Why I’m only reading books by women this year

My bookcase in my bedroom in my childhood home is bursting full of books that have shaped my education and, come to think of it, my entire life to date. 

During a recent visit home, I observed that the overwhelming majority of these books — many of which were prescribed texts during my sixth form studies and my literature degree — are authored by men. 

However, among those books gathering dust, the most dog-eared, well-thumbed ones were written by women. These books were old friends I’d revisit time and again throughout my teens and twenties. Their authors: Virginia Woolf, George Eliot (AKA Mary Anne Evans), the Brontë sisters, Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood, Edith Wharton, Maya Angelou, Iris Murdoch, Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion, to name a few.  Read more…

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