What do Margaret Atwood, Khaled Hosseini and Sapphire have in common?

The Handmaid's Tale was the first Atwood book I read, when I was still in undergrad. It's one of those books that had such a profound effect on me, I can remember everything about the experience of reading it--who lent me their well-worn copy; the sights, smells and noises of my surroundings as I devoured it; each reaction and emotion I had as I worked through the story; the discussions I had with fellow fans during and after my reading of it.

While I'm a lover of books (one of my favorite summer activities growing up was my parents driving us to the library and checking out a towering stack of books, which I'd start reading on the way home and would be finished by the time we returned next week) there are only a few I can think of that inspired such a visceral reaction. Jane Eyre. The Rapture of Canaan. A Thousand Splendid Suns.

It occurred to me that all of my "important" books featured complex, intense, strong female protagonists. Pop psychology would probably tell me that's because I identify with those characters and therefore create an emotional attachment to their stories. But I think it's more than that. After all, how much do I have in common with any of the characters in the above books besides an XX chromosome? 

Pop culture today--whether TV, movies, books or otherwise--leaves little room for the narratives of complex, atypical women. In movies, we've heard over and over that studio execs are loathe to green-light a film with a female lead, as we're told that women will see movies with men and women, but men will only watch men. Thus, rarely do stories not starring characters seemingly custom-made for Kate Hudson make it to the silver screen; and when a film like Precious (based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire) is a hit, we're told it's a fluke. In bookstores, most books by female authors have a pink cover slapped on them and immediately tossed in the pink ghetto of the "chic lit" section. On TV, cable has given us some wonderful female characters--Big Love and Mad Men come to mind--but on the regular channels, it's either high school hotties plotting love triangles, or nagging housewives reigning in their nincompoop husbands. Yawn. 

So when a story comes along that shows flawed, human, complex, wonderful female characters, it's no wonder I connect strongly with them: they're a rarity. I'm like Charlie Buckett in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," slowly savoring the one candy bar he's given a year, metering it out over days, memorizing each tactile reaction, because he knows it could be a year before he's given another.

What do you think? What are your "important" books? Do you think more women's stories need to be told--or are the studio execs right, and there really is no market for them?