The Bluest Eye! My brother recommended it to me as a joke when I needed a book for a 7th grade book report, and bothy my teacher and my teacher were dumbfounded when I actually read it.

That book is amazingly powerful. I should go back and read it again.

descent of woman - elaine morgan

He She and It - Marge Piercy

The womens room, Marylin French

Book lists! Always fun. Here are a few that come to mind:

Our Bodies, Ourselves (all editions), the Boston Women's Health Book Collective.

S.E.X.: the all-you-need-to-know progressive sexuality guide to get you through high school and college, by Heather Corinna.

BitchFest, Jervis & Ziesler

No More Nice Girls, Ellen Willis

What are Schools For?, by Ron Miller

Teaching to Transgress, by bell hooks

The Long Haul, by Myles Horton

War as a Force that Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges

War for the Oaks, by Emma Bull (I just discovered her!)

A Room With a View, E.M. Forester

The Solace of Leaving Early, by Haven Kimmell

Our Arcadia, by Robin Lippincott

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

I'll be coming back to check out all the other suggestions . . . thanks in advance to everyone for helping to expand my reading list . . .

"Whipping Girl" Julia Serano
"The Second Sex" Simone de Beauvoir
"Bastard out of Carolina" Dorothy Allison

Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver (and all her nonfiction; her novels are great too, but in a less life-changing, paradigm-shattering way)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
(The title chapter, I think it's 23, gets me EVERY time.)

Beautifully Worthless by Ali Leibegott
(if you are or have been seriously depressed, this book will speak to you.)

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Woman by Natalie Angier
(damn, my body is awesome!)

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
(this is the best book I know about writing; it makes it seem so possible.)

Harriet the Spy, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, James and the Giant Peach, The Autobiography of Helen Keller, and all the other books I read as a kid that made me love reading and encouraged me to stay spunky.

The Bone People, Keri Hulme

Nervous Conditions, Tsi Tsi Dangarembga

The German Ideology, Karl Marx

Can you help me find another book? I'm looking for a historical account of WWII or Korea from women's perspective. The best I have found is Yuki Tanaka's book on the Comfort WOmen, but I would appreciate any ideas. I'm trying to get my father a book about history that is actually feminist (a tricky way to help change his thinking). He doesn't read more than the paper and Time magazine on a regular basis.
Thanks!

Small typo: I think you mean "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith

I most heartedly second Flannery O'Conner's stories, Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction, Our Bodies Ourselves, Heather Corinna's S.E.X. book, "The Beauty Myth," Myles Horton's "The Long Haul."

Other books I'm thankful for:

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Fugitive Pieces, by Anne Michaels (one of the BEST novels I've read in a long time)

Maurice Manning's poetry collections

Fun Home, by Allison Bechdel

Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck

The Paris Review Interviews, Volumes I and II

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austin

The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan

Dreaming by the Book, by Elaine Scarry

On Beauty and Being Just, by Elaine Scarry

The Flexible Lyric, by Ellen Bryant Voigt

Selected Writings, by Dorothy Day

Backlash, by Susan Faludi

Stiffed, by Susan Faludi

Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen

George Orwell's essays

A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf

Ship Fever, by Andrea Barrett

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, by Aimee Bender

Horton Hears a Who!, by Dr. Seuss.
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, by bell hooks.
Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley.
SCUM Manifesto, by Valerie Solanas.
Lots of Jane Jacobs' books (I haven't quite read them all yet).
The Evolution of Cooperation, by Robert Axelrod.
Slave, by Mende Nazer.
Last Stand of the Lubicon Cree, John Goddard.
Maus, by Art Spiegelman.
1984, by George Orwell.
Pretty much everything by Octavia E. Butler.
The entire Harry Potter series.

Thanks.

Anything by Marion Woodman, especially The Pregnant Virgin. It's nonfiction, Jungian concepts reinterpreted with a feminist perspective.

okay, i am honestly curious about the book fat is a feminist issue (#17). i'll admit i've never read it, but i just read a one-paragraph review from the publisher and it included stuff like:

"Here for the first time in one complete volume are the two international bestsellers that taught women not to be afraid to be thin."

and another that said:

"...this classic book that first taught women how to triumph over compulsive eating..."

so i guess what i'm asking for is a little more context? i mean, i trust that if it's in courtney's 'thankful' list then it must have some real value (as opposed to being a fat-hate book, a book that underestimates the intelligence of women, or something unproductive like that), but i'm just not sure i'm seeing what that value is just yet. can someone give me a better idea re: the statement this book is trying to make?

@mirm: you could recommend Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking. My father read that one, and he said that it was really good, though depressing as hell.

@annajcook: I read War for the Oaks in junior high and loved it.

Double hooray for Flannery O'Connor's Complete Stories!

For me I'd add:
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, the short stories of Carson McCullers, and the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. :)

anything by francesca lia block and also anything by anais nin. fear of flying by erica jong. the works of zelda and f scott fitzgerald. poetry by anne sexton and sylvia plath. the comics strangers in paradise, meatcake, and anything by jessica abel. both of inga muscio's books. ill second the beauty myth. backlash. the secret garden and the little prince. harriet the spy. the bust anthology. henry rollins and jd salinger. foxfire by joyce carol oates. a bunch of shit im sure im forgetting. sex tips for girls and advanced sex tips for girls by cynthia heimel, as both are hilarious, as is the broke diaries by angela nissel.

right now id like a book on plumbing as my just fixed pipes under my sink have sprung a fucking leak.

Thanks to everyone for these beautiful lists...I can't wait to check some of these books out.
Sounds like you found a mistaken review of Susie Orbach's Fat is a Feminist Issue apple blossom. It is most certainly not about becoming thin, but about the ways in which our bodies are sites of political and psychological complexity. Really amazing book!

Ain't I a Woman?-bell hooks
Sister Outsider-Audre Lorde
The Dark Tower-Stephen King
Eye of the Dragon-Stephen King
Seconding A Problem From Hell- Samantha Power
The Human Condition-Hannah Arendt
Caucasia- Danzy Senna
David Sedaris
Calvin and Hobbes

Oh how sophisticated my list is...

There are so many writers that have formed me, that I really could not imagine my life without.

Angela Carter

Terry Pratchett

Katha Pollitt

Ellen Willis (seconded!)

Without by Donald Hall

the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carroll

Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones

E. Nesbit

Edward Eager

Calvin Trillin

So many more.

Thanks ShifterCat.

Riotgrrl - Calvin and Hobbes is tres sophistice (I taught a Bill Waterson Calvin collection once). Social commentary with tigers!

Tres sophistique is what I meant -

I'd add: Everything Barbara Ehrenreich has ever written; Black Reconstruction in America by W.E.B. Du Bois (that book almost broke my brain it was so powerful); and an essay by Francine Prose called A Wasteland of One's Own (published in the NY Times Feb. 13, 2000). And I second the Philip Pullman recommendation!

The Red Tent
Middlesex
White Oleander
The Continuity Girl
Clara Callan
The Handmaid's Tale
Pride and Prejudice
Lullabies for Little Criminals
Pretty Little Dirty
She's Come Undone
A Leaf In the Bitter Wind
Girl With a Pearl Earring
The Lovely Bones
Where the Red Fern Grows

Taking this in a slightly different direction:

My beloved romance novels, especially Julia Quinn, Jennifer Crusie, and Kinley MacGregor- for being wonderful authors with fantastic books.

Alton Brown's cook books.

Dave Barry, who taught me my sense of humor, basically.

All of Caroline B Cooney's books, even the later ones that are weirdly religious.

A Tree Grows in Brooklynn, which I can recall most of, and it still makes me cry.

Nothing But the Truth, by Avi, a young-adult novel told in letter/conversation form, with no mention of what the characters themselves are thinking, so it leaves the story open to interpretation and blew my mind at thirteen, and does to this day.

The Sweet Valley series, for the mind candy, and the Baby Sitters Club, for the same.

And finally, a shout out to libraries. Yay free books!

Aside: what's wrong with Oprah's Book Club? I know it's a bit of a gimmick, but she often picks literature that the women who watch her show would never think to read on their own. Her book club got a fair few of my friends' moms to put down the romance novels and chick lit and rediscover (or discover for the first time) what good literature is.

Oprah provided the motivation and encouragement for a lot of women to pick up good books--and I kind of love her for that.

1. I certainly echo gratitude for The Red Tent.
2. Luke's Gospel
3. The Table Where Rich People Sit by Byrd Baylor
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
5. Summer of My Amazing Luck by Miriam Toews

Great list Courtney, although I must say I'm surprised to see Charles Taylor up there. All of his works that I've ever come across reek of neo-liberalism and are blatantly telling 'others' to just assimilate and get it over with.

But now I'm curious about this one work you mentioned and will look it up.

(Echoing)Incredibly thankful for -

The Red Tent
The Beauty Myth
HP 1-7
A Room of One's Own
On Violence
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Bluest Eye
White Oleander

Ones that haven't been mentioned (i think..) -

Angels in America (!!!!)
Crime and Punishment
Housekeeping
Much ado about Nothing
Beloved
Love(Morrison)
As a Driven Leaf
Poetry by Yehuda Amichai / Rumi
To the Lighthouse
The Giving Tree
Three Guineas

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters - Courtney Martin
Full Frontal Feminism - Jessica Valenti
Dorothy Parker's poetry
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name - Audre Lorde
Dispatches from the Edge - Anderson Cooper
Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen - Alix Kates Shulman
Nickels and Dimes - Barbara Ehrenriech

and my all-time favorite:
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! - Mo Willems

I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. And of course She's Come Undone as well.
Love anything David Sedaris.
Read Amy Sedaris's book on entertaining, I Like You you'll like her too!

Oh and I forgot to mention:
ALL Christopher Moore books, particularly Lamb. Read it, read it NOW!

Ooh, I love these questions!
Books that changed my life and I am eternally grateful for -

-The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte

-Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

- Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

- Shirley - Charlotte Bronte

- Great Apes - Will Self

- Middlemarch - George Eliot

- North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell

- The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole - Sue Townsend (you HAVE to love Adrian's mum!)

- The Monk - Matthew Lewis

... There must be millions more! Those crazy Brontes! Always with the genius.

Thanks for asking about the name of my lil' column katiedivina. I actually love Oprah in lots of ways, myself, so the title is not intended to be a jab, just a joke.

#1 I'm not a bazillionaire and what I chose to review won't fly to #1 on the bestseller's list.
#2 I tend to review books on topics that wouldn't be acceptable on Oprah's list...porn, orgasms etc.

I'm so happy she has inspired America to read, especially some of the more challenging selections like Middlesex.

Here's my list:

Judy Blume's books

SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas

1984 by George Orwell

Perfect Date (part of the Fear Series) by R.L. Stine

Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti

XXX: A Woman'sRight to Pornography by Wendy McElroy

Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights by Nadine Strossen

The War on Choice by Gloria Feldt

Danica -- Crossing the Line by Danica Patrick & Laura Morton

The latter two books are the last two books I've read, and I haven't read a single thing outside of newspapers in the past 1.5 years.

Katie and Courtney-
I think Oprah's been great for championing female authors and reaching out to women who don't normally read much literature. It's been interesting to see that a lot of Oprah features have then been dismissed by the mainstream literary establishment, possibly because they are of interest to ordinary women! Oprah books are definitely a feminist issue.

This post made me laugh a little because several of the books mentioned have been featured on Oprah. :-)

(Long term lurker, but this is actually my first post)
A major second to almost all the books that have been mentioned, but there's one which I feel has been really formative for me, and which almost never gets mentioned:
"A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," by Annie Dillard. I read it in high school, and it was the first, and perhaps the most distinct experience I've had of a book totally changing the way I approach life.

I've only read two of those (Night and Full Frontal, of course).

But I'm thankful for both.

@Jovan1984: I've read Wendy McElroy's book, but not Nadine Strossen's. I'll keep an eye out for it.

Some of mine have already been mentioned, but I'll add a few:

Amazons! edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. An anthology of woman warrior stories, each with its own not-too-preachy lesson.

All of Ursula K. le Guin's books

Barbara Hambly's fantasy novels. Not only does she write strong, intelligent women, but she's not afraid to make her main characters (of both sexes) average-looking.

The Sandman comics of Neil Gaiman

Pat Cadigan's cyberpunk SF, for being just that cool.

Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, for helping teach me and so many other children to read.

don't forget dorothy allison and audre lorde!

trans sister radio is amazing. as well as valencia by michelle tea

All these lists sent me straight to Barnes and Noble and half.com. I think I have 5 or 6 books on the way now. :)

Okay...here's mine

1. Volatile Bodies by Elizabeth Grosz
2. Time Travels by Elizabeth Grosz
3. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (I'm suprised no one pinned this down--HOT!!!!)
4. Public Sex by Pat Califia
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
6. Catcher in the Rye; JD Salinger
7. Franny and Zoeey; JD Salinger
8. Fun Home
9. A defence of Masochism by Anita Phillips
10. pretty much anything by Luce Irigary (if you're into french post-modern/deconstructionis theory)
11. Lesbian Ethics by Sarah Hoagland
12. the short story collection ed. by Michelle Tea "Baby Remember my Name", esp. the Story "Stay"
13. 1, 2 3 Infinity (it will never let you look at mathematics the same)
14. Mary Daly's Gyn/Ecology
15. Tales of the City (in the middle of reading)
16. bell hooks' class matters
17. PUSH by sapphire
18. Jane Sexes it Up
19. Sisterhood is Forever
20. Philosophy of Sex and Gender (the edition with a sadomasochism section)
21. Patricia Williams "The alchemy of race and rights"
22. Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain
23. Karen Finley; A different kind of intimacy
24. The Pink glass swan
25. The Ice Storm by Rick Moody

late, but I am so, so thankful for books. I am half-way through my first non-grad school book since summer, but it will probably have to wait until the Christmas holidays to be finished.
I am so thankful for all my amazing childhood reading, but especially the Westing Game and The Chalet School books.
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb left me sobbing on my bed.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Harry Potter
Anything by Carl Hiaasen
Faithful by Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan
The Historian
Cookbooks
Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts
Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi
Morning Poems by Robert Bly
and most recently,
A Thousand Splendid Suns

My feminist education began with my senior English teacher who made her college composition class into a class on 18th century literature with female protagonists. Ms. Dunlay, thank you for:
Anna Karenina (absolutely my favorite book of all time)
Tess of the D'Urbevilles
Jane Eyre
A Doll's House
The Yellow Wallpaper
Hedda Gabler
The Awakening and all Kate Chopin's other short stories
"Rape," by Marge Piercy

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

And if you have a good sense of humor, a grain of salt, and give them a post-modernist-awareness-of-genre spin...Stephanie Plum novels - yes, they're a little problematic and archaic with a middle-clas blue-eyed white heroine ...but she's such a likeable character