Please can you recommend entertaining books by feminists?

[StealthPolarBear]

Not books about feminism as such (although I'd be happy with that) just a few good reads.

Backlash is great (first feminist book I read). The research that went into it was phenomenal. And so is Delusions of Gender.

I've bought but haven't read yet: Maria Toorpakai: A Different Kind of Daughter. She did a web chat here a few months ago about how she managed to hide from the Taliban by dressing and behaving like a boy and carried on being able to play squash. Sounds interesting anyway!

Wafa Sultan has not set the Muslim world alight. She's a bog-standard Arab Islamophobe, much like Pamela Geller.

I am absolutely not one to defend the Syrian Regime, but they were not an Islamic theocracy (as she claims), nor would she have had to ask her brother's permission to leave the house.

It's very sad that these books get so eagerly lapped up, with no questioning of their claims at all.

Right, back to the OP, I would highly recommend Eve Was Framed by Helena Kennedy QC, which looks at how poorly women are treated under UK law.

On my to-read list is The Myth of the Money Tree, which looks at women's attitudes towards money, which I am also looking forward to reading.

Following for ideas

I would second The Beauty Myth and Caitlin Moran. I shamefully haven't read Female Eunuch, but I must rectify that soon....

Sarah Moss is IMO a brilliant writer and I'd consider her a feminist, though she doesn't write 'about' feminism.

If you are an academic and a mother, you will probably be able to identify with much of 'Night Waking'. It's fiction, but I am convinced it has a huge dollop of autobiographical elements. You know, when you are trying to hold that deep thought in your head and write a coherent argument whilst working on 2h of sleep and worrying about a child who possibly has SN and at the same time dealing with a OH who just takes himself off, and struggling with self esteem issues. That.

But really I came on to recommend her non-fiction book Names for the Sea. It is a recount of her and her family's year living and working in Iceland and is fascinating and entertaining. The book is not 'feminist' per se but the author (in my mind) most certainly is, and that was your requirement I think?

Wide Sargasso Sea- Jean Rhys. Retelling of Jane eyre from bertha's point of view. raises a lot of interesting questions about context, feminism and post colonialism.

Room of one's own or three guineas by V Woolf. More manifesto than fiction.

I could recommended Backlash and Stiffed by Susan Faludi. Also, Female Chauvanist Pigs was a good read too.

In Our Time by Susan Brownmiller is an excellent memoir and I've just finished reading Shrill by Lindy West which I could definitely recommend.

For fiction, I remember reading The Women's Room by Marilyn French which resonated with me. Anyone read Benefits by Zoe Fairbairns?

Sample of backlash downloaded.
I couldn't find the feminine mystique

I have just finished reading a rather terrific sequel by Elaine Feinstein to Lady Chatterley's Lover. It is a brilliant feminist take on Lawrence's sexism and I recommend it to anyone who can't stand Lawrence.

What about Jeanette Winterson's memoir - Why be happy when you could be normal?

If you want something a bit different, Margaret Atwood has published a few books of essays and transcripts of her lectures. They are not all explicitly feminist, but she writes very well and deals with a variety of interesting subjects.

"How to be a heroine" by Samantha Ellis

Recommended by an MNer and I loved it - the author rereads formative books from her childhood and other stages of her life and discusses how they affected her at the time and whether she feels differently about them now

The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone.
Man Made Language by Dale Spender.

At the Root of This Longing by Carol Flinders if you're interested in a feminist take on spirituality.
Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes - she takes a Jungian perspective.

I started my journey with Cynthia Heimel - funny witty writing. I've since sort of outgrown her level of Feminism, and I'm sure some of her works that I've read are now a bit dated (80s and early 90s), but she's both fun to read and grr making and "we can all relate to this...".

Put it this way, I used to think that Carrie Bradshaw was based on her before I read otherwise.

Bridget Christie, a book for her.
She's a brilliant leftie feminist stand up.