Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022, with Dini at Dini Panda Reads as co-host from February 2025.
Today’s topic for Let’s Talk Bookish is really interesting, and as Sunday (8th March) is International Women’s Day, it’s perfectly fitting. I admit, I had to dig a little and really think about this one – let’s dive in!
Let’s Talk Bookish 6th March:
Women Who’ve Shaped Your Reading Life
Prompts: March is Women’s History Month and March 8 is also International Women’s Day. In honour of this month celebrating women, let’s talk about the women who’ve shaped our reading lives. Was there (or is there) a woman in your life who sparked your love for reading? Who was the first woman author you remember loving? Do you tend to read more books by women authors and do you think that’s for a reason?
Okay, so the person who sparked my love for reading was…actually my granddad! He indulged me every time we went to their house, when I’d thrust a book at him and apparently demand – rather than ask – that he read. What I do remember is sitting on his lap as he read to me. Between him and my dad, that love of reading really grew. However, there were two very important women who truly nurtured that love, especially once I was capable of reading by myself.
I went to a very small primary school. There, we had dedicated reading sessions with Mrs Lane. They were never quite long enough for me! And I’d always ask if I could come back and read some more (by myself, of course, so she could continue reading with other pupils) like some of the older kids did, and the answer was always yes, if you finish your work. Usually some kind of maths or science, stuff I disliked, but I’d work through it because the promise of reading at the end was glorious.
I had many excellent teachers in that school, but it’s Mrs Roberts who not only encouraged my reading, who listened when I talked excitedly about the books I’d loved, but encouraged my writing, too. She read every single thing I’d write, often taking my exercise book home and coming back in the next day with a new short story. Reading and writing really do come hand in hand, and her encouragement was crucial in both areas.
As for first women author…it’s hard, because I think I was reading women authors before I was even conscious of what that meant. But I remember as a kid absolutely loving the Jacqueline Wilson books, these insights into lives so different from mine but occasionally similar to friends, with connections forged based on shared feelings and moments. And as much as I dislike what’s happened in recent years, I have to admit I loved the HP books, which I picked up shortly before the third book came out (and Mrs Roberts read the first to the class after I raved about them!). A little older, and it was Meg Cabot after seeing Princess Diaries, but then Meg Cabot’s more paranormal work which introduced me to a whole different genre, and a friend at Guides suggested, after we shared our love of Buffy, that I read Anne Rice.
These authors all shaped me in some way, and influenced my reading in ways that still persist today. And yes, I do tend to read more books by women authors now. There is a reason, and it’s because even ‘good’ male authors just totally drop the ball at times in the way they write women. I’m very selective in what I read by men. It’s also partly due to the genres I read – women do write more romance than men, in horror I’ve come across too many men who include sexual assault against women or write women largely as victims, and although there are some men who I do think write women well, sometimes I can tell from just reading a blurb a particular book isn’t for me. Similar with fantasy. It is very dependent, of course, and I wouldn’t discount anyone completely because of their gender!
I’d love to hear from you, too, about the women who shaped your reading life – are there women authors you remember reading as a kid? Women teachers, guardians, aunts, sisters etc who shaped your reading?
(As a sidenote, alongside my dad and granddad, there was someone else who influenced my reading, without even realising it – my brother! He had a great collection of Horrible Histories, Goosebumps and Point Horror, which I regularly stole and tried to read before he’d notice they were gone!)
Unwrapping Words 