Who is Your Favorite Literary Heroine?: Iowa Patch Book Club
Do you like to talk books? Here's the place to be.
In Eastern Iowa we are lucky to have great literary towns, great book lovers and great writers. So it made perfect sense to me team up with my fellow editors in Cedar Falls and Marion to start a book club where we can discuss books of various types, share what we're reading, and nominate new books to read based on a theme or genre.
Why?
Because reading makes life better, and more people need to do more of it. Plus there's always more wonderful books to learn about.
I want to keep the rules fairly simple, so we can get on to the discussion. One thing this book club will not be is a group where we all read the same book, at least not at first. I am not Oprah, and do not have the cultural cache to make you read Absalom, Absalom! or Anna Karenina (although both are great books) against your will. What I want to know is what you're reading, so join in by adding your thoughts in the comments section under this story.
What am I reading?
One Book, for Fun: The Black Company, a sort of gritty fantasy classic told from the perspective of a doctor/historian serving with mercenaries. About 1/3 of the way through with that.
The Other Book, for the Challenge: The USA Trilogy, by John Dos Passos, one of the better Modernist writers you may never have heard of. I'm at the beginning of book three.
This Week's Club Recommendations:
In honor of the Hunger Games movie out this week, I would like to ask what book or books you can recommend for others to read that have a strong or otherwise prominent female as a main character? Give us your suggestions in the Comments Section and we'll compile a list that we can share with everyone next week.
This Week's Recommendations from Comments
Margaret George's The Memoirs of Cleopatra
Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra,
Joan Didion's, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction
Tamora Pierce's The Song of the Lioness quartet
Diane Duane's Young Wizard series
Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles
Garth Nix, Sabriel
Gail Caron Levine, Ella Enchanted
Steve Sherman's Moxie
Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Matilda
The Secret Garden
Garlic and Sapphires
Little Women
Barbara Kingslover
Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon
Rosamunde Pilcher's Shell Seekers
Alice Walker's The Color Purple
Anne of Green Gables
To Kill a Mockingbird
Mary Richard
8:50 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012
For books that feature a prominent female as a main character in a fascinating political setting and historical period, l heartily recommend Margaret George's The Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997) and Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra (2010).
Stephen Schmidt
9:09 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012
Cool, Mary. Cleopatra is obviously one of the great female historical figures not just of antiquity but in all of Western Civilization, but one of the interesting things about literature involving Cleopatra is a lot of what was written about her through most recorded history was written by men. When handled by these two women authors, does she come off as a little bit more developed as a character than the seductress queen that she's made out to be by some male imaginations?
M.
10:59 pm on Friday, April 6, 2012
FYI, the National Geographic July 2011 cover story is on a woman "Searching for the real Cleopatra" as the title says. I found the main character of the article to be a strong woman in her own right. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/cleopatra/brown-text
Stephen Schmidt
9:08 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012
I also wanted to add that I've created a Goodreads.com account just for this book club. If you have a Goodreads account you can find me at IowaCityPatch.
Stephen Schmidt
9:38 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012
As for this week's question, I think I'm going to cheat, slightly.
Since essayists generally feature themselves as the main character in their own work, I thought I'd pick Joan Didion as one of my favorite female protagonists. I haven't read some of her most recent work, such as "The Year of Magical Thinking." But I do own and greatly enjoy her Everyman Library volume: "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction." If you like Didion's writing, I would recommend picking that one up for sure.
Alison Gowans
10:17 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012
In honor of The Hunger Games, I'm going to recommend some young adult fiction featuring strong female characters. I always loved Tamora Pierce's The Lioness quartet, which features a girl who disguises herself as a boy to train as a knight. Also, Diane Duane's Young Wizard series, in which two female siblings (and one good guy friend) discover their capacity for magic and world-saving. And, finally, Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, in which a princess needs no rescuing from dragons.
Stephen Schmidt
11:40 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012
Thanks Alison, I was young adult fantasy fiction junky growing up and I hadn't heard of a lot of those.
Alison Gowans
11:45 am on Thursday, March 29, 2012
I could go on and on. Thought of several others, specifically the following authors: Garth Nix, who wrote Sabriel, about a girl who controls the undead... yep... and Gail Caron Levine, who wrote Ella Enchanted, which was made into a ridiculous movie starring Anne Hathaway. But the book is great. Anyone else have books to add?
Steve Sherman
11:52 pm on Thursday, March 29, 2012
To shamelessly promote myself, my novel Moxie, is along the lines of Hunger Games, Percy Jackson or Narnia and my main character is a young female. Titled in her honor. I wrote this book to honor my daughter, an avid reader of fantasy. I would be happy to donate copies to IC Patch Book Club readers! I live in North Liberty and am new to this site. Check it out at www.scsherman.com and email me your address and say you are an IC Patch Book Club follower and I will get it off to you. -S.C. Sherman
Stephen Schmidt
9:59 am on Friday, March 30, 2012
Thanks for joining the discussion, Steve. Nothing wrong with a little shameless self promotion if it leads to more people talking about books :)
Stephen Schmidt
9:40 am on Saturday, March 31, 2012
I haven't actually read the books (for shame!), but I've seen the movies, so they need to be mentioned: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books by Stieg Larsson feature a great modern heroine with Liz Salander.
Liz Ard
5:31 pm on Saturday, March 31, 2012
MATILDA!!!! and the Secret Garden. and Garlic and Sapphires (yes, in order to be the NYT restaurant critic you HAVE TO BE TOUGH). I am still thinking....
Julie Kramer Gowans
11:36 am on Sunday, April 1, 2012
I love all those books! Garlic and Sapphires was really fun to read - living in Iowa, I can't imagine having all those restaurants available (or the money to eat there!)
Alison Gowans
11:34 pm on Saturday, March 31, 2012
I love Matilda and the Secret Garden! I'm going to add (duh) Little Women. And, for non-children's literature, pretty much everything by Barbara Kingslover, whose writing I love.
Julie Kramer Gowans
11:33 am on Sunday, April 1, 2012
The Mists of Avalon - by Marion Zimmer Bradley - women rule in this one!! I also love the Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher. And of course, in The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Celie overcomes oppression through her relationships with several strong women.
B.A. Morelli
4:19 pm on Monday, April 2, 2012
How about Anne from Anne of Green Gables?
Crispin Reid
12:21 am on Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Dido, Alison (the wife of Bath), Margery Kempe, Evelina, Molly Bloom, and Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, among many, many others.
Scott Raynor
9:50 am on Wednesday, April 4, 2012
I'll be the person who brings up To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout Finch!
Crispin Reid
11:37 pm on Friday, April 6, 2012
I've been taken this evening, for various reasons, with our dear Alice, as in *Alice's Adventures in Wonderland* and, especially, *Through the Looking Glass.*
Crispin Reid
11:40 pm on Friday, April 6, 2012
Oh! Don't you just LOVE Lizzie, from Christina Rossetti's *Goblin Market*?!?! Such strength and yet such love!