Shields makes top-10 UK list of best books written by women

ArtsCanada

LONDON - Canadian author Carol Shields' latest novel Unless cracked the top 10 in a list of Britain's 50 best-loved books written by women.

The novel about a woman's grown daughter who suddenly drops out of university and lives on the streets of Toronto ranked ninth on the list, edging out Canadian writer Margaret Atwood's book The Handmaid's Tale which finished 11th.

The Blind Assassin , which won the 2000 Booker Prize, was 25th.

The list was based on 6,000 votes compiled by the Orange cellular telephone company which sponsors the annual prize for the best novel by a female author. Unless has been shortlisted for that award.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen topped the list.

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre ; Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights ; Middlemarch by George Eliot; and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier rounded up the top five.

Jane Austen's Persuasion and Emma took the sixth and seventh spots respectively followed by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein , Shields' Unless and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird .

J.K. Rowling's four Harry Potter books all placed in the top 50.

Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone ranked the highest among the series of books at 13, followed by Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (16), Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (31) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (43).

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