@hrcastor God the number of Prominent Intellectuals going "women! I'm being told they exist, please bear with me while I investigate this” is...truly something.

@philistella IKR although 'please bear with me while I investigate this' is at least an advance on some other responses

@hrcastor Extraordinary.

@hrcastor he's such a goob

@hrcastor Astonishing, isn’t it. I’ve always been drawn to women writers, whether fictional or historical non-fiction. I honestly believe that for me they tell stories that resonate far more effectively than most men. (I grew up with 4 sisters, so that may have had an impact lol!)

@hrcastor Don’t forget the wonderful @trowelblazers Amelia Edwards who wrote “1000 miles up the Nile” & founded the @TheEES The Edwards Professor @UCLarchaeology @PetrieMuseEgypt is from her bequest.

@hrcastor The novel has always been a marginal cultural form ...even in the times of Dickens & Austen it wasn't the poor who was reading ... I wouldn't be as pessimistic as this guy, we like our books in Ireland & several of them have been water cooler moments.

@hrcastor I may be missing something, but when Self says the novel is "doomed", pointing to Trainspotting as the last book people talked about, isn't he forgetting Rowling and the HP series?

@hrcastor My old HoD is writing a book about the civil war and he came to visit me this week. He told me he had no idea there’d been any women in the civil war and he’d been teaching it for 20 yrs. 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

@hrcastor But the novel is dead! *says man who doesn’t read women*

@hrcastor @sockeyejo Interesting #RSutcliff on herself in memoir Blue Remembered Hills, with background to starting writing. Also various brief bits #ReadingRosemarySutcliff

@hrcastor Well certainly depends on the age of the books you listed..shamefully women were kept from writing for ages

@hrcastor What's very funny is the way he can't decide whether it's the (gutenberg, novel-reading) mind that's dead or the form itself.

@hrcastor @hannahrosewoods LOADS of ‘water-cooler’ books since trainspotting; white teeth, we need to talk about Kevin, the curious dog...., the blind assassin, cloud atlas to name but a few....none of Selfs books of course. 😉

@hrcastor The novel was long see as a female art form. So maybe he wouldn't think it was doomed if he read female authors

@hrcastor I have the opposite issue. Seems my favourites happen to be female. Ann Patchett is a wonderful writer... and fascinating person, or so she seems from what I read! I’m just discovering Lucy Grealy,(natural progression from Ann Patchett.)I hear Currer, Ellis + Acton Bell are good!

@hrcastor @KateHarding After a professor handed out a list of all-make non-fic authors, I politely asked if he could include some women, and he sputtered so much I think I actually broke him?

@hrcastor @ldobsonhughes Oscar Wilder's mother, Jane Wilder.

@hrcastor I really ought to read some Self, but I find it hard to take his seriousness seriously.