50 Books to Read Before You Die

words to inspire before you expire

Tag: Women (Page 2 of 2)

Off-Topic: Great Women of Literature

March 22, 2017 /

Good morning, class.

It’s National Women’s History Month, and as usual, I’m celebrating through literature! Out of the many, I’ve picked my favorite female authors and poets who have changed the game (and just to be clear, it may be a national holiday, but my picks are global).

These are in no order, and I’ve included their most notable works (and links to previous blog posts, if you want to hear more of my ramblings . . . enter at your own risk).

  1. Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Persuasion
  2. J. K. Rowling: The Harry Potter Series
  3. Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman
  4. S. E. Hinton: The Outsiders
  5. Lois Lowry: The Giver and Number the Stars
  6. The Brontë Sisters: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
  7. Alice Walker: The Color Purple
  8. Emily Dickinson: various poetry
  9. Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and various poetry
  10. Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar and various poetry
  11. Claudia Rankine: Citizen: An American Lyric
  12. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
  13. Elizabeth Bishop: various poetry
  14. Phillis Wheatley: various poetry
  15. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women
  16. Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and A Room of One’s Own
  17. Aphra Behn: Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave

We all know that this is the tip of the iceberg . . . none of these women were stopped by the male-dominated-ness of the world of literature, and neither were millions of others. So, small as it may be, consider this post an act of feminism.

Happy National Women’s History Month!

Prof. Jeffrey

February 10, 2017 /

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”

—from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

January 16, 2017 /

“She say, All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men. But I never thought I’d have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let him beat me.”

—from The Color Purple by Alice Walker

January 13, 2017 /

“Dear God,

He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church. I may have got somethin in my eye but I didn’t wink. I don’t even look at mens. That’s the truth. I look at women, tho, cause I’m not scared of them…”

—from The Color Purple by Alice Walker

January 9, 2017 /

“‘My liege lady, generally,’ said he,

‘Women desire to have sovereignty

As well as over their husbands as their loves,

And to be in mastery them above.'”

—from “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

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