Some may think this all sounds inflammatory. But come on: take a look at who occupies all the positions of power in our society (politicians, executives, etc.) and look at which gender, on average, makes more money than the other. Sexism is alive and well, and it just becomes more pernicious if we all allow things like this list a pass.

As a woman and a writer, I believe it is more important to focus on the successes of woman in literature, instead of being angry about a list made by group of people sitting fatly in overstuffed chairs in a boardroom somewhere. It is purely opinion, and while it may be unjust, it is important to remember that we live in a time where we are lucky that we can write under our own names instead of a male pen name; that our voices can be heard.

If this year went the the men; hell, it happens. This just means as writers we need to step up our game and prove ourselves just as worthy of a top ten list.

My guess is they wanted to be ‘up front’ about their choices (since they figured many people would notice the lack of women on the list), but I think they did more harm than good with their ‘commentary.’

I obviously can’t say that what they chose was ‘wrong’ because the list is only an opinion of which books they thought were best. But instead of tackling how ‘politically incorrect’ the list was, couldn’t they have done a better job of explaining the value of the books in the intro? Books should be chosen because of their content — not necessarily because of who wrote them.

By the way @Courtney: Agreed! Way to go geeks!

And @Tanya Paperny: Agreed; they could have made an effort to write about women in the industry instead of not doing anything at all.

I’m sorry, you mean this isn’t a satire piece? I thought such nonsensical gibberish went away after the 1990s. It’s a “top ten”, not a “top ten carefully selected so as not to offend any possible minority, majority, political or religious group, animal breed or anyone else who might possibly be unhappy about it”.

What does it matter if the top ten books were written by men? Or women? Or children? Or purple giraffes with homosexual tendencies? The only reason it’s important to know who wrote them is so you can find other books by the same people.

Even if that’s not the case, I think PW could have made a much bigger stink about it, more than the sad hat-tip in the editor’s note. Perhaps an article about women in the publishing industry? Why women make up 60% of the buyers and readers but probably a small fraction of authors (that might not be true for non-fiction)?

Or maybe PW should reveal who the judges were. By simply looking at the masthead of their website, I deduced that of 25 senior editorial positions, only 9 are women (and I’m guessing even less are people of color, etc.).

Yes to throw in a token woman and more people of color would have been offensive, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t other solutions and other responses that could have been made.

… So what?

I’m a woman writer. A while ago it came to my attention that my favorite books all happened to be written by men, with the exception of two YA authors. It doesn’t make me sexist. Get over it, people.