The Top 50 Women Writers of the last 50 years (1960 – 2010) voted by thousands of New Zealand readers nationwide.
Author Favourite Title
1. Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale
2. Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible
3. Janet Frame An Autobiography
4. Annie Proulx The Shipping News
5. Patricia Grace Tu (et al)
6. Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook
7. Rose Tremain Music & Silence
8. Carol Shields The Stone Diaries
9. Elizabeth Knox The Vintner’s Luck
10. Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum
11.= A S Byatt Possession
11.= Fiona Kidman The Captive Wife
13. Isabel Allende The House of the Spirits
14. Alice Munro Runaway (et al)
15. Margaret Drabble The Radiant Way
16. P D James Death in Holy Orders
17. Jodi Picoult My Sister’s Keeper
18. Margaret Forster Have the Men Had Enough?
19. Shonagh Koea Sing to Me, Dreamer
20. Keri Hulme The Bone People
21. Jenny Pattrick The Denniston Rose
22. Pat Barker Regeneration Trilogy
23. Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things
24. Alice Sebold The Lovely Bones
25. Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club
26. Joanne Harris Chocolat
27. Fiona Farrell Book Book
28. Philippa Gregory The Other Boleyn Girl
29. Audrey Niffenegger The Time Traveler’s Wife
30. Kate Grenville The Secret River
31. Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea
32. Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces
33. Anita Shreve The Pilot’s Wife
34. Weldon, Fay The Life and Loves of a She Devil
35. Chimamanda Adichie Half of a Yellow Sun
36. Marilynne Robinson Housekeeping / Gilead
37. Margaret Mahy Memory
38. Geraldine Brooks People of the Book
39. Anne Tyler Digging to America (et al)
40. Kate De Goldi The 10pm Question
41. Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall
42. Alice Walker The Color Purple
43. Paullina Simons The Bronze Horseman
44. Ann Patchett Bel Canto
45. Joanna Trollope The Choir
46. Jung Chang Wild Swans
47. Lionel Shriver We Need to Talk About Kevin
48. Joyce Carol Oates We Were the Mulvaneys (et al)
49. Andrea Levy Small Island
50. Toni Morrison Beloved