To hear the quiet breathing that says I am alive

Reading challenge! Women writers edition

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Jan 25, 2025

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143 years ago west of central London, in Kensington, Virginia Woolf was born, a woman and writer whom both Nicole and I deeply admire. So what better way to celebrate this day than to launch a reading challenge on where you read books by women writers?

This is both of our first collaboration, but we thought why not do something together as we both choose to read and promote women writers on our Substacks, and voilà, this idea was born. The goal of this challenge is to inspire people to read more books written by women and to diversify our reading, to get away from the school reading lists that are so outdated (even at university level… speaking from experience) that the dust is covering them like a thick vacuum.

12 prompts, 48 books

We created quite varied prompts, including books of various genres, and made the challenge as inclusive as possible. For each prompt, we provided some examples, so that if you don't feel like looking for books that answer a certain prompt you already have a choice.

Also, some of the books mentioned among these examples may already be present in your tbr, and so what better way than this challenge to read them once and for all (at least that's what we hope will happen to us!)

Each time you read or listen to a book from one of the categories on your Reading Challenge Card, you can cross it off your card! This can be either a physical book, an eBook, or an audiobook.

Without further ado, take a look at the prompts!

1. A feminist classic

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

An extended essay which employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers of and characters in fiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.

❝ Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

A woman’s struggle for personal freedom and self-discovery in late 19th-century Louisiana. Edna Pontellier defies societal expectations and traditional roles, embracing her desires and independence in a liberating and tragic journey.

❝ I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.

Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks

A must-read for all those interested in the nature of black womanhood. Examining the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism among feminists, and the black woman's involvement with feminism.

❝ The idealized woman becomes property, symbol, and ornament; she is stripped of her essential human qualities. The devalued woman becomes a different kind of object; she is the spittoon in which men release their negative anti-woman feelings.

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Four very different women escape their dreary lives in 1920s England to share a month-long holiday in an idyllic Italian villa, where the beauty of their surroundings leads to personal revelations, renewed relationships, and unexpected friendships.

❝ I'm sure it's wrong to go on being good for too long, till one gets miserable. And I can see you've been good for years and years, because you look so unhappy.

2. A book by an author born in the 19th century

Ladies Almanack by Djuna Barnes

Barnes work is a novel in which real persons or actual events figure under disguise. Its subject is the predominantly lesbian social circle centering on Natalie Clifford Barney's salon in Paris in the 1920s.

❝ 'The Night-Life of Love,' said Saint Musset, 'burns I think me in the slightly muted Crevices of all Women who have been a little sprung with continual playing of the Spring Song, though I may be mistaken, for be it known, I have not yet made certain on this point.'

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

This Victorian sensation novel unveils the shocking double life of a seemingly perfect woman, weaving a tale of deception, bigamy, and social ambition that captivates with its suspenseful twists and critique of 19th-century gender roles.

❝ He forgot that love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures.

Deephaven by Sarah Orne Jewett

Two aristocratic young ladies from Boston share their experiences and their delight, as well as the salty yarns of several sea captains, in a small harbor village in Maine.

❝ Then we would have an unreasonably good supper and afterward climb the ladder to the lantern to see the lamps lighted, and sit there for a while watching the ships and the sunset.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

A dark and passionate tale of love and revenge centered around Heathcliff and Catherine's intense and tumultuous bond, set against the wild, untamed backdrop of the Yorkshire moors.

❝ He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

3. A book with the word “woman”/“women” in the title

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

It is a beloved classic that follows the lives, struggles, and growth of the four March sisters—Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy—as they navigate family bonds, personal ambitions, and societal expectations in Civil War-era America.

❝ There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

A magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.

❝ What matters most to me, is that I know how I feel, and the rest of the world might catch up one day, even if it’ll be a quiet revolution over longer than my lifetime, if it happens at all

Woman at Point Zero by Naval El Saadawi

Born to a peasant family in the Egyptian countryside, Firdaus struggles through childhood, seeking compassion and knowledge in a world which gives her little of either. As she grows up and escapes the fetters of her childhood, each new relationship teaches her a bitter but liberating truth – that the only free people are those who want nothing, fear nothing and hope for nothing.

❝ But in love I gave all: my capabilities, my efforts, my feelings, my deepest emotions. Like a saint, I gave everything I had without ever counting the cost.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

This is a ghost story about a young solicitor, Arthur Kipps, who encounters supernatural horrors while settling the affairs of a deceased client at the isolated and eerie Eel Marsh House.

❝ A man may be accused of cowardice for fleeing away from all manner of physical dangers but when things supernatural, insubstantial and inexplicable threaten not only his safety and well-being but his sanity, his innermost soul, then retreat is not a sign of weakness but the most prudent course.

4. A sapphic book

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

A reimagination of the rise to power of the Ming Dynasty’s founding emperor. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

❝ Learn to want something for yourself, Ma Xiuying. Not what someone says you should want. Not what you think you should want. Don’t go through life thinking only of duty. When all we have are these brief spans between our nonexistences, why not make the most of the life you’re living now?

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

A semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel about Jeanette, a young girl raised in a strict evangelical household, as she grapples with her sexual identity, religious dogma, and the search for her own truth.

❝ I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and knows that love is as strong as death, and be on my side forever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me.

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher—her *female* teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can’t yet name […] But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no *man* had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be… like Lamya?

❝ But what I've been noticing about people I haven't invited into my queerness is that it introduces a barrier between us. What do I talk to these people about? How do I share feelings and intimacies without revealing this huge part of myself? Who am I without this queerness that now pervades my life, my politics, my everything?

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

Later republished as Carol, is a groundbreaking 1952 novel about the passionate romance between Therese, a young aspiring set designer, and Carol, a sophisticated older woman, exploring themes of forbidden love, desire, and the quest for authenticity in a repressive society.

❝ How was it possible to be afraid and in love...The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when the two of them grew stronger together every day? And every night. Every night was different, and every morning. Together they possessed a miracle.

5. A book with a painting as its book cover

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

Follows food critic Dorothy Daniels who has something within her that’s different from everyone else. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.

❝ What is heaven but the hope for righteous acknowledgment, and what is hell but the fear of discovery

We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart

A young woman named Mallory grapples with her own desires, secrets, and the complexities of intimacy, identity, and the consequences of actions that linger long after they occur. The book explores themes of self-discovery and the emotional aftermath of personal choices.

❝ I think that when you’re miserable, you often do things that extend that misery. There is something pleasing about misery that makes it seem as though time has stopped.

Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress

Set in the world of an elite art school, it weaves together the lives of four characters as they navigate ambition, love, betrayal, and the politics of art, creating a compelling portrait of creative and personal conflicts.

❝ The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the colored canvas, reveals himself.

Wednesday’s Child by Yigun Li

A collection of short stories about loss, alienation, aging, and the strangeness of contemporary life. A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she’s lost. Elsewhere, a professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away.

❝ There are two types of mothers: those who have not taught their children to be kind to themselves, and those who have not learned to be kind to their children.

6. A book by an author who is/was born in a country you want to visit

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (Nigeria)

Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does; born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls.

❝ Maybe love was some combination of friendship and infatuation. A deeply felt affection accompanied by a certain sort of awe. And by gratitude. And by a desire for a lifetime of togetherness.

Bonjour tristesse by Françoise Sagan (France)

A carefree teenage girl named Cécile spends her summer on the French Riviera with her father and his lover, only to face the dramatic consequences of a romance gone awry. It explores themes of love, loss, and the conflict between freedom and responsibility, youth and maturity.

❝ For what are we looking for if not to please? I do not know if the desire to attract others comes from a superabundance of vitality, possessiveness, or the hidden, unspoken need to be reassured.

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes (Italy)

It is a novel about a middle-aged woman, a housewife, and a mother who secretly writes in a notebook, revealing her inner thoughts, desires, and frustrations with the confines of her life, exploring themes of female independence, societal expectations, and personal liberation.

❝ I feel myself drying up, my arms are branches of a dead tree. I tried to become old, and maybe I only became mean.

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung (South Korea)

A genre-defying collection of short stories where the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction are blurred. Address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.

❝ Those who are unaware of their lives slipping away while they are ensnared in the past, are in the end, whether alive or dead, ghosts of the past

7. A book that was banned in the past

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. *I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings* captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right.

❝ Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with the shades of deeper meaning.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Set in the racially segregated South during the 1930s, the book focuses on the Finch family, particularly young Scout, as her father, Atticus Finch, defends a wrongfully accused Black man, exploring themes of racism, justice, and moral growth in the face of prejudice.

❝ You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change- in painful, devastating ways.

❝ Sunk in the grass of an empty lot on a spring Saturday, I split the stems of milkweed and thought about ants and peach pits and death and where the world went when I closed my eyes.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

It is a coming-of-age novel that follows Janie Crawford's journey toward self-realization and independence as she navigates love, loss, and societal expectations in early 20th-century Florida, using rich symbolism and themes of identity, voice, and resilience in African-American women's lives.

❝ All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

8. A book that has been made into a TV series or film

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims--a bit too strongly.

❝ A town so suffocating and small, you tripped over people you hated every day. People who knew things about you. It's the kind of place that leaves a mark.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

1826, and all of London is in a frenzy. Crowds gather at the gates of the Old Bailey to watch as Frannie Langton, maid to Mr and Mrs Benham, goes on trial for their murder. The testimonies against her are damning - slave, whore, seductress. And they may be the truth. But they are not the whole truth. For the first time Frannie must tell her story.

❝ I think the point of reading is not to feel more a part of this world, but less. To take oneself out of it. On paper, everything can be hammered into shape, though the world is shapeless. The trouble with writers is they spend their lives trying to lie to themselves.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

This novel reimagines the Arthurian legend from the perspectives of the female characters, primarily Morgaine (the traditional Morgan le Fay), and explores themes of power, religion, gender, and identity while blending the mystical and historical aspects of the Arthurian mythos. The novel presents a matriarchal society in conflict with the rise of Christianity, offering a feminist take on the classic story of King Arthur.

❝ Morgaine knew that he spoke truth, and bowed her head in anguish. “And since their view of a God is what shapes their reality, so it shall be–the Goddess was real while mankind still paid homage to her, and created her form for themselves. Now they will make for themselves the kind of God they think they want–the kind of God they deserve, perhaps.”

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

An oral history-style novel that follows the rise and fall of a fictional 1970s rock band, capturing the complex dynamics between its members, particularly the enigmatic Daisy Jones and the charismatic Billy Dunne, as their volatile relationship leads to the band’s ultimate breakup. The novel explores themes of love, addiction, fame, and the price of artistic ambition.

❝ I used to think soul mates were two of the same. I used to think I was supposed to look for somebody that was like me. I don't believe in soul mates anymore and I'm not looking for anything. But if I did believe in them, I'd believe your soul mate was somebody who had all the things you didn't, that needed all the things you had. Not somebody who's suffering from the same stuff you are.

9. A book with a pink cover

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

It is a coming-of-age novel that follows Selin, a Turkish-American Harvard freshman, as she navigates the complexities of love, language, and identity during her first year of college in the 1990s. As Selin grapples with her growing infatuation with a fellow student and her intellectual curiosity, the novel explores themes of self-discovery, the absurdity of human behavior, and the intricacies of cultural differences.

❝ It can be really exasperating to look back at your past. What’s the matter with you? I want to ask her, my younger self, shaking her shoulder. If I did that, she would probably cry. Maybe I would cry, too.

People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami

A collection of quirky, interconnected short stories set in a Japanese neighborhood, where the ordinary lives of its residents are subtly imbued with the surreal and the unexpected. Each story is a window into a seemingly simple world that holds hidden layers of complexity and mystery, reflecting the everyday magic that exists in ordinary life.

❝ Even the smallest hole is enough to send a balloon spiraling to the ground. The falsification of memory is like that. All it takes is one individual who remembers the truth, said Romi, for the whole edifice to collapse.

Between Us by Kay Turner

A selection of letters documenting love between women over the last 140 years. These eloquent messages from famous, ordinary or anonymous women range from notes and letters, to postcards and e-mail. Some are thoughtful, others lustful but all express in different ways the power of lesbian love.

❝ You are still near me – where I can fold you in my arms at any moment and press your sweet clinging lips […] I have tried to tell you what you are to me but no words can say it – If you love me ask your own heart what mine says – then add to it that bliss of freedom I have felt with you – that perfect understanding (From a letter sent August 23rd, 1913)

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

Paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.

❝ They’re on a pedestal from the second they’re born, only they don’t realize it. Whenever they need something, their moms come running. They’re taught to believe that their penises make them superior, and that women are just there for them to use as they see fit.

10. A collection of poetry

Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Renascence," the first of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems to bring her public acclaim, was written when she was nineteen. Now one of the best-known American poems, it is a fervent and moving account of spiritual rebirth.

❝ About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one going mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky.

Averno by Louise Glück

A haunting poetry collection that explores themes of mortality, loss, and transformation through mythological and personal lenses, with the underworld serving as a central metaphor for human struggles and the search for meaning. It is an exploration of how we come to terms with our own experiences of darkness and renewal.

❝ Doesn’t everyone want to feel in the night
the beloved body, compass, polestar,
to hear the quiet breathing that says
I am alive, that means also
you are alive, because you hear me,
you are here with me.

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire

With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own way toward womanhood. Drawing from her own life, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls.

❝ Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women; kitchen of lust,
bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy.
Sometimes the men - they come with keys,
and sometimes, the men - they come with hammers.

Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti

A collection of lyrical and fantastical poems, most famously featuring the narrative poem Goblin Market, which explores themes of temptation, sisterhood, and the complex dynamics of female relationships. The collection is known for its rich allegorical themes, as well as its exploration of Christian values, making it an enduring work in the realm of Victorian poetry.

❝ Their fruits like honey to the throat, but poison in the blood.

11. A feminist essays collection

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

A collection of 15 essays which explore and illuminate the roots of Lorde's intellectual development and her deep-seated and longstanding concerns about ways of increasing empowerment among minority women writers and the absolute necessity to explicate the concept of difference—difference according to sex, race, and economic status.

❝ I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

A groundbreaking book that critiques the idealized image of women in the mid-20th century as devoted wives and mothers, arguing that this narrow domestic role stifled women’s individual potential and led to widespread dissatisfaction. Friedan’s work sparked the second wave of feminism by revealing the hidden struggles of suburban housewives and challenging societal expectations, advocating for women’s rights to education, career, and personal fulfillment outside traditional roles.

❝ The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own.

This Bridge Called My Back by Cherríe Moraga

Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as coeditor Cherríe Moraga writes, the complex confluence of identities--race, class, gender, and sexuality--systemic to women of color oppression and liberation.

❝ What drew me to politics was my love of women, the agony I felt in observing the straight-jackets of poverty and repression I saw in my own family. But the deepest political tragedy I have experienced is how with such grace, such blind faith, this commitment to women in the feminist movement grew to be exclusive and reactionary. I call my white sisters on this. I have had enough of this.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

A collection of essays that explores the complexities of being a feminist in contemporary society, particularly the tension between Gay’s personal contradictions and the feminist ideals she embraces. With humor, insight, and candidness, Gay tackles subjects such as gender, race, pop culture, and the challenges of navigating feminism in a world full of imperfections.

❝ When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the flawed people who act in the name of the movement.

12. A book inspired by a greek myth (focused on a female character)

Medusa by Nataly Gruender

It is a poetic exploration of myth, identity, and transformation, drawing on the classical Greek myth of Medusa while examining the emotional and psychological complexities of the character, examining themes of victimization, power, and self-realization.

❝ She told me, “You be who you are, Medusa. Love the monster within, and it will love you right back.”

Circe by Madeline Miller

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But *Circe* is a strange child—not obviously powerful like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

❝ Later, years later, I would hear a song made of our meeting. [...] I was not surprised by the portrait of myself: the proud witch undone before the hero's sword, kneeling and begging for mercy. Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati

This is the story of a daughter betrayed by her father. Who watches her sister be destroyed by violence and rape. Whose child is sacrificed to ensure her family's power. Who fights as fiercely as any warrior. Who falls in love with her husband's enemy. Who is hungry for otherworldly retribution against both men and gods...

❝ She knows that, in moments of pain, some words are spoken with a harshness that is not truly meant. But, even so, words can grow roots inside one’s heart. You can bury them, hoping they will wither and die, but roots keep finding something to latch on to.

Cassandra by Christa Wolf

This novel reimagines the story of the Trojan prophetess Cassandra, giving her a voice to narrate the fall of Troy, examining themes of fate, power, and the silencing of women. It offers a feminist perspective on myth and history and explores Cassandra's inner turmoil as she grapples with her prophetic gift and her inability to change the inevitable.

❝ She is sensitive. She does not see the world as it is. She’s a bit up in the clouds. She cannot fit in.