Want to know what books Maria Sveland recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Maria Sveland's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
Charlotte Roche, Tim Mohr | 2.91
With more than one million copies sold in Germany and rights snapped up in twenty-seven countries, Wetlands is the sexually and anatomically explicit novel that is changing the conversation about female identity and sexuality around the world.
Helen Memel is an outspoken eighteen-year-old, whose childlike stubbornness is offset by a precocious sexual confidence. She begins her story from a hospital bed, where she’s slowly recovering from an operation and lamenting her parents’ divorce. To distract herself, Helen ruminates on her past sexual adventures in increasingly uncomfortable... more With more than one million copies sold in Germany and rights snapped up in twenty-seven countries, Wetlands is the sexually and anatomically explicit novel that is changing the conversation about female identity and sexuality around the world.
Helen Memel is an outspoken eighteen-year-old, whose childlike stubbornness is offset by a precocious sexual confidence. She begins her story from a hospital bed, where she’s slowly recovering from an operation and lamenting her parents’ divorce. To distract herself, Helen ruminates on her past sexual adventures in increasingly uncomfortable detail, taking the reader on a sensational journey through Helen’s body and mind. Punky alienated teenager, young woman reclaiming her body from the tyranny of repressive hygiene (women mustn’t smell, excrete, desire), bratty smartass, vulnerable, lonely daughter, shock merchant, and pleasure seeker—Helen is all of these things and more, and her frequent attempts to assert her maturity ultimately prove just how fragile, confused, and young she truly is.
As Helen constantly blurs the line between celebration, provocation, and dysfunction in her relationship with her body, Roche exposes the double bind of female sexuality, delivering a compulsively readable and fearlessly intimate manifesto on sex, hygiene, and the repercussions of family trauma. less 
Maria SvelandThis is a recent book by a German writer. It caused huge controversy when it came out because she writes explicitly about her very special sex life. It’s one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. It’s so absurd and really twisted. (Source)
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2
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of Backlash--an unflinching dissection of the mind of America after 9/11
In this most original examination of America's post-9/11 culture, Susan Faludi shines a light on the country's psychological response to the attacks on that terrible day. Turning her acute observational powers on the media, popular culture, and political life, Faludi unearths a barely acknowledged but bedrock societal drama shot through with baffling contradictions. Why, she asks, did our culture respond to an assault against... more From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of Backlash--an unflinching dissection of the mind of America after 9/11
In this most original examination of America's post-9/11 culture, Susan Faludi shines a light on the country's psychological response to the attacks on that terrible day. Turning her acute observational powers on the media, popular culture, and political life, Faludi unearths a barely acknowledged but bedrock societal drama shot through with baffling contradictions. Why, she asks, did our culture respond to an assault against American global dominance with a frenzied summons to restore "traditional" manhood, marriage, and maternity? Why did we react as if the hijackers had targeted not a commercial and military edifice but the family home and nursery? Why did an attack fueled by hatred of Western emancipation lead us to a regressive fixation on Doris Day womanhood and John Wayne masculinity, with trembling "security moms," swaggering presidential gunslingers, and the "rescue" of a female soldier cast as a "helpless little girl"?
The answer, Faludi finds, lies in a historical anomaly unique to the American experience: the nation that in recent memory has been least vulnerable to domestic attack was forged in traumatizing assaults by nonwhite "barbarians" on town and village. That humiliation lies concealed under a myth of cowboy bluster and feminine frailty, which is reanimated whenever threat and shame looms.
Brilliant and important, The Terror Dream shows what 9/11 revealed about us--and offers the opportunity to look at ourselves anew. less Maria SvelandThis is the book she wrote about 9/11 and how terrorism started a backlash against women – a reversion to mythical roles. I think she is the most important female writer working now. She has written so many important books. I really admire her. In this book she looks at what happened in America – how suddenly there was a feeling that women should go back to housekeeping and childcare instead of... (Source)
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3
Marilyn French, Dorothy Allison, Linsey Abrams | 4.08
The twenty-one-million copy bestseller-available again for a new generation of readers Originally published in 1977, The Women's Room was a novel that-for the first time-expressed the inner lives of women who left education and professional advancement behind to marry in the 1950s, only to find themselves adrift and unable to support themselves after divorce in the 1970s. Some became destitute, a few went insane. But many went back to school in the heyday of the Women's Liberation movement, and were swept up in the promise of equality for both sexes. Marilyn French's characters represent this... more The twenty-one-million copy bestseller-available again for a new generation of readers Originally published in 1977, The Women's Room was a novel that-for the first time-expressed the inner lives of women who left education and professional advancement behind to marry in the 1950s, only to find themselves adrift and unable to support themselves after divorce in the 1970s. Some became destitute, a few went insane. But many went back to school in the heyday of the Women's Liberation movement, and were swept up in the promise of equality for both sexes. Marilyn French's characters represent this wide cross section of American women, and her wry and pointed voice gives depth and emotional intensity to this timeless book that remains controversial and completely relevant. less See more recommendations for this book...
4
Erica Jong and Fay Weldo | 3.48
Bored with her marriage, a psychoanalyst’s wife embarks on a wild, life-changing affair
After five years, Isadora Wing has come to a crossroads in her marriage: Should she and her husband stay together or get divorced? Accompanying her husband to an analysts’ conference in Vienna, she ditches him and strikes out on her own, crisscrossing Europe in search of a man who can inspire uninhibited passion. But, as she comes to learn, liberation and happiness are not necessarily the same thing.
A literary sensation when first published in 1973, Fear of Flying... more Bored with her marriage, a psychoanalyst’s wife embarks on a wild, life-changing affair
After five years, Isadora Wing has come to a crossroads in her marriage: Should she and her husband stay together or get divorced? Accompanying her husband to an analysts’ conference in Vienna, she ditches him and strikes out on her own, crisscrossing Europe in search of a man who can inspire uninhibited passion. But, as she comes to learn, liberation and happiness are not necessarily the same thing.
A literary sensation when first published in 1973, Fear of Flying established Erica Jong as one of her generation’s foremost voices on sex and feminism. Nearly four decades later, the novel has lost none of its insight, verve, or jaw-dropping wit. less Maria SvelandI was looking for books that dealt with these issues of family, love and the ability to live. When I was starting to write Bitter Bitch, I looked for literature dealing with the issues burning inside me. That is, whether there was any possibility of living and loving within a romantic relationship. I couldn’t find anything written today. It was all written in the 70s. This is about Isadora, and... (Source)
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5
In this vivid portrait of one day in a woman's life, Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with far-away remembrances. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices she has made, hesitantly looking ahead to growing old. Undeniably triumphant, this is the inspired novelistic outline of human consciousness. more In this vivid portrait of one day in a woman's life, Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with far-away remembrances. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices she has made, hesitantly looking ahead to growing old. Undeniably triumphant, this is the inspired novelistic outline of human consciousness. less 
Charles FernyhoughWoolf is interested in the intersections between minds. She’s trying to show how minds bleed into each other. (Source)
Maria SvelandIt’s one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. I could really identify with Clarissa, this empty, poor person who is going out to find some flowers for a party. At the same moment, we are following her out into the beautiful morning as the story starts. It’s clear very soon that Clarissa is a woman who has lost her soul among all the duties and conventions of a boring marriage. That loss is so... (Source)
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