By Laurie Hertzel
A reader forwarded this link from the Guardian about the outrage simmering over Publishers Weekly's top ten books of 2009--outrage because all ten books are written by men.
Certainly there were lovely, important, serious books this year written by women--"Wolf Hall," by Hilary Mantel, won the Booker Prize. Alice Munro published a new collection of short fiction. Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt and Lorrie Moore all had new books this fall.
Novelist and journalist Louisa Ermelino announced the PW list, saying that PW "wanted [it] to reflect what we thought were the top 10 books of the year with no other consideration." "We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz," she said. "We gave fair chance to the 'big' books of the year, but made them stand on their own two feet."
She said that it did disturb them when they realized the list was all male.
Here is the PW top ten list. Do you agree with it? Who do you think is missing?
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
