By Beatrix S
When it comes to recommending good books for women, obviously no woman is the same as any other woman. Some women like love stories, some women like books about ambitious and independent women, other women enjoy books with amazing adventures. And so the list goes on. But the following books that I recommend for women have never failed to impress the women I have spoken to.
The Kitchen God's Wife
is a novel by Amy Tan published in 1991. The author enhances her novels with beautiful Chinese legends and manages to create a fairytale atmosphere. The novel is about the Chinese women and their struggles during World War II. Even if you aren’t interested in Chinese culture or history, you will still find the book interesting because the author manages to tell the story perfectly. She manages to put some of her life experiences on to paper by talking about her abused mother and how she had to leave her children in China.
Red Azalea
is an autobiographical novel written by Anchee Min. The novel was published in 1994 and depicts the author’s life in China. It talks about the Communist Regime, the author’s emotional troubles, and how she became hated by the Party. The author managed to escape from China and came to America where she was able to publish her story. She has also published historical fiction novels, which are absorbing novels that recreate the period she spent in China.
Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami is a story about love and youth. It’s not the classic story about two people meeting and falling in love. It’s about love beyond death, great friendship, loss, and bad decisions. The main character, Toru Watanabe, thinks back to his youth that was filled with sorrow and love, hesitation and fear. The book was published in 1987 in Japanese and in 2000 in English. It also became a script for a movie released in Fall, 2010.
The Second Sex
is written by Simone de Beauvoir about how women are treated and perceived by society. If you like feminist writings, you will love this book. It seems that the author didn’t want to make a philosophical statement from the book but it turned out to be that way when she realized that she had to describe what a woman is. She started talking about the way a woman is viewed, mostly as the other sex, the weaker sex. Published in 1949, the book is one of the most important books that speak about women and feminism.
Mrs Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf is another book with strong feminist ideas. The story in the book happens in one beautiful day of June and it is written as a stream of consciousness. Mrs Dalloway thinks about her youth, about her lost love, and about the decisions she had to make when she got married. The book talks about mental illness, which is portrayed through Septimus, the war hero; it also talks about homosexuality and feminism. The book was published in 1925. Mrs Dalloway also appears as a character in other novels written by Virginia Woolf.