Agreed.
Most of the D&D Forgotten Realms books are trash but I still read a bunch of them back in high school and remember “Azure Bonds” to be a fairly enjoyable exception.
I’m a big fan of Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone series.
I just finished the Fallen Empire series. Which is kind of like gender swapped Firefly.
I also love the Tuesday Next books by Jasper Fforde.
Quite a few, actually:
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Friday by Robert A. Heinlein
Memoir of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
A Widow for One Year by John Irving
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
I’d be happy to go into more detail about any of these.
Agreed, but this is one of the few times IMHO where the movie is actually better than the book.
Yup. Read Harlan Ellison’s excellent unproduced screenplay, and she’s even more important.
:smack:
I like the Tiffany Aching series myself, along with the Witches- Wyrd Sisters , Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, & Carpe Jugulum.
Hogfather &Thief of Time with Susan Sto Helit, Monstrous Regiment also have female protagonists.
Tanya Huff. Connie Willis. Jessica Day George , Patricia C. Wrede .
Do the Hawk & Fisher series with a wife and husband partner count?
The Pern series.
This is correct. Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, from the Harper Hall Trilogy, feature Menolly as the sole protagonist in a girl’s coming of age story. Moreta’s protagonist is a woman who has a semi-legendary status in books later in the chronology; the book is sort of the unabridged version of the ballad immortalizing her deeds.
The two Menolly books have always been among my favorites in the series. They’re “young adult” books, but they’re a refreshing contrast to the heaviness of the main storyline.
Quite a few:
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple
Pretty much anything by Laura Lippman (various characters, mostly in and around Baltimore)
Many of the novels of Sharyn McCrumb (I was always partial to If I’d Killed Him When I Met Him)
Sara Paretsky (the VI Warshawski novels)
Some of Lisa Scottoline’s works (lawyers in Philadelphia)
Crow Lake (Mary Lawson)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
I liked the early Flavia de Luce novels by Alan Somebody (Bradbury, maybe?)
And the early Scarpetta novels by Patricia Cornwell, till the series dived over a cliff.
As an adult, I liked the Little House on the Prairie seres very much. (I didn;t read them as a kid.)
There are others, I’m sure.
I drew a sharp distinction as a boy between “books I would read” and “girls’ books,” and so did most of my (male) friends. What’s interesting, looking back, is how many books-with-girls-as-protagonists did not apparently qualify as “girls’ books.” I read, reread, and thoroughly enjoyed, among others
Harriet the Spy
Ramona the Pest
Alice in Wonderland
The Wizard of Oz
A Wrinkle in Time
…Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Pippi Longstocking
and certainly felt no embarrassment about being seen reading them. But things like the Betsy-Tacy books, or Little Women, or some other books that Madeleine L’Engle wrote, or A Little Princess…that was different, and I wouldn’t have been caught with one of those in my hands. (And maybe I knew something…I had to read a section of Little Women recently for a project I was wroking on, and we will just say it is very far from being my cup of tea…) Anyway, simply having a girl as the main character of a book did not damn it the eyes of me or my friends.
Jack Vance’s Araminta Station.
And of course Atlas Shrugged.
All of the above, and I’ll add:
Jan Burke’s Irene Kelly detective novels, especially from Hocus on.
Tommyknoc- Ow! Who threw that?
Dolores Claiborne is really good though. Also Raymond E. Feists Daughter of the Empire series.
Just picked up the latest Confederation (Peacekeeper) Book by Tanya Huff. The later books shift viewpoints, but the first had only Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr as the protagonist. This was my 5-6th ish reread of the series in prep for the new book.
Also thirding (or whatevering) the Deed of Paksenarion (Elizabeth Moon), also Once a Hero (well, most of the Serrano Series), and Vatta’s War series,
A Wrinkle in Time (L’Engle),
Friday, To Sail beyond the Sunset (Heinlein),
early Honor Harrington, In Fury Born (Weber)
Cordelia’s Honor (Omnibus, Bujold)
Dancer of the Sixth (out of print now, by Michelle Shirey Crean)
Expendable, Vigilant, Ascending, Radiant (James Alan Gardner - The entire League of Peoples series is excellent, but the listed ones have female protagonists)
-DF
I love Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series. Yes, she has a habit of getting saved from things to some extent. But I love her and the stories just the same. It’s just the right type of fantasy for me. And, while she has a husband, that means no romance plots thrown in, either. Oh, and she actually gets older.
Nothing else comes to mind right now. But that series will always be in mind when people mention female protagonists.
Another vote for Paksennarion; I’m actually re-reading the series right now in fact.
I’ll put in a word for the Daisy Dalrymple series of mysteries, by Carola Dunn, set in the 1920s. They’re on the “cosy” side of the mystery genre; and Daisy, the heroine and amateur sleuth, is a splendid character and all-round good egg – but IMO, none of all the foregoing, is as much thus as to be cloying / sickening: balance got just right, I feel.
Ooo yes. I absolutely second these (although the “Nursery Crime” spinoffs are not as good and don’t feature Thursday).
I’ll heartily recommend any of the Jane Austen novels, especially Emma and Pride and Prejudice.
My favorite author of recent times has been Lois McMaster Bujold, who was already mentioned upthread; she tends to have strong female leads. I much enjoyed Paladin of Souls. It is an excellent book about finding our place in our own personal God’s plan for the world. A very satisfying story. (Second in a series)
I’ll second Chapterhouse: Dune, although I do get a little put off sometimes by Herbert’s writing.
If comics count, I’ll throw in Brian Bendis’s Alias. Jessica Jones is one of Marvel’s best characters.
Some of my likes have already been covered, but I don’t think anyone has mentioned Tim Pratt’s Marla Mason books yet.
Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.