Another Book Listie Leaves the Ladies Out:

Carolyn Kellogg at Jacket Copy takes on yet another "100 best books of the century" list that has only 7 female-authored tomes in its ranks. This one is a list curated by Dick Meyer at NPR, who admits to its being "male" and "parochial".

Says Kellogg:

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it's certainly not my list. While I wouldn't call it parochial, I would say that a lot of the books are the kind that were assigned to be read in school, which indicates a kind of incurious reader to me. Misspelling Nathanael West's name (as Nathaniel), and including two books each by Philip Roth, John Le Carre, Richard Ford and John Updike doesn't help to convince me otherwise.

But truly astonishing is the fact that only seven books by women make the list. And number 100 — Nicole Krauss' "A History of Love" — was published in 2005, so it doesn't even belong in a list that spans 1900-2000. Which would cut down the number of female authors to six.

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This nonsense is why the Radcliffe list is so awesome and fun.


Previously in this category:

National Book Award: Testosteroney

Anti-feminist book critics review feminist works

Times' Gender ratio improves

Pulitzers: kinda testosteroney