✨ Welcome back to another week of LTB! ✨
Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and myself! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics HERE.
This week’s topic is:
Women Who’ve Shaped Your Reading Life
Prompts: March is Women’s History Month and March 8 is also International Women’s Day! In honour of this month celebrating women, let’s talk about the women who’ve shaped our reading lives. Was there (or is there) a woman in your life who sparked your love for reading? Who was the first woman author you remember loving? Do you tend to read more books by women authors and do you think that’s for a reason?
Was there (or is there) a woman in your life who sparked your love for reading?
When I thought of this question I think I was most excited about reading everyone else’s answers because I have a feeling that a lot of people have someone in their life who helped spark their love for reading, and I can’t wait to read your answers! 💜
As for me personally, I didn’t have anyone like that growing up. My parents, while not discouraging, were indifferent and none of my teachers really nurtured my bookish habits. My love for reading was mostly earned through self-discovery (and honestly a sense of “self-preservation”) as I retreated to the library almost daily to escape bullying when I was in elementary school. 😅
Who was the first woman author you remember loving?
Well, I guess the first woman author I remember loving was Francine Pascal, author of the iconic Sweet Valley series. I started with Sweet Valley Twins and ended with Sweet Valley Univeristy in about Year 9 (I was probably too young to be reading the SVU books, lol) but I was obsessed with these books!
I have to admit that HP was also a huge part of my childhood, although I’m loathe to have anything to do with this author now. I vividly remember walking into the National Bookstore in the Philippines, where we were living at the time, and they were having this big launch for the first book and a bookseller basically handed my mum a copy and said “your daughter is going to love this book” and so she bought and love it I did. Getting swept away in those books holds some very good memories for me! Following these books there was of course Meg Cabot with Princess Diaries (after the movie), Cecily von Ziegesar with Gossip Girl (way before the show), and Zoey Dean with The A-List (felt so underrated at the time). I can’t honestly say that I read these books because of the authors being women, or that I was really thinking how I loved these women authors back then. It felt more that I loved their books and so I loved them, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s the same thing…
I think the first woman author that I remember really loving as a young adult/new adult was Jodi Picoult. I first discovered her books in Year 12 after somehow stumbling upon The Pact in the school library. I don’t even know why I pulled that book from the shelves, but I’m so glad that I did because wow! Her stories swept me up and she’s still one of my all-time favourites even now. She has a way of exploring complex and messy issues and situations, weaving them into such compelling stories that will tug on your heartstrings and make you think deeply. I quickly ate up the rest of her catalogue in the library and once I ran out of those books, I sought out as many of her books as I could find! I’m still hoping to rebuild my collection of her books now.
Do you tend to read more books by women authors and do you think that’s for a reason?
Yes, I do tend to read more books by women authors. I first noticed this back in 2023/24 when about ~98% of my reads were by women authors. I can’t say that it has always been this way though because I think when I rediscovered my love for reading again back in 2015/16, the majority of the books I read were by male authors. This probably started changing in 2017 when I started exploring other genres outside of fantasy like historical fiction, literary fiction, and of course, romance. However, the ratio of women authors on my read list has far eclipsed the that of men over the years. Interestingly though, while I wouldn’t say I read more books written by men in 2025, about half of my favourites were by men!
Aside from the fact that I read a whole lot of romance where the majority of authors are women, I don’t know if there’s any particular reason why I mostly read books by women and less by men. I guess you can say a big part is probably to do with the readers I surround myself with, who are mostly women, but even the men mostly read books by women too. I think books by women are also what I see mostly promoted on social media so they just end up being the ones that I pick up!
Don’t forget to check out the other bloggers who joined the discussion this week! 👇🏽
Yolanda @ Past Midnight
Elle @ Unwrapping Words
Emma @ Pages of Emma
Raji @ Worlds Unlike Our Own
Kenn @ Novelistic Pages
Abyssal Librarian
Rachael @ The Green Tea Librarian
If I’ve missed your post this week, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments, and I’ll add you to this week’s list of community posts ASAP!
What about you, dear reader? Was there a woman in your life that sparked your love for reading? Who was the first woman author you loved? Do you mostly read women authors?
dinipandareads 
I also can’t think of anyone I had while growing up who especially influenced my reading. My parents let me read and go to the library, etc. but they didn’t read themselves. I also didn’t ecounter a lot of remarkable English teachers, frankly. I did major in English and had some great professors, but by that time I was pretty well entrenched as a reader anyway.
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