Rumer Godden and Muriel Sparks are authors my book club has enjoyed. I do not like Jodi Picoult, but she writes books that book clubs seem to like discussing. (Mine did 3 and I then rebelled!) The author of In Her Shoes, Jennifer Weiner, wrote a book called Little Earthquakes following the life changes of three women after they had a child-depending on the ages/life stage of your group, they might "resonate with that!" She spoke at an authors' luncheon and read aloud from the book-we were rolling in the aisles!
Also, Phyllis Levin wrote a wonderful biography of Abigail Adams-who famously wrote to her husband..."remember the ladies" when they were crafting laws for the new USA!
Joanna Trollope writes "aga sagas" about women in crisis, or flux, or change...
two other books that my bookclub did with mixed reviews-some loved, some hated:
The Tattooed Girl by Joyce Carol Oates (it is harsh and gritty)
Ahab's Wife I think the author is Neslund...sorry, my copy is gone.

I am co-founder and webmaster of our book club. I have listed the books that we've read and also the next few that we plan to read. You can check them out at www.grinsbookclub.com
Our favorite so far has been One Thousand White Women.

your bookclub and mine have read several of the same books-we all enjoyed Mockingbird (written by a woman so it would fit your criteria, Julie) and Geisha, (he uses a man's name and photo, but we all agreed he was a woman in another life...would that count?) ;-)
I have made a note of the Blue Bottle book to recommend for the future.
jftr: I'm pretty sure that Pearl Buck said it before John Lennon did-but it is one of the pithiest quotes I've ever heard! (you have to visit maryann's website to understand.)

A Thousand White Women was a favorite of our group, too.

Others we've read:
The Inn at Lake Devine by Lipman, Elenn - a nothing of a little story imho
The God of Small Things by Arundhati, Roy - exquisite
Ahab's Wife by Naslund, Sena Jeter - picked it, loved it, group was less impressed
An Unquiet Mind by Jamison, Kay Redfield - a psychologist shares her own battle with bipolar disorder and fascinates
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Bloom, Amy a collection of short stories
The Pact (a Love Story) by Picoult, Jodi
Wait Til Next Year by Goodwin, Doris Kearns - growing up a Dodger's fan on Long Island. This was the book that convinced me Goodwin plagiarized a lot. It has none of the language grace we find in her other work. Still fun read.
West With The Night by Markham, Beryl - fascinating true account of a woman pilot in Africa
The Custom of the Country by Wharton, Edith
The Man Who Loved Children by Stead, Christina - some hated, some thought it was the best book they had ever read
The Gardens of Kyoto by Walbert, Kate - lovely
Deep Water Passage by Linnea, Ann - found in the self-help section which should have disqualified it, but it is the account of a woman who circumnavigates Lake Superior in a kayak and is really an adventure story wrapped around a spiritual quest.
Back When We Were Grownups by Tyler, Anne - any
Ann Tyler, anytime as far as our group is concerned.

I'd also say that about A.S. Byatt, Margaret Drabble, and Margaret Atwood

>of the women make it extremely limiting by insisting that we only read women authors

This actually isn't as limiting as you might think. Aside from the ones above, here are more

Amanda Davis Wonder When You'll Miss Me

Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum and her latest, Case Histories

Isabel Allende House of Spirits

Amy Tan JOy Luck Club, House of Spirits

Tracy Chevalier Girl with the Pearl Earring; Unicorn Tapestries

Ursula Hegi Stones from the River

Speed of Dark Eliz Moon

Pearl Buck The Good Earth

Gail Godwin- anything

Audrey Niffeneger Time Traveler's Wife

Jill Payton-Walsh Knowledge of Angels (may offend very religious folk, but very interesting book)

Eliz Von Armin - Anything!

Jill McCorkle - Anything!

Salley Vickers - Miss Garnet's Angel

Jane Gardam - Queen of the Tambourine

Kaye Gibbons Charm for the Easy Life

Eliz McCracken Niagara Falls All Over Again

And those are just the women authors in my office. If you need more I can check on the rest of the shelves

All of these books are well written, and have enough complexity that makes for good discussions. Enjoy!

I visited Maryann's site but didn't see a John Lennon quote. What page is it on? (I'm a quote hound.)

It is in the description of the book Blue Bottle that they are going to read and discuss soon. I love quotes too, and that one I knew had been attributed to Buck, earlier than Lennon.

I've been in a book club for nearly four years now. These are some of my favorites:
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
Crow Lake - Mary Lawson
Reading Lolita in Teheran - Azar Nafisi
The Persian Pickle Club - Sandra Dallas
Three Junes - Julia Glass
The Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
The Nine Parts of Desire - The Hidden Life of Islamic Women - Geraldine Brooks
Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons - Lorna Landvik
Empire Falls - Richard Russo
The Good Earth - Pearl Buck
Five Quarters of the Orange - Joanne Harris
The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Light on Snow - Anita Shreve
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Night - Elie Wiesel

Well, if it helps, here's a list of female authors and books I've read and have generally good opinions of (some of which have already been mentioned or are really obvious.)

Margaret Atwood
Janet Fitch - White Oleander
Jodi Picoult
Sarah Hall - The Electric Michelangelo
Margaret Laurence
Alice Munro
Toni Morrison
Audry Niffenegger
Anne Rice
Julliane Hoffman
Sarah Waters
Penny Sumner - Tree of Angels
Tracy Chevalier - Girl with a Pearl Earring

Which still begs the question - why on earth would anyone only read women authors? I'd miss a lot if I only read men...

My book club's been meeting for several years and this post made me wonder just how many good discussions we've had about books authored by women. I am the person in charge of keeping the master list, so I checked. These are the books that are authored by women. Asterisks indicate a good discussion.

Here are the results:
The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd
Bel Canto ** Ann Pachett
Two Women Marianne Fredriksson
The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton (only two people finished it in time for the meeting. I was very upset.)
And Then There Were None (10 Little Indians)Agatha Christie (we then watched the old B&W movie)
Princess ** Jean Sasson
The Jane Austen Book Club (awful discussion. everyone hated this book.) Karen Joy Fowler
My Sister's Keeper ** Jody Piccoult
The Red Tent ** Anita Diamant
Bee Season Myla Goldberg
Women of the Silk ** Gail Tsukiyama
The Art of Mending Elizabeth Berg
The Historian (again, not everyone finished it. The discussion could have been great, but wasn't.) Elizabeth Kostova
The Glass Castle ** Jeannette Walls
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio ** Terry Ryan
Pope Joan Donna Woolfolk Cross

Can you suggest a "men only month" and have just male authors to see if it alters the discussion at all? It seems like you are crossing off much of the great literature up to the 1900's by excluding men. Most of my club's selections were written by men, incidentally. But that's not intentional. We just pick the books we are interested in reading.

PAM

I'd have a hard time being limited to only female authors. Our book club has been meeting since October 1999 and we are pretty proud of the fact that we stretch our limits. All of us have said at one time or another that we've read (and enjoyed!) a book that we otherwise would not have picked.

I'll submit some of our titles as soon as I can get the list and find the time to stay online for a bit...

I am in two book clubs. Some of the more memorable books have been listed,like Bel Canto. What a wonderful discussion we had with that one. Others are

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down...Anne Fadiman
Small Island...Andrea Levy
March..Geraldine Brooks...this year's Pulitzer Winner
On Beauty...Zadie Smith

Pam and martic, I would guess that the 'women authors only' limit was to encourage the reading and buying of their novels. I read somewhere that there are more woman authors, but they tend to be fewer on the best seller lists, so....julie, have you asked them for a reason?

I can't limit my reading due to gender, nationality or any other characteristic. In fact its rare that I know the name of the author of a book, let alone the gender (this has changed a bit since I've been in online reading groups)

Julie, I, too, am interested in why some of the women want to limit themselves to women authors. I'm afraid I'd be tempted to stick in George Elliot and James Tiptree, Jr. just to see what happened. Well, maybe not Elliot, that's too obvious.

Oh, you'd be surprised by how many don't know who George Eliot is. And you could put in Evlyn Waugh. And I wonder if George Sands ever wrote her memoir?

To the wonderful suggestions generated so far, I would add Zora Neale Hurston for "Their Eyes Watching God" as well as some of the books by Nadine Gordimer (especially "The Pick Up,) Doris Lessing (The Fifth Child,) Jhumpa Lahiri (The Namesake) and Amy Wilensky's memoir-type books.

Julie, if you run the group and it is just some of the women insistent on reading only women, why don't the rest of you just add in whatever you please? Or was this group started specifically to explore women authors? I have to admit, I've tried to impose parameters on my own group a few times but other than the bare-bones ones we started with (no romance nonsense, no flavor-of-the-month bios, nothing too fluffy) I've had no success! We have a great time anyway.

we only have three rules-no sci-fi, because the majority don't like it, nothing longer than 600 pages, and it has to be available in paperback. Oh-and the knowledge that if you don't show up, we'll talk about you! The fact that we take turns bringing selections keeps us pretty well-rounded-the member who kept proposing trendy chick lit resigned after we read two of hers and all felt that even though it was a fun summer read, there was really nothing to discuss.

Oh--my group also does the "must be available in paperback" rule although I think we've kind of relaxed that one as long as the library system carries the book. We also take turns in that the dozen or so of us hold a planning meeting at which we all bring several books, each member proposes their books, we vote on our favorite, assign the member a month in which they are responsible for preparing and leading the discussion for their book and end up having a schedule at least a year long. I think our "division of labor" as well as the variety of books chosen has served to keep our club together for five years--well, that and the fact that we meet in restaurants and really relax and enjoy ourselves, too. Who chooses the restaurant? The member whose turn it is to lead the discussion, of course.

My group doesn't have a "paperback only" rule. What we've done, and this just evolved on it's own, is when we are presenting selections, we state the book's availability. We may say a book is only in hardcover but the library has four copies, for example... and add that Costco or whomever sells it for only $12. That way we know the chances of having to buy a hardcover or paperback or just getting from the libary before we vote on the next month's book. We also share books. If someone buys it, she reads it and shares it with others. I've only had to buy about five books in the years we've been meeting.

PAM

Shirley Hazard,Emily Bronte,Gertrude Stein,Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Eudora Welty, Sylvia Plath,Emily Dickinson, Ellen Bass, Margaret Oliphant, Ann Bannon, Mary Mccarthy, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Anne Tyler, Edith Wharton, Alice Munro, Kate Braverman, Emily Post, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Nora Roberts, Dorothy Parker, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen.

Mix your current modern female authors with these women on this list and I guarantee your book club will be a hit and mindblowing for some of the members. I was lucky enough to be invited to join a reading group of elderly ladies. They wanted a pair of fresh eyes so I got in and they turned my world upside down. Books can do that to you.

So can elderly ladies! They are some of the best informed...and educated...patrons we have at the library. Try to steer them toward the paperback romances at your peril!

My bookclub just read A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell-beautiful book, great discussion, and woman author.