Actually I miscounted, I’ve read 20. Books I’ve read that I’d recommend: The Secret History, Persepolis, and Cold Comfort Farm. Books I’ve read that I hated: Madame Bovary, The Second Sex, and The Good Earth. I’ve tried to read both Possession and Sophie’s Choice, but ended up putting them down. Although I think I would really like Possession.

But I have been known to have dreams that end up happening IRL, for no rational explanation

Would you have a dream that someone buys my house, despite the current economic mess?

Then maybe I can relax a bit and maybe read a couple of the books on that list.

that list is another one of those, let's take a representative selection from each woman writer, throw in a few men writing about women, and call it an essential list.

Yeah, the fact that most of the books were suggestions from comments really shows. I mean, And Then There Were None is fun and all, but essential reading for women? And Angela's Ashes? Seriously?

There's stuff I'd quibble with on the The Esquire list, but nothing that seems quite so "I've lost the point and am just listing books I liked."

I won't hold you to that

I'll content myself with my turquoise pashmina, then.

I'll content myself with my turquoise pashmina, then.

That's much more your style than a pink cardigan -- even in the dream, I wondered why you were wearing it!

I wondered why you were wearing it!

Was it paired with rhinestone cat's-eye glasses?

This list is way too skewed for books that I suspect will be forgotten in 50 years.

Any list that doesn't have Sexual Politics or The Awakening is suspect. Other omissions: Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, Moll Flanders, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Emily Dickinson, Sarah Orne Jewett and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Jane Eyre was on there. But Emily Dickinson is a huge omission! I guess it was tending towards fiction, but Dorothy Parker was on there, who I think of mostly as a poet and a quipper.

24 books on the women's list

14 on the men's

Gone with the wind you have to read between age 13-and 15 to enjoy.

10 on the men's list. 6 of those were because they were assigned in high school (Rabbit, Run; For Whom the Bell Tolls; Heart of Darkness; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Moby Dick; and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold).