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    DogzillasMamaDodai Stewart
    9/26/13 2:57pm

    I have a close friend on the other side of the country who is also an author. She and I went to journalism school together (friends since 7th grade). Once, while I was out there visiting, her aunt-in-law asked us who our favorite authors are, given that we are both writer/editor types and have both always been voracious readers. We both named four or five writers we admired for different reasons and then the aunt noted that we had not mentioned one single female author. I feel badly about that, but my favorite writers are who they are and they all happen to be men. I completely agree with SK's assessment of these popular books.

    Tell me, Jezzies. Who are you favorite female authors? Guide me to the good stuff!

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      lurkerbynatureDogzillasMama
      9/26/13 3:31pm

      My tastes lean heavily to SF/F, but off the top of my head:

      SF/F: Lois McMaster Bujold, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robin McKinley, Patricia McKillip, Connie Willis, C. J. Cherryh, Madeline L'Engle, Susan Cooper, Patricia Wrede

      Mystery: Dorothy Sayers

      More mainstream or "literary" fiction (this will probably weigh heavily Irish): Virginia Woolf, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Shelley, Somerville and Ross, Kate O'Brien, Emma Donohue, Eilis Ni Duibhne, Elizabeth Bowen, Alice Walker, Flannery O'Connor

      Playwrights: Marina Carr, Lillian Hellman,

      Poetry: Eavan Boland, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Edna St. Vincent Millay

      I'm going to share this to Groupthink to see if others have recs.

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      RenoDakotaDogzillasMama
      9/26/13 3:42pm

      Susan Choi - and if you went to J school, you might like her because she uses historic events as inspiration. For example, American Woman used Patty Hearst and Person of Interest used the Unibomber

      Zadie Smith

      Margaret Atwood

      Jhumpa Lahri

      Kate Atkinson

      Gillian Flynn

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    3fingerzbrownDodai Stewart
    9/26/13 2:35pm

    "Is it just a coincidence that all those books are by women?"

    Stop. Please. No.

    A better question would be, 'is it just a coincidence that all of these books are poorly written?"

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      Pope AlexanderDodai Stewart
      9/26/13 2:46pm

      Is it just a coincidence that all those books are by women?

      Yes.

      We can accept that these are three shitty books without it needing to be about the gender of the respective writers. Especially because King was a DIE HARD Harry Potter fan. We can also rejoice at the fact that three of the most popular books of the last few years were written by women.

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        lunchcomaPope Alexander
        9/26/13 2:53pm

        I would agree that this doesn't seem to have anything to do with gender. I'm giving King's tendency to bring up other popular fiction a sideeye, but it's not because I think he's being sexist. The most popular works that King could reasonably see as his competition have been written by women, which is an awesome thing for women writers.

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        JennyWennyatFriendfacePope Alexander
        9/26/13 2:56pm

        I was going to say the same. If the Harry Potter book reviews he wrote for EW are still stored in the caves of the Internet, those were some glowing, falling-over-himself reviews.

        I think it has nothing to do with the sex of the writer and more to do with the fact that those three series are giant steaming turds. Best-selling and successful turds, but turds.

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      Teal'c is a shol'va!Dodai Stewart
      9/26/13 2:44pm

      Which is why his blurb on the back of The Hunger Games is so ironic.

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        HRHDuchessNapsalotTeal'c is a shol'va!
        9/26/13 3:06pm

        I was about to say. . . he blurbed THG! Of course, these days, blurbs mean little.

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        MsCinephileTeal'c is a shol'va!
        9/26/13 3:15pm

        Weeeeeell lookie here. Did I just find an Entertainment Weekly book review of The Hunger Games written by Senor King? Yep. I sure did.

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      bugthecatDodai Stewart
      9/26/13 2:35pm

      That's funny because 18-25 was about the exact same age I was when I could still read Stephen King. Then I read Kurt Vonnegut and never looked back.

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        Pope Alexanderbugthecat
        9/26/13 2:47pm

        Yeah... King is a great ideas man, but he's never impressed me as a writer.

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        ChasmosaurPope Alexander
        9/26/13 2:56pm

        Early Stephen King, yes - great writer.

        But as the years have gone on, obviously he doesn't go through rigorous editing anymore, and he could definitely use some. Everyone raved about 11/22/63, but I could barely get 50 pages into it.

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      paging_dr_nickDodai Stewart
      9/26/13 2:34pm

      It has nothing to do with the authors being women as much as that the books are pretty dumb. I liked the Hunger Games, I read through them pretty quickly, and haven't touched them since. Kind of like how you don't watch re-runs of trashy shows like Maury or something, you know what I mean?

      To be fair though, not all of SK's books are that great either.

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        badmuthapaging_dr_nick
        9/26/13 2:40pm

        I think it is funny that SK is trashing this easy reading stuff. No, it isn't Faulkner, but lighten up bro.

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        plzprettypussbadmutha
        9/26/13 2:48pm

        I'm not sure we can call what he said "trashing." I have seen E.L. James and Stephanie Meyer and Suzanne Collins absolutely savaged in reviews - not just the books, but their writing styles, prose, thought process, the works. I read his as saying, "The first books didn't make me want to read the others." Frankly, I thought he was being pretty charitable to them, when others have done far, far worse.

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      lunchcomaDodai Stewart
      9/26/13 2:37pm

      Some of those books are garbage (I disagree about the Hunger Games), but King has set himself up as an arbiter of taste in popular fiction before, and I've always kind of been uncomfortable with it. He's capable of writing really good popular novels and has done so many times...and he's also produced a good bit of repetitive crap to pay the bills when he hasn't been inspired. Note that he didn't miss an opportunity to shill for his own critique of reality television.

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        strangerwcandilunchcoma
        9/26/13 2:51pm

        I love Uncle Stevie and I find it really strange that he's bashing the Hunger Games because the only reason I picked it up in the first place is because he recommended it. Weird, huh?

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        finnoodlesstrangerwcandi
        9/26/13 2:59pm

        To be technical for a moment if I may, he didn't even really say he didn't like it, he just said he had no desire to go on and read more. Like maybe he did like it and just didn't want to read the others?

        I mean, for example I love The Matrix, but I fucking wish I'd never seen the other two eyesores.

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      tiredfairyDodai Stewart
      9/26/13 3:31pm

      He was asked what he thought of some popular series that he was honest about liking/not liking. Trust me, King is NOT a book snob. He likes all kinds of work from all kinds of writers, and has discussed and raved about many female authors. Just not Twilight and 50 Shades. It's cool people enjoy those books, but let's not pretend they're "good". Sometimes things are good and popular, sometimes they're bad and popular, and we can enjoy them personally regardless. He's not required to find Twilight or 50 Shades "good". Because they objectively aren't.

      The Hunger Games...I'll be honest. I mostly enjoyed the first book and found the other two to be either redundant or poorly executed (the 2nd book felt like filler, the 3rd book undid all of Katniss's potential agency). The writing quality is fine, although it's not amazing. Concept is solid, but not revolutionary. Themes are explored mostly well, although as I said, it stumbles big time in the 2nd and 3rd. It felt like a series that would have worked much better as 2 books, not 3. And with a better exploration of choice/agency, because ultimately who Katniss ends up with is sort of decided for her by circumstances. It's the one legit choice she had in a story about being used by different sides and it was a big disappointment that it was handled the way it was. It's not a bad series, it's just very overrated in certain respects. And it gets compared to Twilight a lot because it has a female protagonist and a love triangle. Yet it could be argued that at least Bella makes an active choice, one that is not influenced by other events. And her character does grow throughout the series in a way Katniss kind of doesn't. I know which story messages I overall prefer, and which one is written better, but THG isn't exactly problem free.

      So, yes, it's definitely a coincidence. Ask him about Margaret Atwood or Shirley Jackson, you'll find it's not female authors OR female audiences he has an issue with. He doesn't even have an issue with popular, pulpy fiction.

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        ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ : Riot GRRR is RUNNING WILDDodai Stewart
        9/26/13 2:58pm

        Is it just a coincidence that all those books are by women?

        I would say that of those three, The Hunger Games is the only one that most of us actually like, and 1 out of 3 isn't all that different than 0 out of 3.

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          rainbowdashcrashʕ•ᴥ•ʔ : Riot GRRR is RUNNING WILD
          9/26/13 4:25pm

          It's worse than that. There are 3 50 Shades of Grey books, 4 Twilight books, and 3 Hunger Games books. Most of us only liked about 2.5 of the Hunger Games books in terms of material. Sooo 2.5/10.

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        samDodai Stewart
        9/26/13 2:33pm

        As a woman i don't think it's a woman thing, i think it's cause all those books are very poorly written and crappy (to say the least).

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          3fingerzbrownsam
          9/26/13 2:47pm

          My wife, who reads anything and everything she can get her hands on, has read Hunger Games and Twilight and will be the first to say that they're both enjoyable trash, that's a step above fan-fiction.

          Nothing wrong with that. Just like pop-music, pop-lit serves a purpose. Lets just not go throwing the gender card out there all willy-nilly like, ok?

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          southerngothicksam
          9/27/13 10:40am

          Yep Sam, you are quite correct. I tried all those books just to see what all the whoopin and hollerin was about, and couldn't even get through 30 pages. On 50 Shades, I couldn't even finish the sample on my Kindle. I advised people to read "The Story of O" instead- much better writing, and you get a feeling of superiority besides.

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