No women in PW’s top 10 best books of 2009?

By Marjorie Kehe | 10.29.09

Publishers Weekly’s top 10 best books of 2009 is already here and there isn’t a female author on the list. “Really, PW?,” asks Connie Ogle of the Miami Herald. “No women wrote great books in 2009? Not Margaret Atwood, not A.S. Byatt? Hmmmm. Makes me skeptical.”

You can see PW’s entire list here as disclosed by USA Today.

I’m actually prepared – tentatively – to buy the response from PW on this ( “We wanted to pick the best 10 and we came ready to mix it up, and although we were surprised that, when the dust settled, it wasn’t the most politically correct list – there are no women authors, for example – the balance of our top 100 reflects a remarkable diversity”) Ogle finds it “half-hearted” but when the top 100 comes out on Nov. 2 I’m guessing the balance will be in evidence.

In the meantime, however, I have a couple of additional questions. One is: Was “Big Machine” really better than, say, John Pipkin’s “Woodsburner”? Also, to echo Connie Ogle again, if you put out your 10-best list before Halloween, does that mean you also have to put your Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving?

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