Glenn's blog

I just sat down to think about the books that I have on my to-read list.

Here's the list:

• The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
• Imperial by William Vollmann
• Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

I think that's the list. To be honest, I've never really made a list of books I'm planning to read.

You may notice that the list is entirely composed of books written by men. I don't know if it's accidental or if I simply gravitate towards male authors. Looking at my bookshelf it is very heavily male, with a major exception of my Kathy Acker books (which take up half of a shelf).

If I ever make a list of favorite authors, it tends to be heavily male as well: Pynchon, Vollmann, Acker, Burroughs, Murakami Ryu, Murakami Haruki, Tolstoy, Cormac McCarthy, and so on. I wonder why this is? Is there just something about the writing of men that resonates with me? Or is it that there are more men writing literary and more experimental fiction? I like Jeanette Winterson but wouldn't call her a favorite. The same with Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates. I loved Cat's Eye but was never moved to read much more of Atwood.

Even my taste in poetry shifts towards male poets. Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens are particular favorites of mine. I can't even really name a woman poet other than Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath. At university I took a 20th Century American poetry class and the professor was an expert on Marianne Moore, but I never really got into her writing.

No other female novelist, poet, or writer in general has become someone who I need to read, except for Kathy Acker. Her books occupy a special part of my soul, and I like her work so much that I seldom speak of it to anyone. There would be too much to explain.

I'll have to think about why I read men so much and seldom read anything written by women. It could possibly be a cultural issue – that I was raised to listen more to men than women, especially in terms of knowledge and information. This may still be the atmosphere in the world around us, which could contribute to the continued dominance of men in the literary world.

Looking at the New York Times Bestseller list today, out of the 45 books listed in 9 different categories, 14 of them are written by women. In the top 5 hardcover nonfiction, none of them are written by women. 4 out of the 5 children's books are written by women. In the top 15 hardcover business books 2 are written by women (one as a co-author).

Is my imbalance a reflection of a societal imbalance?

I'd be happy to hear if you have similar experiences and if you have any recommendations for great books written by female authors.