For women, by women

Eight books that every woman (and men, for that matter) should read

The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is essential reading no matter your gender, and this chilling depiction of a dystopian future is one of her best. In the Republic of Gilead, women's rights have been completely eradicated, and the country is ruled by a racist, homophobic, misogynist, ultra-conservative cult. This is perhaps every woman's worst nightmare that men have never thought about. Maybe it's time to think about it.

NW
by Zadie Smith

Smith's novels are notable not just for their social acuity, but also for their ability to absorb philosophical ideas. Her last, On Beauty, managed to be interesting about aesthetics as well as about race and compassion. The themes in NW are more radical and the language more fractured. Though it remains absolutely rooted, stuck to the map, contexts change and narrative styles shift. This is a book in which you never know how things will come together or what will happen next.

Reading Lolita in Tehran
by Azar Nafisi

This is a book that reminds us how poignant and positive it is when women get in a room together. Reading Lolita in Tehran is about a secret book group in Iran; through their discussion of classic novels the women gradually reveal details of their own lives and create a rebels' space of artistic and emotional freedom. This is a testimony to the power of reading, an example of cultural resistance and a tribute to the honesty with which women speak among themselves. It's universally applicable in its reflection of everyday oppression and the defiance and creativity it engenders.

The House of the Spirits
by Isabelle Allende

Allende's creation of the tremendous and complicated Trueba family is magical and tells of South American politics, love, time, and fate. This story takes many magical realism elements in the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but sprinkles them with more than enough of Allende's aesthetics to love and appreciate. Covering four generations of women (with a man as the common thread between them), it races through the simplicity of the old world into the complexity of an increasingly global existence – something we can all relate to.

Bossypants
by Tina Fey

Everyone likes Tina Fey, and this book will only increase her fan base. The comedian's memoir is hilarious, but also filled with reflections on being an awkward girl, a woman in show business, and a mother. Even the men should read this because they will be laughing so hard that they won't even realize they are learning about what it's like to be a real-life lady.

The Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir

"I hesitated a long time before writing a book on woman," De Beauvoir begins. "The subject is irritating, especially for women; and it is not new. Enough ink has flowed over the quarrel about feminism; it is now almost over: let's not talk about it anymore." This was in 1959—and the sentiment is as fresh now as it was then, just like the rest of De Beauvoir's lucid book, equal parts literary and philosophical. All else aside, it's one of the most classic feminist texts in the language. And men should read more of those.

The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath

It's pretty much a given that everyone should read The Bell Jar. It's a look into the conflicted mind of a tortured genius snuffed out too soon. This quasi-autobiographical novel is about Esther Greenwood, a talented journalist. Throughout the story, she battles depression and slowly descends into insanity. A great read for women to understand what it's like to feel misunderstood and out of place and for men to understand women a little better.

Wild Swans
by Jung Chang

Jung Chang demonstrates with exquisite grace and deep understanding the centrality of women in all areas of cultural and political life. Written as a family history, this is also a definitive recent account of China across three generations of Chinese women's lives and it sparkles with the human characters, near misses and contingent moments that make up political history. Wild Swans prompted imitations all over the world, revealing readers' passion for learning about other women's lives, and proving that women's experiences are just as representative of a nation's story as men's experiences.

The Awakening
by Kate Chopin

The Awakening is one of the first books in American literature that explores our role as women and mothers. Edna Pontellier, the protagonist, does not identify with the role as matriarch, and feels less and less attracted to her husband. When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.

The Golden Notebook
by Doris Lessing

The Golden Notebook focuses on Anna, a writer, who keeps notebooks as most writers do. In each one, she recounts different aspects of her life and tries to connect them all together to create cohesion within herself. The Golden Notebook has been described as a feminist novel, which is not entirely wrong, but that only gives a part of the whole picture. Instead, it is a comprehensive and overwhelming portrait of the minds and self-expressions of women. Definitely a must read, though a tad bit tedious.