The year when I only read books by women

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[danawithrowdickson]

I already respect and enjoy your comments and reviews of books but to know that you dedicated an entire year to female authors is absolutely amazing. It sounds like you came away from that year with a better understanding of what women go through on a daily basis. I cannot adequately express how much your year of women authors means to me. My respect and admiration for you has grown considerably. Thank you.

[cassie_hart]

"Build my woke empire and destroy the industry" - LOVE IT!
I really admire that you took a whole year out to read fiction by female writers. I'm curious now to see what my reading spread looks like - though I think I definitely read more diversely than I used to. I grew up on a steady diet of male authors because that's what was available. I enjoy Book Riot's Read Harder challenge every year for pushing me to explore books that I wouldn't necessarily reach for automatically and diversity on a range of axes.

[WhytheBookWins]

This is so great! I know when "me too" happened and in general when women talk about sexual harassment, men tend to dismiss it and like to think women are being over dramatic or too sensitive. It's great you actually took Minnie Drivers words to heart and dedicated a whole year to women writers!

[centy]

"Do what you want I've already got your money for my woke empire to destroy the patriarchy" CLASSIC.

[BookwormAdventureGirl]

The fact that you did this Olly, says a lot about who you are. Thank you. Your reflections on the differences are very interesting especially less action and more violence. Your thoughts on reading the one book by a male author - and especially the book it was - is very interesting too. Great video Olly. Is this something you would consider doing again? Love Rebecca. 😊💙

[TheShadesofOrange]

I'm terrible for commenting but I really love what you do. Great video as always. That's quite the challenge to undertake, particularly in the genres you read. I definitely notice some unintentional biased in my own reading

[LettersfromLou]

I really appreciate your views and thoughts in this video Olly- I found it really interesting. I also
really respect how in light of the “Me Too” movement you reflected on how you could understand the plight of these women and women in general.I think the more we can learn how to be the best allies to people different to us, whether that be gender, sexuality, race, disability etc the better this world will be. Great video 😊

[lindsay]

It's too bad your article is not available anymore, but thank you for putting your thoughts about the project into this video. I found it very fascinating! I think your experiment also touches on how much we can learn from fiction about how other people experience the world. The value of fiction as a learning tool can be underappreciated. I'll have to go through your 2018 reading list more slowly and pick out some titles to try out!

[pastorytime]

Oo very stressed by your Goodreads inbox!! Great project! Sian

[SirStuckey]

Last year I did a "read 12 new to me female authors" challenge (I tend to keep my challenges pretty low key because I like having the freedom to roam throughout the year.

I did it because I had 3 authors (Le Guin, O. Butler, and Atwood) that were near the top of my TBR but just missed being picked. I ended up really enjoying it and finding a new favorite along the way (Butler).

[FullyBookedMelissa]

Wow, that's quite the commitment! Very interesting project and results. I think it's extra interesting that the one male authored book you read was so male centred. What a contrast!

[barbaraboethling]

This was a fascinating video! I really appreciate your reading project, and admire you for it! It seems like a total immersion is a good way to tease out some of the differences in style and content between male and female writing. What you learned is interesting, so much so that I want to try this project too. Thanks for the inspiration!

[sarahcountryman]

Love your intro for this video! For you to read something (the quote by Minnie Driver) and think, 'Yeah, you're right, Minnie. I don't know how you feel and I'm going to learn more.' is admirable. The world would be such a better place if more people wanted to learn about what they don't understand. Now on to the books ... I have read 6 of the books in your list and really enjoyed Sometimes I Lie and Fever Dream. I haven't read the Jesmyn Ward you read, but have read Salvage the Bones and Men We Reaped. They both left me in tears, but I loved every page of them, so beautiful, 5 stars. I have added the Sarah J. Maas books you read to my TBR along with the Becky Chambers. I recently bought A Psalm for the Wild-Built based on your praises in other videos. One female horror author that you must read is Bari Wood! Have you read any of her books? I have read all of them except Twins and am holding out because I don't want to have read all her books just yet. lol Another great horror female author I've read is A.R. Morlan, just terrific writing! I recommend Dark Journey and The Amulet! Have you read Rebecca since filming this video? Another extraordinary book! Thanks again for publicly acknowledging and not dismissing the voices of women. Much love.

[nylorac]

Really cool project. I had my spouse try reading a variety of romance books since I am a lover of romance and he was surprised to find they were more interesting than he'd imagined. Definitely expanding any learning horizon and gaining new experiences can be enlightening. Sometimes you discover new things you enjoy and sometimes you discover more about yourself.

[superblomper]

Loved your point about dialogue differences! Snappy dialogue is obviously fun to read and can give a book an exciting pace, but I'm perhaps more impressed when I sit back and realize I've been reading pages & pages of regular ol' dialogue & was engrossed the entire time. To me, that's a mark of a very gifted writer. I appreciate your work to understand the struggles of women better. I just finished Rebecca a few days ago & was stunned by how much I enjoyed it. I think you'll have a great time with it.

[lindah]

Thank you, Olly. I very much appreciate you having done this big reading project by way of reading women authors. My husband has a hard time understanding the daily threats that women experience from age 10+/- on. Most are small and annoying but some are big and others are life-threatening. It sounds like this project was illuminating for you and I very much appreciate that you did this . . . thank YOU!

[AliceandtheGiantBookshelf]

I am seriously impressed, I’ve never really looked at or thought about how many of the books I read are by men or women, I feel like within crime I definitely read both. I may have to take a look at what the balance actually is. It was so interesting to hear your thoughts about what was different about your reading, especially when you did then read a book by a male author and what you noticed. Definitely recommend picking up Rebecca asap, and I was glad to see a fair few Christie books on your goodreads page for the year. 😊📚

[chriscze]

Great video - as a queer POC person, who got into reading again just last year, I'd say the majority of books I read are by women, often of color, and many are openly queer too. There are some books by straight white male authors I absolutely adore (if you're reading this Ollie I think you'd love The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson), but it's territory I tread with caution. So it's cool to see the perspective of a white man trying to branch out and get new perspectives, because isn't that what the best literature is able to provide for us?

[carolbates]

Thank you. I see that you read Sue Grafton that year. I’ve read all her Kinsey Milhone books; she’s an all-time favorite of mine. I also like P. D James, Janet Evanovich, Muriel Spark. Thank you.

[jimsbooksreadingandstuff]

Great video. When I was a teenager my reading was almost exclusively by male authors and mainly horror, sci-fi and some fantasy. The sole exception at the time was Anne McCaffrey. I wasn't into romance and didn't think women writers would interest me. But then I got into crime in the 1990s and discovered a lot of great women writers from the classics like Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith to more recent writers like Sara Paretsky, Ruth Rendell and Patricia Cornwell, with crime I was almost exclusively reading women writers. Now I read a plethora of different genres, I'm still not overly keen on romance but I have read Jane Austen and the Bronte Sisters, my reading each month is a mix of male and female authors. I've just finished a fantasy book by V E Schwab, I'm currently reading a Margaret Atwood and Erin Morgenstern is on my March TBR alongside some male authors. It opens the mind to read as widely and diversely as possible is that what it means to be "woke" to be enlightened and empathetic?