I'm not sure that there is a rationale behind that list? I mean, I can see that most of these are classics written by women, but then why is "Cry, The Beloved Country" on here? And not to be flip -- of the top 10, 3 books are also in my own top 20, and I'm a guy -- but you will pardon me if this looks a bit more like a "List A Librarian Who Went to College in the 1970s Would Give High School Girls If They Asked Her If There's Something More Substantial To Read Than Twilight or Gossip Girl." Most all of these are so deeply HS-canonical (and some of them - Chopin, Woolf, Hurston - exactly the sort of books that permanently put most young people off reading "classics") that I think the list might be better titled, "Twenty Books I Should Know To Mention In Conversation If I Want to Sound Like I Did All My Homework in High School (Plus Little Women, Which I Read In Middle School)".
Sorry. There are just so many better books out there that "Every Woman Should Read." End of rant.
Yep. I agree. So many wonderful books were left off the list. And you're right about the off-putting books. I probably wouldn't have put them on such a general list.
And it really ticked me off having to scroll through the screens to get the list. I've got more to do than go through 100 screens, one at a time.
2 comments:
I'm not sure that there is a rationale behind that list? I mean, I can see that most of these are classics written by women, but then why is "Cry, The Beloved Country" on here? And not to be flip -- of the top 10, 3 books are also in my own top 20, and I'm a guy -- but you will pardon me if this looks a bit more like a "List A Librarian Who Went to College in the 1970s Would Give High School Girls If They Asked Her If There's Something More Substantial To Read Than Twilight or Gossip Girl." Most all of these are so deeply HS-canonical (and some of them - Chopin, Woolf, Hurston - exactly the sort of books that permanently put most young people off reading "classics") that I think the list might be better titled, "Twenty Books I Should Know To Mention In Conversation If I Want to Sound Like I Did All My Homework in High School (Plus Little Women, Which I Read In Middle School)".
Sorry. There are just so many better books out there that "Every Woman Should Read." End of rant.
Yep. I agree. So many wonderful books were left off the list. And you're right about the off-putting books. I probably wouldn't have put them on such a general list.
And it really ticked me off having to scroll through the screens to get the list. I've got more to do than go through 100 screens, one at a time.
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