I know it may be hard to believe, but some of us are obsessed with books. And for those of us who are, it is even harder to believe that there are folks out there who don't like books. We recognize kindred spirits who display the common signs of book fever:frequent visits to the bookstore for no specific reason, an overflowing book shelf, and a search in the forum yields a huge list both as poster and content.

A must read for any bibliophile! This will part of my permanent collection.

This is pretty interesting--a compilation of mini-biographies of some of the best, brightest, most famous and most forgotten female literary minds ranging from our time and going all the way back to 2500 BC...

It was pretty amusing and has reminded me of authors I should check out. She gets some facts wrong, but on the whole, interesting.

With a title like this how could I not pick it up, especially since I found it at Half-Price Books? There are seven different groupings of women with short bios of each woman included. I enjoyed some chapters more than others and there is a large selection of women from every time period and geographic location (although it is clearly Anglo based). I had heard of maybe a little more than half of these women and enjoyed getting to know some women that I knew of, but had never read. Betty Friedan, Mary Baker Eddy, and Gertrude Stein were a few that interested me the most, since I knew so little about them. I didn’t realize that Gertrude Stein was buried at the Cemetery of Pere-Lachaise in Paris or else I would had looked for her when we were there last week. I’ll be talking about that cemetery in my Paris recap on Sunday.

I thought the book was good, but considering the title, a little boring. I read it in snippets, so it took me a long time to finish. This would not have happened if I had been truly engaged. This book is gift sized and I do think it is a fun gift for a book lover, especially those who are interested in biographies of women.

A book about my own kind. Of course, I loved it.

Notes:
The earliest female author was Enheduanna of Ur. Her works dated from 2500 BCE.

Emesal- the distinctly female written dialect.

"It has been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass."- Eudora Welty.

"I walk where my own nature would be leading: it vexes me to chose another guide."- Emily Bronte

"I won't be any properer than I have a mind to be."- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"I was gravely warned by some of my female acquaintances that no woman could expect to be regarded as a lady after sh had written a book."- Lydia M. Child

"The ability to control one's own destiny... comes from constant hard work and courage."- Maya Angelou

"Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the sense shuts me from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness."- Helen Keller

"Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?"- Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

"Are ya still alive, Djuna?"- e.e.cummings to Djuna Barnes

"The usual masculine disillusionment is in discovery that a woman has a brain."- Margaret Mitchell

Encyclopedia of women writers, from the obscure (but why?) to the well known. Kind of gossipy, but intellectual. Right up my alley.

I found this book interesting, but missing some key authors. I had never heard of 95% of these authors yet there are so many more that could have been written about. I would probably never want to read those writings either just due to the content of them. I try to read a lot of wholesome Christian books, so this by far was not that, but I knew that when I started it. It was interesting.

Women Who Love Books Too Much: Bibliophiles, Bluestockings, and Prolific Pens from the Algonquin Hotel to the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Brenda Knight (2000)

You know how some people keep People magazine in their guest bathroom? This is what I have in mine. I hope entertaining for my guests.

Okay read.. She seemed to focus on women who were really liberal. I really didn't want to know who was in love with whom.... Good long list of people though. I wish the author would have mentioned why she chose these specifically or included longer list of titles the women authored.

I thought it seemed a little dated, but I still enjoyed it.