The first few books on feminism I read were Le Guin's Language of the Night, Woolf's A Room of One's Own, Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar's A Madwoman in the Attic, and Russ' How to Suppress Women's Writing. I still love them, but they are very weak on race and class issues. I think the first thing I read on class was probably Tillie Olsen's Silences. Well, and Marx and Enghels.

Some other books that got mentioned at Wiscon: Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Decolonizing the Mind and Trinh T. Minh Ha's Woman Native Other.

But also, I read theory because I like it and find it useful. I don't think the point of Wiscon to disempower people who aren't academics.