Your Outside Reading Choices

1. Your Outside Reading Choices Women’s Literature Not just books written by women…

2. Beloved by Toni Morrison • ADULT THEMES/Supernatural themes • This book follows a woman and her family as they struggle with their past in slavery, a horrific incident of infanticide, and the woman’s attempt at a relationship with a man as they are haunted by a supernatural being. • Intricate and disturbing.

3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Singsby Maya Angelou • This is an autobiographical book about her and her brother’s coming of age as African Americans in the South during the 1960’s. • It’s a straightforward, lyrical telling.

4. Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor • Zany, irreligious story of Hazel Motes, a Korean war veteran and son of a preacher, who begins his own church of atheism with a cast of outcasts. • It’s pretty dark and shocking.

5. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck • This is an epic story of China, following one poor farmer and his long suffering wife and children. We see him struggle to own land and advance his family in a land of change. • Culturally interesting told in a formal, older style of writing. (not as old as the Bronte’s or Shakespeare, though)

6. The House of Mirthby Edith Wharton • A woman trapped by her upper class society, makes poor decisions about her future and doesn’t play the game. The pressures of society and her inner needs are in conflict. • This is Edith Wharton of Ethan Frome fame. You know what her writing is like!

7. Silas Marner by George Eliot • Yes, it is a woman. She had to write under a pseudonym to be accepted at the time. • It is a story told in turn of the century England about a gentleman unjustly accused of theft who then must navigate his life in the hierarchical society of the day. • It was first published in 1861, so the language is older and intricate.

8. The Color Purple by Alice Walker • ADULT THEMES • Epistolary novel told by Celie, a young African American girl who is abused by her stepfather then by the man she is married off to. Through struggle and adversity, she finds out who she is. • Straightforward writing style.