RECESSION, leg-warmers, Spandau Ballet and Ultravox on tour, shoulder-pads, Boy George and George Michael in the news -- God help us, the Eighties are back.

There's one crucial difference though. The first time around we didn't have chick-lit to entertain us. No, back then a girl had to make do with Mills & Boon-style romance or Jackie Collins-type blockbusters. What a choice: either you were reading about someone's bodice being ripped or a leggy blonde called Montana jetting from LA to Paris and back again. The heroes were all handsome, rugged and rich. Nobody ever got off with an accountant or wrestled with trying to fit in to their jeans during their time of the month. Is it any wonder I read so much Anita Brookner?

I can still remember my excitement at getting my hands on Dublin 4 by Maeve Binchy, published in 1981. Imagine being able to read about places that were familia. What a novelty! Dublin again played a starring role in 1990 with the publication of Patricia Scanlan's first book City Girl. Five years later, in 1995, two books were published that changed the landscape of women's fiction forever. In Bridget Jones's Diary and Watermelon Helen Fielding and Marian Keyes respectively presented us with women who were "just like us". Far from mere chicks, these girls were independent, had bills to pay, work issues, men issues, mother issues and fitting-into-jeans issues. They didn't jet off to St Moritz for the weekend or buy their knickers on Rodeo Drive. If they did go mad on holidays or fancy underwear, then they, like the rest of us, had to face the inevitable credit-card bill. They may have been looking for Prince Charming, but they'd be quite happy to snog a pharmacist or a bricklayer. Keyes describes these books and the ones that followed as "the literature of post-Feminism," charting the lives of a generation of women who were out on their own, being told they were equal to men but knowing that in reality they were still being asked to sit at the back of the bus.

The most distinguishing characteristic of chick-lit and what set it apart from the women's fiction that had preceded it was, and still is, the humour. But nowadays, chick-lit has a bad name. A recent article in the New York Times defined chick-lit as "pink-covered books festooned with high-heels or Birkin bags or Martini glasses". The same piece goes on to say that American writer Sarah Dunn's latest book, Secrets to Happiness, is most definitely not chick-lit as it "is smart, bitingly funny, laced with sitcom-sharp dialogue and bittersweet. Far from a confectionery tale, it reads more like a spiritual journey, one that follows (the heroine) and a cast of supporting characters as they try to turn their lives around." Funny, that sounds like classic chick-lit to me.

Aussie comedian Wendy Harper recently told the Brisbane Courier Mail that she made the decision to write chick-lit because she "has no desire to tackle a perfect work of fiction ... I wouldn't trust myself to write a literary novel because I'd want to make it funny." Why does humour devalue the perfection of a book? The short answer is, it doesn't. What about Jane Austen? Her books are all pretty much "perfect works of fiction" and they are hilarious. Is Austen taken more seriously than women writers today simply because she is dead?

You betcha. Austen did exactly the same job as Keyes, Cathy Kelly, Maeve Binchy and Patricia Scanlan -- she documented the lives and concerns of the women of her day. Love her or hate her, most readers will agree that Austen's books are both funny and clever. Yet, if Austen were around today, her works would be slapped between pink covers and she'd be dismissed as just another silly girl writing for equally silly girls. Austen's female characters were primarily motivated by the same things that motivate most chick-lit women -- money and mating. The main difference between Austen's women and the modern chick-lit woman is that for the former finding a man wasn't just a romantic goal, but also a financial one.

A "good marriage" had little to do with romance and everything to do with financial security. Ironically, Austen was one of the very few women of her social class who earned her own living. Oh yes, it was a man's world back then in the bad old days.

But have things really changed all that much? Is it purely coincidental that the boys like Tony Parsons and Nick Hornby who write lad-lit don't come in for a fraction of the criticism their female contemporaries get? Could it be, maybe, that plain old-fashioned sexism is at work here? Marian Keyes certainly thinks so. "Those who want to make women feel more guilty than they already do will try to demean the genre with the fluffy title of chick-lit."

Chick-lit has moved on since the early days -- the writers are getting older and the subject matter reflects their (and our) changing lives. Money and men still play a part in most modern women's lives but we have other concerns pressing for our attention -- ageing parents, childcare, infertility, infidelity, marital breakdown, menopause, divorce, troublesome teens, problems with our career and our work/life balance, illness and death.

The nominees in the Eason Irish Popular Fiction Book of the Year all reflect these changes and concerns. Many of the characters in the pages of these books are divorced or separated -- even uber-dude Ross O'Carroll Kelly is single again. It is a measure of how far Irish society has come since the divorce referendum of 1995 that in Cecelia Ahern's The Gift the imminent divorce of one of the characters is mentioned as an aside and is not a drama in itself. Similarly, quite a few of Maeve Binchy's characters in Heart and Soul are on their second attempts at wedlock.

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes tackles many serious issues -- domestic violence, alcoholism, serious illness and ageing parents. Cathy Kelly's Lessons in Heartbreak confronts depression, marital breakdown and attempted suicide and Kelly's description of Anneliese's attempt on her own life is both heartbreaking and enlightening. In Forgive and Forget Patricia Scanlan deals with the problems of "blended families" and ageing parents.

Women's lives seem to remain unchanged when it comes to caring for ageing parents. Take Judith in Forgive and Forget, who has sacrificed her own life to take care of her widowed mother. Although Judith has two siblings, they are married and therefore it falls to her, the spinster, to take care of the mammy. Judith is bitter and resentful, and who can blame her? Her single status left her with all the responsibility and ensured that she remained single. There are plenty of readers who will empathise all too well with Judith's plight.

Chick-lit, like contemporary crime fiction, is a reflection of our world and the way we live today -- only with nicer shoes and less grisly murders. But, like contemporary crime fiction not all chick-lit books are good. Unfortunately, for every decent hardworking author around, there are just as many hopping on the bandwagon and producing formulaic nonsense. However, as PT Barnum noted, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time and those on this year's list reflect that by having a loyal readership built up over many years.

If future historians want to know what life was really like in Ireland in the early 21st Century, they can pick up any of the books on this year's list and come away with a fairly good idea. That's the thing with contemporary chick-lit -- for most readers the themes are not remote and exotic, they are either a dry-run or a re-enactment.

The genius of these stories is not just identifying with the reader but also giving bit of insight. Understanding the emotional landscape of other lives is a valuable tool for anyone -- why should it be dismissed as trivial? So come on girls, say it loud -- we're pink, we're proud, get used to it.

- Anne Marie Scanlan