Posted on 08/07/2021 5:01:35 PM PDT by Rummyfan
A writer for The Guardian, M. A. Sieghart, has asked the perennial question, “Why do so few men read books by women?” Curiously, the people who always ask this question never follow up by asking how women authors might better appeal to men or how the publishing industry might get a better share of the underserved male-readership market. No, the assumption is always that men have something wrong with them and need to change. It’s not the books that are the problem, it’s you. The customer is in the wrong.
Sieghart notes that the top-selling lady novelists have a disproportionately female readership, but though she treats this as a mystery with sinister implications, it’s not actually hard to understand what’s going on when she names who those top-selling authoresses are: Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Danielle Steel, and Jojo Moyes.
She proposes the answer that men don’t take women seriously. The actual answer, obvious to anyone outside Sieghart’s elitist cultural bubble, is that men aren’t interested in what those women write. Danielle Steel writes trashy romances. Jojo Moyes writes trashy romances. Jane Austen wrote non-trashy romances. Atwood writes a variety of things but is best known for a pearl-clutching feminist screed that confuses Baptists with the Taliban, though she also churns out an occasional apocalyptic science-fiction novel disturbingly obsessed with child pornography.
To put it briefly and bluntly, men don’t want to read that shit.
(Excerpt) Read more at deusexmagicalgirl.com ...
I like to read I never cared about or thought about whether the author was a man or a woman. No doubt most of the books I’ve read were written by men. Women generally don’t write about things I’m interested in. But I’ve read some terrific books by female authors such as Lusitania by Diana Preston, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang and Island of the Lost by Joan Druett.
I really wish I could like Flannery O’Connor for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, I can’t substantiate that she’s that good a writer through what I’ve read by her.
such hogwash ... two of the most brilliant fiction authors ever in the U.S. were Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Willa Cather ... their novels and short stories are must-reads for anyone who enjoys brilliant stories of the past set in rural America ... [there’s also a wonderful movie about Majorie Rawlings staring Mary Steenburgen called “Cross Creek”] ...
We men are a strange lot. I guess most men view life as a test. A test of character. Would I stand up under pressure in life or death situation? Am I a coward or am I not? We think we are not cowards but nobody ever really knows. War provides the perfect avenue to find out and is always a fascinating subject for men even those that never felt the sting of battle.
After reading that book I decided I would never have a bad day again in my life.
When I was a teen, Andre Norton was my favorite SF author. I have recently re-read a number of her books and still enjoy them.
I see what you did with your name there.
My favorite is Ender’s Game. Has been for around 25 years now.
The movie was so bad I didn’t know if I wanted to cry after it.
J. A. Johnstone, great cowboy novels.
To put it briefly and bluntly, men don’t want to read that shit.
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I’m an avid reader, in the local library a couple of times a week, and I usually purchase a book or two at least once a month. I almost never purchase or borrow a book by a female author, primarily for the reason you mention. Another reason is that so many woman authors seem to have a compulsion to lecture their readers. I don’t need any lectures, especially from aggressive females. Having said all that, I can recommend two books by female authors that I enjoyed very much. One is Into the Cannibal’s Pot by Ilana Mercer, and another is The Diversity Delusion by Heather MacDonald.
There's an entire book genre called "Men's Adventure". Memo to chick authors: Want to get men to read your books? Read a few Men's Adventure novels and write like that.
“free to use a pen name.”
James Tiptree, jr.
As a young person in school you probably read, as did many others, S. E. Hinton.
female authors tend to write . . . female stuff, emotional, preachy, overwrought nonsense.
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Every Dollar Tree sells that kind of literary junk written by women authors nobody ever heard of.
Men and women have different interests.
I’m surprised that no one on the thread has yet mentioned Gertrude Stein.
Some men may not like her but men like Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, F Scott Fitzgerald and many other men certainly appreciated her writing. As she influenced all of them.
First time I saw that I thought that it was brilliant, therefore someone got offended.
☺️
Also missing on this list of famous women authors is the very notable Selena Montgomery. While nobody has actually read her work, everybody knows who she is for her big fat mouth.
People read books that are of interest to them. The genre I read happens to be dominated by male authors, although I have read some female writers too. I have a couple of books written by women on-deck on my Kindle. I never read a book *because* it was written by a woman, unless that has some bearing on the subject. I read a lot of Old West history and pioneer memoirs. A memoir written by a woman is going to express a woman’s experience, which in many ways is going to be different from that of a man.
I wonder if some of them are guys writing under female names to pay their bills.
Freegards
Speaking of Salena’s, there is Salena Zito, who happens to be a freeper.
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