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Men - do you read books written by female authors?

Poot

Poot

My wife thinks I work too hard
I have been reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which was so good that it kind of took over my brain for a while. Seriously, I was living it. So I recommended it heartily to mr p, whose response was "why the hell would I want to read that?"

I don't think I've ever seen him read any book by a female author, now I think about it, and it's never bothered me before but he would love this one! his loss, I suppose.

So men, would you/do you read books by women?
 
Quite a lot of genre fiction- short SF stories by writers like Nancy Kress and Aliette de Bodard. Not a lot of novels though, the only female names I can see on a quick overview of my bookshelf are Susannah Clarke and Jill Paton Walsh.
 
Yes, but not nearly as many as by men - only realised how few thanks to the reading challenge thread when I looked back over what i had read in 2011.
 
I don't read as many female authors as men. Not sure why, tbh. But female writers that I do read include Denise Mina, Pat Barker, Val McDermid and Laura Hird.
 
Belushi said:
Yes, but not nearly as many as by men - only realised how few thanks to the reading challenge thread when I looked back over what i had read in 2011.
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I had some the same thought about my reading habits when looking at both the 2011 & 2012 Reading Challenge.
 
A fair bit I would say.
Currently reading a book by Jennifer Egan.
I have read a lot of Margaret Atwood and Pat Barker and think Hilary Mantel is the best living writer in English.
 
yep, authorial voice can be startlingly different with gender or it can be just...as it is. Secret History is a great book and anyone avoiding reading it is mugging themself off!


one of my all time favourite sci fi novels 'Second Nature' is penned by a woman- check out the blog' SF mistressworks'(counterpart to SF Masterworks the print run) for loads of good female written sci fi. Tricia Sullivan and Octavia butler are also 'names to conjur with'

Reppin hard in the fantasy sphere as well, Le Guin, Susanah Clark, Katherine Kerr etc etc

I generally don't read much fiction that falls outside of genre tho.......

ooh ahrundati roy. God of Small Things. Hated it when I first read it but it haunted me till I gave it another goa nd somewhow ended up loving it.
 
Margaret Atwood is great. And important! I can honestly say I have never hesitated to read a book written by a man unless it was a genre I don't like. So abou 50/50 for me. But it's probably different for women.
 
There were a few articles a little while back talking about studies showing men don't read women authors but women read books by men all the time. Talked a bit about marketing, about categorisation, right down to cover design. The idea that a book by a woman must be 'for' women or about women and why on earth would anything that is about women be of interest to men, whereas if something is about men it's automatically meant to be of interest to everyone (male being default/neutral, in society, of course). So part of this lies with the publishing industry and the way things are portrayed. There are plenty of women writing books about all sorts of things, but the women who tend to be allowed to be successful are those who can fit into neat categories like "chick lit" or historical fiction, romance, and then genre fiction like horror, SF, crime, etc. Novels by male writers can sit quite happily under the sign "Literary fiction" and not need to be separated further by definition (unless they want to be) because the male experience is the default experience, etc. That was the general gist of it all, anyway. It's a multifaceted problem, of course. Arguments of "women can't write X type of book well" are about as useful as saying "women can't be funny" or "women can't drive" or "women can't be pilots" or "women should wear pink and make me a sammich" etc etc etc.
 
manny-p said:
I read good books. The sex of the author doesn't come into my thinking.
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So what's the split?


I probably read a few more by men than women in total. e2a: actually maybe it's not that much of a disparity. I have in the past made myself choose more books by women authors and my enjoyment factor hasn't dipped but male authors are more visible, prolific etc. except in the chicklit genre and I don't read a lot of chicklit. I haven't been reading as much in the way of novels by either sex in recent years anyway. Non-fiction I've definitely read more books by male than female authors.

I wasn't very taken with the Secret History. I've read two Atwoods. Liked one not the other.
 
When you think back to the Brontes, and others like them, who were published under men's names ... I think everyone would probably say something like "yeah, it was pretty stupid and backwards and terrible that they wouldn't have been able to be published or read under their own names" and yet ...

Well things have clearly moved on from that point, that's obvious. But probably not to the extent we imagine.
 
Talking about Donna Tartt, I really enjoyed The Secret History. When she FINALLY released The Little Friend I bought it in hardback, and it was really good, all the way through ... until....

...it just ended. I've never done this before or since, but I actually flicked back several pages thinking I'd missed an entire chapter, or wondering if there was a problem with my edition, that they'd left the last chapter out in a dodgy print run or something. It was the most unsatisfying, odd way to end a book. It's like she just stopped.

As for Atwood, I've heard others say she's hit and miss too. Bit like Auster in that regard for me (of which I had to read a metric fucktonne of at university).
 
Vintage Paw said:
There were a few articles a little while back talking about studies showing men don't read women authors but women read books by men all the time. Talked a bit about marketing, about categorisation, right down to cover design. The idea that a book by a woman must be 'for' women or about women and why on earth would anything that is about women be of interest to men, whereas if something is about men it's automatically meant to be of interest to everyone (male being default/neutral, in society, of course). So part of this lies with the publishing industry and the way things are portrayed. There are plenty of women writing books about all sorts of things, but the women who tend to be allowed to be successful are those who can fit into neat categories like "chick lit" or historical fiction, romance, and then genre fiction like horror, SF, crime, etc. Novels by male writers can sit quite happily under the sign "Literary fiction" and not need to be separated further by definition (unless they want to be) because the male experience is the default experience, etc. That was the general gist of it all, anyway. It's a multifaceted problem, of course. Arguments of "women can't write X type of book well" are about as useful as saying "women can't be funny" or "women can't drive" or "women can't be pilots" or "women should wear pink and make me a sammich" etc etc etc.
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I'm going to guess that as far as Horror, crime fiction, SciFi that more male authors are on the shelves. Romance whether Bridget Jonesish or historical will be more female authors on the shelves. Once you're left with 'general fiction' I'm not sure what the split is in authors. My guess would be that women write or are seen to write more relationshippy novels. Nurturing relationships seems to be a female pursuit and of little interest to men*. So yeah, I agree with what you've said.

*See also the how to please your man after giving birth thread.
 
I've read all the Harry Potter books. :p

But another female writer who's books I've enjoyed is Dorothy Lessing.
 
quimcunx said:
I'm going to guess that as far as Horror, crime fiction, SciFi that more male authors are on the shelves. Romance whether Bridget Jonesish or historical will be more female authors on the shelves. Once you're left with 'general fiction' I'm not sure what the split is in authors. My guess would be that women write or are seen to write more relationshippy novels. Nurturing relationships seems to be a female pursuit and of little interest to men*. So yeah, I agree with what you've said.

*See also the how to please your man after giving birth thread.
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That thread exists? I'm going to hope it's a blistering take down of anyone who might ever espouse such notions implied in the title and not go and check for myself.

Anyway... yeah, there are still more men on the shelves of SF, etc, but it's one area where there are women who have made names for themselves and are treated as 'equal' to men in terms of reputation and so on (on the whole) but yes, their numbers are distinctly lacking.

It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy as well as a problem with the gatekeeping functions of the publishing industry. There are women writing books that aren't all about relationships and stuff (in the sense that we think about women and relationships - I'm sure the vast majority of books by men deal with relationships in one way or another - but that's different, that's men!), but these categories have been formed, they sell, they make money, so we'll keep shoehorning women into them. And then more women read that stuff, and more women write that stuff. And so the cycle continues.
 
I'd say I've read about 8/10 male, maybe even more (though it's more equal in my reading for work - sociology lecturer). When I was in my teens and 20s I read a lot of sf, which accounted for it then, though there is and was a lot of good womens sf/fantasy. Beyond that I'm really not sure why as I certainly don't like cliched 'male writing'. For a while I tended to read some of the 'classics' or contemporary writing that was getting pushed by the reviewers (not really painting a good picture of myself am I :D) basically, reflecting publisher biases. Nowadays I read any auld shite. Luckily auld shite comes in all genders.

P.S. whilst I haven't read Louise Mensch, I guarentee I have not and will never read Jeffrey Archer. :mad:
 
Vintage Paw said:
That thread exists? I'm going to hope it's a blistering take down of anyone who might ever espouse such notions implied in the title and not go and check for myself.

Anyway... yeah, there are still more men on the shelves of SF, etc, but it's one area where there are women who have made names for themselves and are treated as 'equal' to men in terms of reputation and so on (on the whole) but yes, their numbers are distinctly lacking.

It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy as well as a problem with the gatekeeping functions of the publishing industry. There are women writing books that aren't all about relationships and stuff (in the sense that we think about women and relationships - I'm sure the vast majority of books by men deal with relationships in one way or another - but that's different, that's men!), but these categories have been formed, they sell, they make money, so we'll keep shoehorning women into them. And then more women read that stuff, and more women write that stuff. And so the cycle continues.
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An incredibly conservative safety first industry, particularly with the shift in mass sales to supermarkets, with a tiny number of authors on sale. It's not that publishers ignore the changing social world, but that they want to treat it as a zeitgeisty thing, running down narrow channels.
 
Wilf said:
I'd say I've read about 8/10 male, maybe even more (though it's more equal in my reading for work - sociology lecturer). When I was in my teens and 20s I read a lot of sf, which accounted for it then, though there is and was a lot of good womens sf/fantasy. Beyond that I'm really not sure why as I certainly don't like cliched 'male writing'. For a while I tended to read some of the 'classics' or contemporary writing that was getting pushed by the reviewers (not really painting a good picture of myself am I :D) basically, reflecting publisher biases. Nowadays I read any auld shite. Luckily auld shite comes in all genders.

P.S. whilst I haven't read Louise Mensch, I guarentee I have not and will never read Jeffrey Archer. :mad:
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I've read both :(

Actually, I never finished the Mensch.

Both have since winged their way to that great charity shop in the sky.

I actually feel a bit annoyed, that I'd fall into describing something as 'sounding like it was written by a man' or '.....a woman' and so on. I guess the first step is being aware of it...

Interesting, because my masters work was on authenticity and other such bollocks in African American writing. I looked at a novel that started out with some guy just talking about stuff, then he starts describing himself, talking about how he has curly hair, dark skin, a wide nose, etc., and challenging the fact that up until that point you probably thought he was white. It talks about how he's an author (novels about authors .... :( ) and how his agent gets on at him because he 'doesn't write black enough' in order to sell. He goes into Borders and Barnes and Noble and finds his books in the "African American Writing" sections, when the only thing 'black' about it is his author photograph on the back of the jacket (they are re-writings of greek myth, incidentally). It's the same kind of thing at work, I suppose. The assumption that a writer has to somehow write about what they know, and a black person can only clearly know about being black (whatever 'being black' is), a woman can only know about being a woman (whatever 'being a woman' is), but a white man can know about everything and talk about it all legitimately.
 
tbf its a male dominated form (what isn't lol) but this is quite pronounced in certain genres- for instance sci fi tends to be a mans game. Female authors do get a look in with fantasy and crime lit. but traditionally writing fiction has been a mans pursuit. Why I love and loathe Frankenstein is because the male lead is such a coward and a cunt. Looking back on it though I can't help wonder if Shelley was not ripping the piss a bit :D
 
I remembered starting a thread on this topic a while back. Just been through my old posts to find it and was surprised to see it was from 2006!

Anyway, loads of good suggestions on there for those men who need to balance out their book gender provenance quota.
 
Extending the question a bit, I am female and I rarely read fiction by men. I find it very hard to engage with. I expect that's my flaw and not theirs. And the authorship is not something that ever puts me off trying a book. But there you go. And I appear to feel the need to excuse my experience and blame it on myself, which is a bit sad.
 
Lock&Light said:
I've read all the Harry Potter books. :p

But another female writer who's books I've enjoyed is Dorothy Lessing.
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Under rated imho, years since I read anything by her but I recall being impressed.

I remember hearing Le Guin interviewed about having sold a sci fi short to Playboy in the days when Playboy used to write serious articles and publish sci fi amidst the boobs. When it came time to cut the cheque they asked her agent 'what his first name is' and were horrified to hear the answer 'her first name is Ursula'

oh noes!
 
DotCommunist said:
tbf its a male dominated form (what isn't lol) but this is quite pronounced in certain genres- for instance sci fi tends to be a mans game. Female authors do get a look in with fantasy and crime lit. but traditionally writing fiction has been a mans pursuit. Why I love and loathe Frankenstein is because the male lead is such a coward and a cunt. Looking back on it though I can't help wonder if Shelley was not ripping the piss a bit :D
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Well, most things in the public sphere have traditionally been a man's pursuit. Statistics show (ah, how we all love a sentence that begins "statistics show") the majority of readers are women. Women, when they read, read books by men and women. Men, when they read, read books by men. <-- over-generalisation. But that's the trend, apparently. There are shed loads of books by women, but it's all about where you'll find them shelved and how they are categorised.
 
temper_tantrum said:
Extending the question a bit, I am female and I rarely read fiction by men. I find it very hard to engage with. I expect that's my flaw and not theirs. And the authorship is not something that ever puts me off trying a book. But there you go. And I appear to feel the need to excuse my experience and blame it on myself, which is a bit sad.
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Do you know 'Instance of the Fingerpost?' I know you like Strange & Norrell and in some ways its similar- by a man. You'd like it. I think !
 
Like Wilf says, my work-related reading is closer to 50/50.

Also just remembered Lindsay Davis' Didius Falco detective stories, which i've read most of.
 
It makes no difference to me what gender the author is. I'm a fan of Edith Wharton, Patricia Highsmith, Tove Jansson, Pauline Kael, Gitta Sereny, Flannery o'Connor and Carson McCullers

I hated The Secret History though.
 
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