Best-selling Australian author Kathy Lette has hit out at a leading industry magazine for failing to include the work of any women on its annual list of top 10 books.
Women won several major literary awards this year - including the prestigious Man Booker Prize - but Publishers Weekly did not have any female authors among its must-read picks for 2009.
"Apparently dinosaurs still roam the earth. They're all at Publishers Weekly," Lette told The Independent On Sunday.
"This list proves that the only support women authors get is from our Wonderbras.
"As women make up 90 per cent of the fiction-buying public, perhaps we should make a point and girl-cott male authors until our work is given the same critical acclaim and public backing."
Lionel Shriver, the prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, believed publishing took men more seriously than women.
"Female writing is regarded as second tier; there is a default assumption that men are the heavy hitters," she said.
The magazine's reviews director, Louisa Ermelino, said it had "disturbed us" that the list was all male, but gender and genre were ignored in the selection process.
"We gave fair chance to the 'big' books of the year, but made them stand on their own two feet," she said.
Last week, Lette said she was determined to gloat after receiving an honorary degree of Doctor of Arts from Southampton Solent University.
The author, who left school in Sydney aged 15, said book critics tended to be "condescending" if writers didn't have a degree.
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