I read that NYT article about male writers. I left a comment that basically men needed to start reading more novels. According to statistics they really aren’t. They seem to read less than women and the books they read tend to be nonfiction, science fiction/fantasy and spy thrillers. I just feel like this is a market forces phenomenon. If they were out there buying literary novels like women are, then there would be more books published for them. Instead they’re listening to Joe Rogan for hours. They could also listen to audiobooks of literary fiction!
There were some pretty unfortunate comments by men. That actually books suck now (because more are written by women I guess) and that why aren’t women forced to read books written by men the way they’re forced to read, say, The Handmaid’s Tale. I mean, I personally read books by men because I am curious and don’t need to be told to do so! I think if men read more novels they might be less reactionary (hooking into the theme of this post).
I will be curious on what your opinion is on this.
There's a lot of threads you can pick at in thinking about what's going on and I think your point about reading is a major one. There is a cycle where if women are the predominant buyers of fiction then the market is going to respond by giving the audience what they're after, which becomes a self-reinforcing pattern as publishers chase the trend, rather than considering if there's an underserved audience. I also think the idea that men just want to read men is sort of nuts. I'm in the midst of compiling my favorite fiction of the year for my Tribune column and books like Rental House, The Weding People, Margo Has Money Troubles, All Fours are just plain good books. Another favorite, The Book of George, has a male main character that's written by a woman. I want to tell my fellow men to just relax a bit, get curious, break out of the patterns you may have become comfortable with and you might just find some really interesting things.
Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickeled and Dimed” is as relevant today as when it was published in the late 1990s. The rich have gotten even more obscenely wealthy and the struggles of the working poor have become even more pronounced.
Yes. It's this — looking forward while relying on books that help us see — that is our only choice right now in these absolutely terrifying days.
I read that NYT article about male writers. I left a comment that basically men needed to start reading more novels. According to statistics they really aren’t. They seem to read less than women and the books they read tend to be nonfiction, science fiction/fantasy and spy thrillers. I just feel like this is a market forces phenomenon. If they were out there buying literary novels like women are, then there would be more books published for them. Instead they’re listening to Joe Rogan for hours. They could also listen to audiobooks of literary fiction!
There were some pretty unfortunate comments by men. That actually books suck now (because more are written by women I guess) and that why aren’t women forced to read books written by men the way they’re forced to read, say, The Handmaid’s Tale. I mean, I personally read books by men because I am curious and don’t need to be told to do so! I think if men read more novels they might be less reactionary (hooking into the theme of this post).
I will be curious on what your opinion is on this.
There's a lot of threads you can pick at in thinking about what's going on and I think your point about reading is a major one. There is a cycle where if women are the predominant buyers of fiction then the market is going to respond by giving the audience what they're after, which becomes a self-reinforcing pattern as publishers chase the trend, rather than considering if there's an underserved audience. I also think the idea that men just want to read men is sort of nuts. I'm in the midst of compiling my favorite fiction of the year for my Tribune column and books like Rental House, The Weding People, Margo Has Money Troubles, All Fours are just plain good books. Another favorite, The Book of George, has a male main character that's written by a woman. I want to tell my fellow men to just relax a bit, get curious, break out of the patterns you may have become comfortable with and you might just find some really interesting things.
Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickeled and Dimed” is as relevant today as when it was published in the late 1990s. The rich have gotten even more obscenely wealthy and the struggles of the working poor have become even more pronounced.