The other day, I was in a coffee shop, and noticed a few trendily dressed young (student-age) women sprawled in the armchairs reading. One was reading The Corrections by Jonathan Frantzen, another had a Michael Chabon book, and the third had another male author’s book in hand. It struck me as interesting that they were all reading male authors, and older white male authors to boot. The booming voice of authority/authorship was a guy’s voice, at least on this particular day. Since then, I’ve paid more attention on the bus and elsewhere to what women are reading, and have found the same thing in a lot of cases. Of course, as I pointed out a while back, the New York Times Book Review seems to believe great authors are either white guys or Toni Morrison.

Anyway, this made me think of that much-ballyhooed article from the UK Guardian, which said that women read books by men and women, but men only read books by men.

Consequently, fiction by women remains “special interest”, while fiction by men still sets the standard for quality, narrative and style.

But then I was just googling and came across another Guaridan article, this time written by the creators of that study, which seemed to suggest a more complex viewpoint:

It was clear to us that men who continued reading fiction into maturity became increasingly open to novels by women – Iris Murdoch was a particular favourite here.

It’s not clear to me whether this second article is about a new study by Lisa Jardine and Annie Watkins, or the same study. In any case, Jardine and Watkins seem to harbor some fairly dodgy gender stereotypes of their own. They say that women are more interested in reading books metaphorically, for “the build up to an emotional crisis” and resolution, whereas men read for plot and as a map for getting through a difficult situation. I re-read this description of the crucial difference between men’s and women’s ideas of reading, and could not for the life of me see the difference. Men read for plot, women read for emotional crisis and resolution. You might as well say men read books on paper, women read books on recycled trees.

But there may well be some truth to the idea that men have a prejudice that books by women will be more smooshy and less plot-driven. Thriller author Tess Gerritsen, whose readers are 75 percent female, relates a depressing anecdote:

I had a taste of just what I was up against during my book tour down south a few years ago. I was standing in a Sam’s Club, autographing copies of my book, when I noticed a male customer picking up an armful of various paperback thrillers. My media escort, a nice Southern gentleman, approached the customer and said, “Say, you seem to like thrillers. Why don’t you come over here and meet Tess Gerritsen? She writes great thrillers, and she’d be happy to sign one for you.”

The customer gave me a long look and then responded with a dismissive shake of his head. “Naw,” he said. “I don’t read books by women. I don’t like the way they write.” And he turned and walked away.

Now, I happened to get a good long look at the books he was purchasing. And I knew, for a fact, that at least two of those books were actually ghost-written by WOMEN writers. The man was ALREADY reading — and presumably enjoying — books by women, but he didn’t know it.

It reminds me of my conversation with Simon Sheppard about all the classics of gay male fiction that were actually written by straight married women in the midwest, who had shaped gay male culture more than anyone knew.

So I guess my question isn’t, why don’t men read more books by women?, since the answer to that is pretty obvious. The question is more, why do women read so many books by men?

UPDATE: I inadvertently wrote “men only read books by women.” It’s now corrected. Thanks to Ide Cyan for pointing this out.