Why 1923? Self has no idea. She is sure it has something to do with the groundbreaking publication of xxxx, whatever that book is. So, self peruses the list, which is arranged alphabetically by book title, to see how many women are on it. And below are the books self found. Time published the list in 2005 :
- Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
- Beloved, by Toni Morrison
- The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood
- Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
- The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen
- The Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing
- Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
- The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
- Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson
- The Man Who Loved Children, by Christina Stead
- Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
- Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion
- Possession, by A. S. Byatt
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark
- Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
- To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
- To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
- Under the Net, by Iris Murdoch
- White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
- Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
Well, that’s it: 20 books by women in the Time Magazine List of “100 Best Novels Written Since 1923.”
Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Rhys, Zadie Smith and Toni Morrison are the only women of color on this list. Self has no problem with any of those four but, come on!
Virginia Woolf appears twice, and self can’t say she really enjoys reading her.
Stay tuned.
