I was casting around for something to write about (between power failures all day) and my train of thought was going along lines something like this. “Limelite, you run a group devoted to book lovers. Did you ever stop to think how you would justify such a thing? I mean, ‘Why read a book?’” The idea was intriguing and I began to Google around for inspiration and a slant. Found some sorta interesting stuff, mostly on ‘how’ rather than ‘why.’
Then I found this:
Men don’t read – men account for less than 20 percent of all fiction sales.
As it is, in the middle of this last decade 1 in 4 people read not a single book. How could anyone on Daily Kos, which is mostly frequented by men, be interested in a group called “Readers & Book Lovers”?
Here's a shocker by way of illustration.
In a widely publicized social experiment in 2009, Ian McEwan [Atonement] and his son decided to hand out a stack of free novels in a park in central London. They gave away 30 books in five minutes — almost all of them to women. The novelist later told The New Yorker, “Every young woman we approached was eager and grateful to take a book. The guys were a different proposition. They frowned in suspicion, or distaste. ‘Nah, nah. Not for me. Thanks mate, but no.’ Only one sensitive male soul was tempted.” Yale Daily News
Okay, so that's entirely anecdotal and not scientific in the least.
In a slightly more empirical study, the University of Prince Edward Island found that male students in grades one through six chose three nonfiction books for every four novels, even when 90 percent of the books in the library they had to choose from were novels. This epidemic has acquired the name “the fiction gap.” It has been around since the rise of the leisure class produced stay-at-home moms and working dads with very different time constraints on their reading habits. But times have mostly changed, and the gap persists. Why?
I’m going to pick on Esquire magazine for a while to demonstrate how a powerhouse men's popular culture periodical may be shaping the culture, at least as it applies to male reading habits.
Examine the language used by Esquire to introduce a book list. “Manhood, America, sports, politics, sex,” it reads. “These are subjects men should know — and these are the authors who can teach you.”
Therein, I think, lies the answer. For whatever reason — pin this on your gender stereotype of choice — many men view reading as valuable only insofar as it is instructional.
The list accompanying that paragraph starts off impressively with Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man. It includes U.S.A. by John dos Passos, The Education of Henry Adams by himself, and Advise and Consent by Alan Drury. But the novels on the list are largely books published during the middle of the last century and focus, as promised, on politics, sex, and sports. It’s a narrow reading list and the emphasis is on “manly” reads. Is that all there is to "manhood"?
To be fair, I've read some of the books on this particular list. Years ago.
Here’s a very short list from Esquire’s 2009 recommended books. The lede says, “Everybody says men don't read novels anymore. I tell them that's why so many men are asses.” Cripes! That's harsh. . .but manly, I suppose. So, here you go guys who are not asses, some novels that are manly:
Ron Carlson's The Signal
Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard
How to Sell by Clancy Martin
Waveland by Frederick Barthelme
Chuck Palahniuk's Pygmy
I confess, I've read none of the books on this particular list. I hope it's not because I deliberately overlooked them thinking they are too manly.
Now Esquire has also produced a longer list titled "Greatest Books Ever Written: The 75 Books Every Man Should Read," that it issued in May of this year. On the list. . .One. Woman. Author. Flannery O’Conner. Guess the title. Uh-huh. Once again, it’s a list of such manly books that even the web page reeks of testosterone! It takes a great deal of masculine chutzpah to announce "The Greatest Books Ever Written" and every one but one of them by men, every one (but one or two) of them originally published in English, and almost every one of them about those mannish subjects cited above.
All Esquire can do is justify itself by saying the list is “utterly biased.” No kidding. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if the magazine published a list utterly biased to include novels of a decidedly unmanly tenor? I suppose the effect of such a revolutionary gesture would reduce the population of reading males to zero. Yet, I’m left asking myself how many men who read Esquire have actually read the novels on its “best” list that it declares every man must read?
Admittedly, the primary reason why we should read probably is to find out about ourselves. But I want to know why does Esquire make it seem like it doesn’t want its readers to find out about any self other than the manly one, and why Esquire most assuredly doesn’t think reading novels to find out about women is something any man ought to do? How many hard-boiled detective stories, WWII and other war novels, books about politics, drink and drug afflicted male lives, and vixen populated novels does a man have to read before he gets a grip on that kind of manliness? I was stunned to find Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose on the list – however, it must be acknowledged that it is a Pulitzer winner -- but not surprised that it was chosen instead of his last and wisest novel about two heterosexual couples’ friendship, Crossing to Safety.
Now I’m not saying the choices are bad books. Not at all. Most of them are very good and some are even great books. But Brokeback Mountain isn’t on the list. In fact, very few 21st C. writers are, even fewer international writers. It’s a very mid-20th C. white male writer list (which is not to say that demographic shouldn’t be on a best books list).
Of course, recommendations from a magazine like Esquire are probably going to reflect a belief held by their editors that American fiction is killing the tough guy. Think of it, we live in a time where a woman writes a book about cowboys – the one-time quintessential icons of manly men – who are gay. I suppose no he-man wants to learn anything about another point of view on the American Hero and certainly not one from a contemporary woman writer. Esquire probably doesn't want its readers finding out about an alternative quintessential icon. Or about a their different kind of selves. As Esquire might put it, “Is it any wonder real men don’t read fiction?”
But couldn't it also be true that the narrow vision of what's worth a man's reading time popularized by Esquire may be out of touch with what today's man actually does want to discover about himself, and that explains why so few men read fiction? Isn't it possible they're looking for richer material -- yes, books beyond even fantasy and science fiction? Why shouldn't the Greatest Books Men Should Read include Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Cousin Bette, Love in the Time of Cholera, A Very Long Engagement, Natural Flights of the Human Mind, Little Bee, Tinkers, and Silk? Perhaps future years' lists will include more books in this vein. There's hope. This year's list did include Plainsong by Kent Haruf, a novel that can teach a man something about being a hu-man.
Announcements
R&BLers says adieu to The Illustrated Imagination, Cabbage Rabbit's unique and original mini-series on the graphic novel. He's promised to remain a casual Contributor to R&BLers, for which we're grateful and delighted.
In another departure, R&BLer's also will no longer be featuring a regular Editor as billssha can no longer continue hosting My Favorite Books/Authors. I am as of this typing looking for some especial fan of that series to step up and take over for him. If that person is you, please message me so that I can make the necessary arrangements that allow you to wield great power at our publishing house. Thank you in advance.
On the other hand, R&BLers welcomes Admiral Naismith's monthly installments of his personal list and short reviews of the books he's read during the preceding four weeks. Please look for his "August Bookpost" FRI September 2 at 10PM ET, and thereafter on the first Friday of every month in that slot.
If you have an idea for a series that you'd love to read and feel like you can host, please step forward and let's arrange it.
Finally, I'm anticipating other changes at R&BLers of a different nature that I'll be preparing the groundwork for in a gradual way over the next few months. Please stay tuned to these newsletters to keep abreast of further announcements. Thank you.
Readers & Book Lovers Series Schedule
DAY |
TIME (EST/EDT) |
Series Name |
Editor(s) |
SUN |
6:00 PM |
Young Reader's Pavilion |
The Book Bear |
SUN |
9:30 PM |
SciFi/Fantasy Book Club |
quarkstomper |
MON |
8:00 PM |
My Favorite Books & Authors |
?? |
MON |
11:00 AM |
Songs of Ice and Fire |
Floja Roja |
TUE |
8:00 PM |
Readers & Book Lovers Newsletter |
Limelite |
WED |
7:30 AM |
WAYR? |
plf515 |
WED |
8:00 PM |
Bookflurries: Bookchat |
cfk |
THU |
2:00 PM (bi-weekly) |
eReaders & Book Lovers Club |
Limelite |
THU |
8:00PM |
Write On! |
SensibleShoes |
FRI |
9:00 AM |
Books That Changed My Life |
etbnc, aravir |
SAT |
9:00 PM |
Books So Bad They're Good |
Ellid |
NOTE: Though not part of R&BLers Weekly Magazine Series, please look for "Indigo Kalliope: Poems From the Left" by various authors republished here every WED NOON by
aravir. Also look for "The Mad Logophile" by
Purple Priestess that appears intermittently, when the spirit moves her.
Other than that, nothing's happening.