloria Steinem is a really good writer.

Global Woman: Nannies Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy by Barbara Ehrenreich was fascinating - looking at paid domestic/sex work in various countries.

Thanks to all for recommendations, got some new stuff to read.

Oh oh oh and "The Morning After" by Katie Roiphe. Easy to read, I'm sure there's a lot that many on here would disagree with, but I absolutely loved it. She is a feminist but a lot of it is criticism of what feminism is like at the moment (or was like at that moment.)

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a novel, and a bloody good one.

And Mad Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors if you are interested in mental health issues.

chocladoodle having DD was what relit the glowing embers of my feminism too.
Tigermother - suddenly I want to fight off all the patriarchal and misogynistic crap she'll be faced with.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I took my list to the library and out of the 20+ libraries in my council area only 2 books from the above list of 14 or so are on their stock lists. Of which I have currently reserved and awaiting patiently. I'll just have to go to Amazon and pay for the others!!

How to be a woman by Caitlin Moran. I bought it for 19yo DD on her starting Uni. She is always dressed up to the nines, spends a lot of time on her outward appearance, and I thought she should get some good feminist viewpoints inside her.

She absolutely loves it, carries around all the time so now it's nicely battered and worn in, and her friends are on a waiting list to borrow it.