Men reading women

For years I worked with a man, a photographer, who was an avid reader, and we sometimes talked about books. One day he surprised me by saying he never read a book written by a woman. It sounded like a boast.

Certainly there is nothing wrong with preferring one kind of book over another, action and adventure over relationships and romance, for instance. Yet some women can write action and adventure very well, while men, Nicholas Sparks among them, can write best-selling romances.

George Eliot

Male readers (and publishers) favoring male writers has long been a problem for female writers. It is why Mary Ann Evans wrote under the name of George Eliot and why J.K. Rowling, like so many other women, have chosen to put their initials on their books or used a name that could be taken for male, such as Harper Lee.

This is clearly less of a problem today than it once was. A visit to any bookstore makes it obvious there is more fiction being written by women than men — and being read by women, too. My photographer friend might have to search a bit to find the kind of male-written novel he is looking for.

Yet there are plenty of men, including many in my own generation, who do not look first at the sex of the author before choosing a book to read. Another friend of mine, a retired farmer, sometimes reads Amish romances. I know a retired pastor who likes Debbie Macomber novels.

I, too, fit into this minority, men not ashamed to be caught reading novels written by women mostly for women. Just consider some of the novels I've reviewed recently on this blog: The Messy Lives of Book People, Take What You Need, Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse, Rock Paper Scissors, The Psychology of Time Travel and Kopp Sisters on the March.

Female writers, like male writers, write some pretty good books. Why not read them?