Have you voted yet? Radio 4 Woman's Hour are running a competition to see which book by a female author has had the biggest effect on people's lives- men and women. Books you can vote for include Rebbecca by Daphne Du Maurier, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, The Women's Room by Marilyn French and many more. Vote online at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/wwf/
- by 12 November.

Yes, but you can't vote for Angela Carter or Simone de Beauvoir or A S Byatt. How did they compile the list? Is it just books they've had on the programme? Does anyone know?

Where can I vote for my favourite book by a male author?

Ah, I'll lookup the Booker Prize winner's list...

Hahahahahahaha, IB.

What, No Angela Carter? What about Margaret Atwood? I'm off to have a look......

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Oh, it's not Women writers - unless I've missed out on some vital info about Thomas Hardy.

It's actually novels that have "changed the way we see women". I'm sorry, but Bridget Jones..??

Bridget Jones didn't change the way I see women. Indeed it afirmed my belief that they are hapless, malleable creatures worthy only of contempt.

My point exactly, IB!

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The nominations were made by R4 listeners. here's the criteria:

the novel which has spoken to you on a personal level. It may have changed the way you look at yourself or simply made you happy to be a woman. As a man, it may have affected your understanding of the women in your life. Your selection can be written by a man or a woman, in this country or abroad, as long as it touched your life in some way

That's weird. I voted for Angela carter a long time ago, but then you were able to write in your own choices.... I also said that I thought they were going about it wrong because they said vote for your favourite book by a writer, then told you to name a novel, and I wanted to name a bookof short stories. And I did, too.

Mine would be Mary Shelley. Considering she was only 19 when she wrote the book, and its influence on science, and the fantastical genres, not to mention early Hollywood and theology.

JB

Yeah, Frankenstein is a fantastic book by a female author, but bearing in mind that we now know it's not books by female authors, but books that have changed the way we see women.....?

I'm quite tempted to say Moll Flanders - surely that must have changed a few views on women in its time!

The list you can vote from now is the longlist. Originally people could send in their own choices, which then got whittled down etc.

I've just voted for Tess of the D'Urbeyvilles, the book that taught me, aged 16, that relying on men was the road to ruin...

Adele.

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A glaring omission is surely Madame Bovary: the book that taught me never, ever, ever to marry someone dull and live in the country, even if the poor unexpressive soul does really love you and shows great posthumous care in chosing your coffin.

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And before IB gets there first, yes, my top picks are by men, because they know the secrets of making women really miserable :)

OK, how about books that have changed the way we see men?

Hanif Keureshi's Intimacy is one of mine. It made me realise that men truly are all led by a particular part of their anatomy (that isn't their brains).

Catherine

Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. Extremely good insight into a very particular male world. D H Lawrence on the feminine side of men, anyone?

I really want to read Bonfire of the Vanities.

Have just initiated this discussion in my office. Someone suggested Tony Parsons as an antidote to my Keureshi, i.e. helping us see the sensitive side of men. No way! I read Man and Boy and (between vomiting) was rooting for his way too angelic boy to grow up into a heroin addict!

Sorry, I obviously have 'issues'.

Cath