Ladies We Love

MANILA, Philippines - Smart stylish women who line our bookshelves here at YStyle: Take a gander at the women who inspire us — in the library and on the red carpet.

Joan Didion

In the canon of female literary giants, Didion might well be their pope: shrewd, incisive and unafraid of a little nihilism. Though her latest work Blue Nights offers a candid glimpse at the author in mourning (her spouse of over 40 years, John Gregory Dunne, succumbed to a fatal heart attack), Didion neophytes should invest in her book of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

Gillian Flynn

Flynn is famous for her dark, unflinching portrayal of female villainy. Her 2006 debut Sharp Objects and her latest Gone Girl are pure thriller: riveting and sharp. Stephen King called it an “admirably nasty piece of work.”

Jhumpa Lahiri

The Pulitzer Prize winning author of Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake treads familiar ground in her work — an immigrant in the grips of an identity crisis — yet manages to find grace amid the struggle in diaspora.