Here are 100 books that How Lovely To Be a Woman fans have personally recommended if you like
How Lovely To Be a Woman.
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These days, I’m an author, but that was long predated by being a reader. I’ve loved fairy tales all my life and spent most of my childhood lugging around a thick paperback copy of the Brothers Grimm's stories. My nationally bestselling second novel, Bear, is a reimagining of my favorite tale: “Snow-White and Rose-Red. " It is about two sisters who live in a cottage with their mother and whose lives are upended when a bear shows up at their door.
Machado is a master storyteller, a writer who plays with form and structure and our narrative expectations to create entirely new ways of telling tales. This collection was her groundbreaking debut.
I’ve always loved fairy tales and folklore for the ways they play with character archetypes, repetition, and deceptively simple story shapes. Machado does the same thing here, upending our ideas about wives, lovers, and monsters with these tales that might trick you into thinking you know what’s coming next—until she flips you over and turns you around. She’s a new Brother Grimm, a fairy-tale writer for the modern age.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FICTION PRIZE 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2018
'Brilliantly inventive and blazingly smart' Garth Greenwell
'Impossible, imperfect, unforgettable' Roxane Gay
'A wild thing ... covered in sequins and scales, blazing with the influence of fabulists from Angela Carter to Kelly Link and Helen Oyeyemi' New York Times
In her provocative debut, Carmen Maria Machado demolishes the borders between magical realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. Startling narratives map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited on their bodies, both in myth and in practice.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am an award-winning writer based in Southern California who creates internationally published horror, fantasy, science fiction, and weird West stories. Dozens of my short stories have appeared in podcasts, magazines, games, and Stoker-nominated anthologies, and I’ve authored several books. I am the co-chair and founder of the Horror Writers Association San Diego chapter, a short story instructor, co-creator of the Monster Gunslingers game, and member of writing organizations, including the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. I find speculative horror a fascinating lens by which to view challenges faced by underrepresented groups and women. I hope you enjoy these tales.
I found each of the short stories in this collection to be entirely unnerving and deliciously disturbing. I particularly enjoyed how the complex characters and intricately crafted plots showcased strange and unusual situations to reveal the often-monstrous facets of humanity.
The stories were unsettling enough that I had to stop reading them before bedtime. I appreciated how they weren’t overly graphic but more subtle, focusing on spine-tingling, sinister suspense. These are the type of delightfully twisty stories I love reading in the fall and getting in the Halloween spirit.
A workaholic splits his time between home and hotel rooms until an anonymous cryptic message arrives, setting off a wrinkle in the time continuum and slowly shredding his sanity. Elsewhere, a woman's jealousy over her spouse's connection with their only child boils over, leading her to see monsters everywhere except the mirror. University fraternity brothers discover that a cruel prank has dire consequences but the full extent of their punishment is yet to come, while an intrepid hiker explores an abandoned Cold War facility hidden within a Massachusetts mountain only to realize that military secrets aren't the only things buried…
I am an award-winning writer based in Southern California who creates internationally published horror, fantasy, science fiction, and weird West stories. Dozens of my short stories have appeared in podcasts, magazines, games, and Stoker-nominated anthologies, and I’ve authored several books. I am the co-chair and founder of the Horror Writers Association San Diego chapter, a short story instructor, co-creator of the Monster Gunslingers game, and member of writing organizations, including the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. I find speculative horror a fascinating lens by which to view challenges faced by underrepresented groups and women. I hope you enjoy these tales.
This was a true page-turner—I could not put it down. From the first few pages, I was immediately pulled into the mystery and characters’ plights. I loved how the author kept a fast pace, keeping the action and tension high throughout.
Technically, this book is not comprised of short stories; it features segments of shorter narratives that gradually weave together to reveal a larger picture. The author skillfully played with tropes in the mystery and horror genres, presenting a thoughtful commentary on issues women face.
Imaginative and deftly told, this clever and satisfying book had me nodding along in grim recognition.
A sharp-edged, supremely twisty thriller about three women who find themselves trapped inside stories they know aren’t their own, from the author of Alice and Near the Bone.
Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family—and this life—is not hers…
Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip—but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. No one else believes Allie, but she is…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I am an award-winning writer based in Southern California who creates internationally published horror, fantasy, science fiction, and weird West stories. Dozens of my short stories have appeared in podcasts, magazines, games, and Stoker-nominated anthologies, and I’ve authored several books. I am the co-chair and founder of the Horror Writers Association San Diego chapter, a short story instructor, co-creator of the Monster Gunslingers game, and member of writing organizations, including the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. I find speculative horror a fascinating lens by which to view challenges faced by underrepresented groups and women. I hope you enjoy these tales.
I generally don’t gravitate toward slasher horror with its brutal and gory storytelling, but I could not resist this fantastic anthology of superb horror authors focused on women's slasher stories. With supernatural twists and takes of revenge and violence, I greatly enjoyed the variety of styles and plots generally centered around the theme of women having to turn the tables in or take matters into their own hands, usually with blood-soaked results.
In particular, my favorites were standout stories by Cynthia Pelayo, R.J. Joseph, Sarah Budd, Stephanie Rabig, and Laurel Hightower, but they were all winners. I also appreciate that the anthology helped me discover new women horror authors, broadening my ever-growing to-be-read list.
21 women from across the world came together to evoke their inner Lizzie Borden and re-invent the slasher. Some embrace the tropes; others rip them to shreds. These powerful tales are provocative, contemporary and need to be told. Featuring own voices, you will discover the pen is mightier than the machete. Serial killers, revenge, lust and even the supernatural are just some of the elements in SLASH-HER. Like the authors, these stories are strong.
They are bloody and they pack a punch. Are you ready?
“It's a book the horror community needs and deserves to have - a love story…
When my sister was suddenly arrested in 2017, I was thrust into an upside-down world where I had to quickly understand the severe domestic violence that she had been hiding, while also understanding the criminal legal system that was prosecuting her for killing her abuser. In order to do so, I immersed myself in experts and literature, eventually writing a memoir about the experience. These five books personally helped me understand the full scope of violence against women, whether perpetrated by an abusive person or an abusive system.
This is another book that personally enlightened me to the core of my sister’s prosecution: misogyny. Before reading Kate Manne’s book, I had a broad and incomplete understanding of “misogyny,” despite it affecting every aspect of our society.
After reading this book—and understanding that misogyny is the way that women are controlled and punished in a patriarchal system—I couldn’t unsee the evidence of misogyny all around me. We cannot challenge gender-based violence without first understanding its fundamental building blocks.
Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist - or increase - even when sexist gender roles are waning? This book is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics, by the moral philosopher and writer Kate Manne. It argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it's primarily about controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the "bad" women…
I was first introduced to George Orwell on 30 October 1969 when I bought the Penguin Road to Wigan Pier at Sussex University bookshop. The light blue sticker on the inside verifies time and place. The price shows that I was willing to fork out as much as 4 shillings, (or two days worth of cigarettes) for one of the most enduring friendships of my life.
The title says it all. I choose Patai’s withering account of Orwell’s irredeemable misogyny not because I think she is right but because I think she onto something in him and in his life and times. After Koestler, another dark corner.
One hundred years after the publication of Looking Backward, Bellamy remains a controversial figure in American literary and social history. The collection of essays in this volume, commemorating the novel's appearance in 1888, attests to his continued importance.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I’ve lived a life of emotions and suspense; things are either life and death or they’re just an inconvenience. I’ve been writing fiction and non-fiction books (over 50 and counting) for quite a while. I’m an eclectic reader, enjoying all genres and creating my own works in most of them: young adult, adult, suspense, dystopian, time travel, sci-fi, fantasy, coming of age, romance, you name it. Two things I want in everything I read and write are emotional engagement (make me feel something strongly) and suspense (give me a page-turner!).
This novel is partly fictional, but also based on the author’s life and traumatic first marriage. There’s suspense for sure and a range of feelings. I cried hard in some parts, smiled in others, and felt sorry, relieved, and even joyful in other sections. I had no idea what would happen next. The story played out like a movie in my head, full of my two favorite things: emotional engagement and nervous fear for the main character. This is a thriller that follows a woman on a daunting personal journey that will pluck at your heartstrings.
SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS MARRYING THE PERFECT GUY, BUT THAT WAS A PERFECT LIE.
Alyssa Burdick spends her days teaching middle-school and her nights battling the psychological oppression of a misogynist husband. He was her knight in shining armor from the day she met him up until the end of their wedding reception. Now all he does is humiliate her and turn her into a doormat. At least at school she can be herself.
And after school, behind her closed classroom door ... well, she's humbled, confused, hopeful even, as her department head, Connor, mentors her. Slowly, very slowly, she…
I am an activist-politician, who’s been both militant anti-apartheid protestor and Cabinet Minister, someone who tries to convey sometimes complex issues in straightforward terms, impatient with taking refuge down academic rabbit holes, striving to see the wood-for-the-trees. With the exception of George Orwell, each of the books I have recommended is by an author I know personally. My new thriller, The Elephant Conspiracy, sequel to The Rhino Conspiracy, reflects dismay at the corrupt betrayal of Nelson Mandela’s freedom struggle and the values which inspired it, the main characters fighting to revive those values of social justice, liberty, equal opportunities, and integrity, as well as service to others not selfish enrichment.
Another journalist whom I have met in real life the award-winning British journalist and broadcaster who writes for The Guardian, Sam Bourne is the literary pseudonym of Jonathan Freedland.To Kill A Man is a classic thriller with a climactic twist, a gripping tour de force through American feminism up against violent misogyny, ambition and struggle, politics, and crime. He writes with both simplicity and complexity, insight, and pacy readability.
A cat-and-mouse thriller of rare intelligence, To Kill a Man is the latest from number-one bestseller Sam Bourne -- a twisting, timely story of power, justice and revenge.
A woman is brutally assaulted in her own home by an intruder. She defends herself -- leaving her attacker dead.
But this is no ordinary woman. She's Natasha Winthrop, tipped as a future president of the United States.
When inconsistencies emerge in Winthrop's story, political troubleshooter Maggie Costello is drafted in to save Natasha's career. At first, Winthrop is hailed as a #MeToo heroine: the woman who fought back. But Maggie is…
Because I was brought up in a cult, I'm determined to serve as a voice for children. I'm an advocate for assisting children born into cults or taken into them in finding their true identities outside of the indoctrination they received. It's important to me that there is a network of support available to those who want to learn how to lead a balanced life. As a post-cult adult, I went on to study creative writing and art at the University of Tennessee. I have a deep appreciation for poetry as a form of expression, and I recommend using it as a method to work through the complex range of feelings.
The very first time I got my hands on this book, I read it in its entirety. It was the visuals that drew me in. It was almost as though the novel that inspired the Hulu series and the pages of the graphic novel were one and the same thing. It is one of the items in my book collection that I cherish the most.
When my teenaged granddaughter picked up this book, she also read it in a single sitting. While I was milling about the house, I looked in the living room and saw that she was completely absorbed in its pages. This graphic novel tells an engrossing story, and whether you are a collector of all things GN or enjoy reading graphic novels, adding this book to your collection is an absolute necessity.
The stunning graphic novel adaptation • A must-read and collector’s item for fans of “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times).
Look for The Testaments, the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale
In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
Fresh from college, I arrived in South Korea in 1976 to teach English as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and despite my naivete, or maybe because of it, I fell in love with the country—the people, the food, the culture, the history. I have since lived and worked in many other countries, but Korea will always be my first love and I have returned many times for both work and pleasure. When I became a fiction writer, I was keen to read the work of Korean novelists who, naturally, had an even better understanding of their culture than I did, and I love staying connected to the country in this way.
It came as no surprise to me, having spent so much time in the country, that Korea has long been and still is a sexist society, and this book illustrates that sexism brutally. When I lived there, my good friend, a woman, was a professor of biochemistry, and she struggled in her career the way men didn’t have to. Also, while people thought nothing of my going out to a pub with my male friends, it was somewhat scandalous when I did the same with this woman. In this novel, set in more recent times, a young woman has similar troubles trying to find her way. For many readers, it has served as a wake-up call for Korean society.
One of the most notable novels of the year, hailed by both critics and K-pop stars alike, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman's psychic deterioration in the face of rampant misogyny. In a tidy apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, millennial "everywoman" Kim Jiyoung spends her days caring for her infant daughter. But strange symptoms appear: Jiyoung begins to impersonate the voices of other women, dead and alive. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her concerned husband sends her to a psychiatrist. Jiyoung narrates her story to this doctor-from her birth to parents who expected a son to…
