Bibliofemme News
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14/09/2004
Poll to find "life-changing" book for women by BBC
BBC Radio 4 is set to launch a reader's poll to discover the novels that have changed the way women view themselves. The women's literature prize, The Orange Prize for Fiction, surveyed 400 women from academia and the arts to get the start the BBC poll.
This initial survey comprises a longlist of 40 titles with titles like Little Women and Catch 22 in the running. The list - dubbed the Women's Watershed Fiction book - will be part of BBC Radio 4's long-running programme Woman's Hour. The 40 will then be whittled down to a Top 10 of women's "essential reads". The public can vote for any book, by a man or woman and not just ones on the list. Both men and women are being encouraged to vote.
Professor Lisa Jardine, who conducted the research for the Orange Prize for Fiction said: "We were fascinated as researchers by the very idea of a life-changing book, the fact that absolutely every woman we spoke to had one and the wide variety of things that book meant to each individual woman." She also defined a watershed book as: "a book that has made a difference in a woman's life".
A final list will be announced on 8 December and the Top 5 list so far includes the following books:
1 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
3 The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
4 Middlemarch by George Eliot
5= Beloved by Toni Morrison
5= Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
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