Reviews - A Room of One's Own

8.81k reviews for:

A Room of One's Own

Virginia Woolf

4.21 AVERAGE

jobarclay_reads's review against another edition

5.0

challenging funny informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

lupo333's review against another edition

4.5

informative reflective

carolines_spines's review against another edition

5.0

hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

While written in it's time, a great many points of this book still hold true. one must wonder about women poets and writers in Afghanistan, who have their windows bricked up – and isn't a room of your own with a view essential? – and are not even allowed to speak to their own children or amongst themselves in public, let alone publish books. one must think about the countless poetesses and writers – even in the western world – that are kept too busy cleaning, cooking, child rearing, or – having lost the protection that Woolf mentioned – labouring too hard in other, albeit professional, areas to write. for Woolf's main point stand steadfast, almost a hundred years later: to write, one needs enough money to live on and a room of one's with a lock, where no one disturbs the thinking and writing; not children, not husband, not callers.

Woolf's stream of consciousness style is wonderful to read and to imagine her character from it. she skillfully weaves stories, metaphors and parables around her arguments that never left me bored and made me underline way too many phrases – even though I left out many I wanted to underline simply to take a closer look at their design later. but I'm sure I won't forget to check up on them.

joehobson's review against another edition

4.5

challenging hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Once again I picked up a Virginia Woolf book based on knowing a little bit about a big things and feeling ignorant for never looking into it further. And once again I was left awestruck by how good it was, how prescient and relevant to today, even though it's almost 100 years old. Not perfect, but it's the best analysis and explanation of the patriarchy I've read, and it should be required reading for anyone that cares about equality.