Posted on 07/05/2025 12:51:03 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Why young men don’t read — and publishing doesn’t care.
A quiet crisis is consuming the world of literature, and no one seems to care.
Male writers are vanishing — not by fluke or market whim, but by design, denial, and quiet cultural disdain. Fewer men are reading fiction, and fewer men are publishing novels. (RELATED: Male Novel Readers Are Not Fiction)
Men are reading less because the literary world no longer offers them mirrors.
This isn’t a lament for some patriarchal golden age, where men smoked pipes, quoted Hemingway, and felt vaguely superior just for owning hardcovers. It’s a warning. The decline of male engagement in literature isn’t just bad for men — it’s bad for culture. And if we don’t address it now, we risk losing something vital: not just voices, but a generation of men who no longer see reading — or writing — as something meant for them.
Let’s deal with the facts first.
Women dominate fiction readership by a mile. That’s been true for decades. But the gap is widening. Male fiction readership in the U.S. has dipped to just over 27 percent, according to a recent National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) report. Meanwhile, women write the majority of books, dominate publishing jobs, and, crucially, now account for the majority of literary agents — by a significant margin. In other words, there are fewer male literary agents — the gatekeepers — available to advocate for men’s work.
If you think that doesn’t matter, you’ve never tried getting a book published. The agent isn’t just a middleman. They are the bouncer, the scout, the whisper in the editor’s ear. And when the...
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
In general the writer makes a valid point but the written works of the past are still out there.
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When I stroll through the mystery section at Barnes & Noble, it seems like 90% of the books are written by women.
1. Just avoid the ‘modern literature’ genre.
2. Read non-fiction and fiction by openly conservative authors.
3. Worst case subscribe to the articles on Townhall, Daily Signal, American Thinker etc.
No modern male needs to read the other garbage.
FYI, many of the dystopian/apocalyptic novels by quality authors are quite G rated and well-edited for grammar. Jonathan Hollerman comes to mind.
Almost all literary agents are liberal women: many young, woke, and self-assured in their stupidity.
I remember Clive Clusser had some series of novels with co-writers. In one series the co-writer’s first name was Robin. I didn’t know if they were male or female. I read the first page of one, about 2/3rds of a page because of the Chapter title, and knew it was a female. I then looked it up and it was a female. They write different. I didn’t read any of that series.
Except for Jane Austen and a few others I find most woman writers unreadable and boring. My wife has a book with her always and I have yet to find one she loves that interests me.
When I want to read fiction, I only read the NY Times.
Don’t go near the modem writing, it’s garbage, there are thousands of well written novels and a lifetime of non fiction that don’t depict men as idiots or feminine wastes.
I think you've explained perfectly what's going on.
Young men are posting on X or having their podcasts on YouTibe instead.
Oh dear God..another pity party ...
Just adding my own observation. Every new thriller is a plucky young woman who starts over in a small town and discovers a family secret that tears her world upside down, or a mom who's daughter is abducted and she learns the courage and nerve to go get her back. Etc.
NOTHING like reading a cowboy/warrior type book with your boy homeschooling....realizing it just seems wrong....then flipping the cover over and yep....female author.
It’s like a cowboy chick flick...just wrong on SOOOOOO many levels. Cringe.
Imagine me writing about women and lace.....”what mechanic wrote THIS?”.
Well I certainly read. But I’m certainly not a young man either.
Spot on. And these women are absolutely delusional, to the point of mental psychosis. They engage in endless internal discussion within their own tribe and are utterly devoid of any self-awareness. I truly believe they have begun to let reality slip away from them.
Case in point: "The Power of the Dog."
What a horrible, stinking movie.
I have my favorite authors - Stephen Hunter, James Lee Burke, Daniel DeSilva, Michael Connelly to name several, and I even stuck with JohnLeCarre’ even though heh became every anti-American. And there are always the classics and nonfiction too. Plenty of material to mine.
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