WE LEARN
Women Expanding /
Literacy Education Action Resource Network

Adult
Learners

Educators &
Librarians

Resource
List

Research &
Foundations

Additional
Links

litwomen.org

Contact
WE LEARN

Information for Adult Learners

Writings by
Women Learners

Kitchen Table Wisdom
Find out what other women learners have to say!

• CHAT
• Reviews
• Opinions
• Advise

booktree

Resource List
Listing of Reading Materials and Other Learning Resources

Conversation Circles

• topics raised in the Spring of 2001

• summary of individual groups

• Hold your own conversation circle

Conversation Circle Summary

AUTHORS AND TITLES

These are some of our favorites.

In the conversation circles, the women who participated listed many titles and authors they enjoyed. Several authors were mentioned many times. Stephen King was named the most. Maya Angelou was the second most popular. Other authors suggested at least twice included Terry McMillan, Alice Walker, Donald Goines, John Grisham, and Ann Rice. Sometimes women remembered what the book was about but couldn't remember the exact title or author. Women also listed several magazines that they like.
This is the complete list of authors and titles that women brought up in the conversations. For more reading materials, be sure to check out the RESOURCE page.

Author / Title

What kind of book
it is

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

"the book he wrote about his life"

Autobiography

V.C. Andrews
Flowers in the Attic

Horror

Maya Angelou
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

And her poetry

I would prefer though books about African American women. The only one I read was by Maya Angelou and that was just a gang of poems about us. You know what I'm sayin'? So if we can get more writers about what we need to do, what we need to try to do, what we can do to make our youth better. There's different cultures in here but I would like to know more about my black women, you know, back in the day and all that other stuff. That's what I would prefer to read though I never picked a book out, like Maya Angelou but that's a lot of poems.

Memoir

Poetry

Donald Goines (all of them)

Fiction

Sue Grafton

Mystery

John Grisham

Mystery

Stephen King
      Town Murders (?)

Two of his books were about domestic violence and women were leaving their household. It was intrigue. It was a woman's story and she was running from her husband and I think in the 1st three chapters she was getting up the nerve to leave before he got home. It was good.

Two domestic violence books
      Dolores Claiborne
      Rose Madder

Horror

Mystery

Suspense

Fiction

Terry McMillan
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
Waiting to Exhale

Fiction

Ann Rice

Horror

Nora Roberts

Romance

Iceberg Slim

Fiction

Iyanla Vanzant
(The books about her life)

Memoir

Alice Walker
The Color Purple

Fiction

Katherine Woodiwiss
The Wolf and the Dove

I first started reading them when I was a teenager and it was all about sleepover teen nights. And then the librarian came in high school and she said, "Here I got a book for you and you'll like it." And she threw it in my lap and I thought to myself, " I'm never going to be able to get through that book - there's no way on earth I'm going to read that book." But then I sat down and read the prolog and then I just went through it until I was done. And then I got hooked on her and I read all her books.

Romance

Women authors from Mexico and Latin America

Chicken Soup for the (Women’s) Soul

Inspirational / Self-Help

Daycare & Diplomas: Teen Mothers Who Stayed in School, by Students at South Vista Education Center

Parenting & Education

…. "For Dummies" series - especially the one about computers -- Computers for Dummies

"how-to" books

Four Sisters series of books

Fiction

Harry Potter series

Children’s books

Hate Hurts: How children Learn and Unlearn Prejudice

Parenting

Here on Earth (Alice Munro)

I highly recommend the book Here on Earth. I thinks it's one of the best books I ever read but they wouldn't let me read it in high school. The stuff they read in high school was not interesting. Even though Here on Earth might be aggressive, it was an excellent book to read.

Fiction

Historical romance about Harriet Tubman
(can’t remember the title or author)

Romance

The "Letter’ series - Letters from Vietnam and Letters from Prison - real letters written by soldiers in Vietnam and people in prison

Memoir

Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)

Children’s Fiction / Fantasy

Nancy Drew stories

Children’s Mysteries

Shiloh

Children’s book

The Bible

Religious

The Women of Brewster Place (Gloria Naylor)

Fiction

Magazines

Mademoiselle
Country Living
Glamour
Oprah
Source
Right On
Working Woman
Parenting
Parents

News for You

They're all different subjects. They do kind of interest people. And it's not intimidating like a regular newspaper because it has larger print. It's only eight pages so it's not a big newspaper.

A newspaper for adult learners

Video - "Rainbow"

About African voodoo

Choose another theme by selecting a button or Return to Learners Page