A reading list of women authors for all the hot nerds
Reading has always been chic, but now books are the new accessories. As we obsess over Dua Lipa’s endless vacation photos, we can’t help but admire how she always has a book in hand. If you’re looking to enjoy a cozy afternoon indoors, you might as well find yourself a literary companion.
From Rooney to Febos, this list has you covered. Sink your teeth into memoirs, essays, and literary fiction with these juicy titles from women authors.
“I’m a Fan” by Sheena Patel
“I’m a Fan” is a dazzling debut by Sheena Patel. It was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and won the Discover Book of the Year at the 2023 British Book Awards. Reading this book is like walking into the brain of a delirious 30-year-old woman and finding it grotesquely cluttered with sticky, seemingly senseless thoughts. But that’s the beauty of “I’m a Fan,” it’s not afraid to confront the mess.
Told from the perspective of a 30-year-old woman working in South London who becomes increasingly enamored with the influencer girlfriend of a man who will never return her affections, “I’m a Fan” explores the complex intersections of envy, desire, race, and class. It arms itself with language straight off social media, so recognizably current that you’d be tempted to dismiss the whole thing. But that would be a mistake. Behind the veneer of trendy internet lingo is a mirror reflecting on this digital age society where everything we consume simultaneously reveals and conceals a deeper, uglier truth about ourselves.
“Alphabetical Diaries” by Sheila Heti
“Alphabetical Diaries” is a collection of half a million words from a decade’s worth of journals, compiled into a spreadsheet and ordered alphabetically. The result is a compact body of work that intimates the author’s life, the people in it, and the thoughts that consume her.
If, at first, it leaves you confused, I urge you to ride that perplexity and see it through. What I found through the sprawling pages of this work of nonfiction was a lesson in order and arbitrariness. Arrange your life however you please, the same themes will surface over and over. For better or for worse, one can never reconfigure one’s life to the point of unrecognition.
“The Lying Life of Adults” by Elena Ferrante
If you want to get started with Ferrante but are too afraid to commit to the “Neapolitan Novels,” “The Lying Life of Adults” is for you. This 2019 novel follows Giovanna, a young girl in Naples who is catapulted into adulthood by a comment she overheard her father make. Adolescence is always a harrowing experience, especially for girls coming to terms with their family, their history, and most strikingly, their appearance.
What does it mean to finally understand the demands and implications of one’s face, one’s body, and one’s movement? This book knows how to find out.
“Too Much and Not the Mood” by Durga Chew-Bose
“Too Much and Not the Mood” is a collection of essays by Canadian writer and film director of South Asian descent, Durga Chew-Bose. It’s a book about honoring one’s personal and collective history through haunting memories. From vignettes of growing up as one of the only non-white girls in her neighborhood to a contemplation of her name, Chew-Bose contends with all of it.
“Too Much and Not the Mood” is titled after the last line of a diary entry Virginia Woolf wrote in 1931. She was writing about the compromises one has to make to one’s writing just to please everyone around her. The title itself is emblematic of the question coursing through the pages—how do you clothe your personhood into words that don’t quite fit? You make the garment from scratch, or you show up to the function nude.
“Acts of Service” by Lillian Fishman
“Acts of Service” by Lillian Fishman is a debut novel you can devour in a day. It follows Eve, a queer young woman working as a barista in Brooklyn. Despite having a healthy, loving relationship with her girlfriend, she finds herself posting nude pictures of herself online. When her pictures catch the eye of a couple, she becomes involved in a three-way affair.
“Acts of Service” is as bold as it gets. The narrative is fueled by the belief that sex is a revelation. It involves power, conflict, willingness, and refusal. All these things combined make for a compelling story of a woman in pursuit of deep, fascinating pleasure.
“Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney
“Intermezzo” is Sally Rooney’s best novel yet. Rooney is known for her portrayal of unconventional relationships and the state of men’s emotional and mental health. Add to that the grief of having lost your father and the love and rivalry that begets a brotherly relationship, and you’ve got yourself a novel about avoidance, consequence, and hidden resentment.
It follows Ivan, a young chess prodigy who falls in love with a much older woman, and his older brother, a successful lawyer involved with two women. As their romances crease and unfold, the brothers are forced to find ways to finally understand one another.
“Whip Smart” by Melissa Febos
“Whip Smart” is Melissa Febos’ first memoir. It details her experience as a college student doubling as a dominatrix. A daring, introspective narrative of sex work in New York, it’s a book about recovery from addiction and the slippery slope of self-awareness.
Febos has always known that she was intelligent, but in this memoir, she learns that she cannot outsmart herself. One will always find ways to live with self-destruction, and that’s the trap of an articulate individual. This memoir tells us that just because you can find the words to understand your painful patterns, it doesn’t mean they make sense. In “Whip Smart,” Febos contends with her biggest challenge—herself.
“The Right to Sex” by Amia Srinivasan
In this collection of essays, Amia Srinivasan challenges us to understand that politics make their way into the bedroom, too. Even in the act considered most private, we are not free from social dictates. In the titular essay of this book, she expands an essay previously published in the “London Review of Books” where she problematizes the political question of who is and isn’t desired.
Srinivasan is sharp and attentive in her observations about incels, dating preferences, pornography, and violence. She’s provocative and assertive but never moralizing. Our understanding of feminism evolves as we get to know more about ourselves and our society, and what better way to learn than entrusting yourself with one of the most interesting scholars of the 21st century?
