I used to have a lecturer at university who would spit on the floor every time he mentioned Virginia Woolf's name. He had no issue with her writings (he acknowledged their merit) but he loathed her as a person. This memory always returns to me when I pick up a book by this author and, while I am yet to make up my opinion of her in terms of her as a person, I am absolutely certain that I adore her writing.

I love reading texts like this where I get so excited just from reading a paragraph or a sentence that particularly struck me, and this frequently happened in A Room of One's Own. Told partly in Woolf's iconic stream of consciousness style, Woolf discusses the subject of women and fiction, a topic which was posed to her to discuss in a lecture. She writes about her struggle defining what that meant and how easily she could have talked about women such as Brontë, Eliot and Austen but how that wouldn't have satisfied her, nor would it have done justice to the matter at hand. From there on, we stand with Woolf at the bookshelves, looking at the past to the then present-time, and judging how far women have come in terms of literature as well as in society as a whole.

The first chapter can read a little slowly, especially if you are unfamiliar with Woolf's typical prose and style. This is the second book I've read written by her and it did take me a few moments to return to her rhythm and currents. Once I settled back into it, it feels only natural to write in this manner and could enjoy it to its fullest. She makes some statements I don't entirely agree with but there is a conversational tone to it, open to discussion and opinions, so it didn't deter from what Woolf was trying to accomplish.

Women and fiction is an endless, ongoing topic that I felt Woolf handled extremely well and I feel it is a great piece for anyone even remotely curious on the subject.