A disturbing number of these DO relate to my life. I think I really AM in a Tom Stoppard play.

Another I need to add to my TBR. Looks hilarious! And as someone working in the publishing industry, I'm sure to love it and hate it at the same time. Can't wait. :)

I actually have a copy of The Apothecary, a friend gave me an advanced copy. I'd be happy to send it to you when I've read it, if you don't get it before then. Hope you do pull in a book haul for the holidays!

Eats, Shoots, & Leaves inspired me to get a punctuation tattoo when I first read it several years ago. It sounds silly, but it really was a life changing book. Also, LOVE the entire Penguin design team. :) Hope SOMEONE brings you some books this year!

I DEVOUR anything and everything by Melina Marchetta. Jellicoe Road is on my Top 5 favorite books EVER list. It's a little hit-and-miss with Geraldine Brooks, for me, but I did love her Year of Wonders and the historical pieces of People of the Book. And of course I also love and recommend everything Mem Fox has ever written.

As for people you haven't mentioned, as children's literature is my expertise, here are a few names: Garth Nix writes fantastic fantasy for young adults, among them Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen, known as the Abhorsen trilogy. Robert Ingpen is a phenomenal children's book illustrator, and let's not forget the famous Shaun Tan and Markus Zusak - though very different, equally lauded writers (and Shaun Tan as an illustrator, too). And my personal favorite - P.L. Travers, author of Mary Poppins, was actually born in Australia.

Nora Roberts has done more for that genre in the last 20 years than any other writer I can think of. Though she did begin writing novels that showcased women being helped by men, her novels from the mid-90s on have proven to have increasingly strong female characters who prove themselves to themselves FIRST, before then accepting a partner into their lives. Her "In Death" series written as J.D. Robb does this similarly.
In terms of paranormal romantic fiction, Christine Warren's books almost all have an interesting discussion about male/female gender roles and expectations. The Mercy Thompson series and Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs are some of the best novels I've read in this genre featuring women who save themselves, their partners, and the day, despite there being big strong men (and werewolves and vampires) around.
Feminism and romance CAN exist, and I personally believe have been doing so from the time of Jane Austen - who was writing very independent women for her time - to Gene Stratton Porter, who was writing in the early 1900s and not only lived a unique lifestyle (maintaining a separate residence from her husband who she did love and have a child with), but also wrote about strong women who stood on their own two feet, even as they fell in love with men who supported them, to Scarlett O'Hara from Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind and authorized sequel Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley, to those authors I mentioned who are writing today.

Great list! Because I have a Master's in Children's Lit, it's hard for me to remember what books I discovered in childhood and what books I discovered more as an adult, as it seems like I never stopped reading children's books. I do remember loving a lot of old classics like Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster and Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott. And of course, the original Nancy Drew series.