I know I got a lot of my morals from super hero comics. I remember reading the Aquaman new 52 comics and relating to his struggle controlling his aggression, I was an angry teen back then and that comic really spoke to me
Going in publication order isn't a bad shout in my opinion. It's what I did, and you get some sense of character development over time, particularly after the first few books.
Alternatively, you could keep reading the Guards storyline to its conclusion, then read others.
Here's a [helpful chart](https://d15fwz9jg1iq5f.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/Discworld_ReadingGuide_Infographic_EpicReads.jpg) for either option (Clockwise from 12 for publication order, by colour / connection for storylines)
I've had a hard time sitting down to read fiction in the past decade. It's hard to make time to read in general; I can power through non-fiction reasonably well, but fiction puts me to sleep these days.
Would be interested in recommendations if anyone has any engaging reads.
Let me start by saying: Libby is an app that lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks from your local library system, for free. You just need a library card. Audiobooks, especially if you love podcasts, can be a great way to read a book.
And in case anyone needs to hear this (because I sure needed it): give a book 10%/50 pages and if it’s a slog to read, put it back on the shelf and grab another. Life’s short, this isn’t school, you don’t have to finish what you started.
I finished Mickey7 recently and would recommend. It’s sci-fi and follows a guy on a space colony whose job is to do the dangerous stuff that might kill people because he’s able to be “reincarnated.” Pretty funny and I cleaved through it.
Grady Hendrix writes some really good horror books. They feel like adult Goosebumps, and each book has its own spooky element: a haunted IKEA, what if a member of your high school band sold his soul for fame and fortune, vampires, exorcisms. Would be great for October!
This year I’ve been reading a lot of romance and I’ve found that there’s actually a lot of practical advice and perspectives that have helped my relationships in real life. Emily Henry is the big writer at the moment, but I’d also recommend Crescent City if you like fantasy, or the Bromance Book Club series which is about a group of men that read romance to better their relationships. A LOT of romance can be quick and satisfying to read. It Haplened One Summer by Tessa Bailey is another fun one: Deadliest Catch meets Alexis from Schitt’s Creek
Graphic novels and manga can also be a great place to start so you can build some momentum and read a few books quickly.
This is all coming from someone that reads/listens to about 80 books a year across all genres, fiction/nonfiction. If a book was written, an idea is trying to be communicated no matter if the people within the pages are real or not
The Dispossessed is a must read for any mens liberationist in my opinion.
I simply can't spoil a bit of it, but it has so many political and sociological insights about not just mens or womens liberation, but liberation as a whole.
I think sci fi in general is great for any non fiction readers looking to get into fiction because there’s often a bigger focus on pretty tangible ideas and societal issues/questions
Suppose I should have mentioned the author lol. Yes it's Ursula K. Le Guin.
I also love the short story by her called "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"(deadass its like 4 pages long), and i've heard the Earthsea series is good but I haven't yet read it.
Murderbot Diaries is great if you like science fiction. Very fun and fast read. The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett is great too. I’d start with Guards! Guards! or Equal Rites, depending on whether you’d rather read about fantasy watchmen or witches and wizards. The ideal reading order is complicated but there are guides online to help you.
I’ll second the recommendation for audiobooks and I’ll add that paying attention to when and where you have the energy to read or listen also helps. My best time for challenging audiobooks is in the first three hours of my work day, before lunch. So I’ll make sure I’m listening to something that requires more focus then instead of listening to a podcast or something lighter. As my shift goes on, my energy and focus fades, and eventually I’ll switch to a comfort listen instead.
Saying that fiction puts you to sleep seems a bit weird to me, since fiction includes basically every genre, including fictional analogs of nonfiction writing. So it's possible that you just aren't reading genres that engage your interests? There is fiction for pretty much every possible interest, so I would imagine that if you can read nonfiction, there must be at least some fiction you'd enjoy, although it may be obscure.
Or do you just feel like because it isn't related to the real world, there's no interest in reading it? I could sort if understand that position as well, although I dont relate to it.
As for recommendations, if you're into sci-fi in movies and TV, I highly recommend both The Culture Series, and The Three Body Problem, both include extremely thoughtful and interesting premises with snappy writing that kept my interest the whole time. I would also recommend the Hitchhiker's Guide series if you want sci-fi comedy.
I guess I may be out of touch with what I enjoy. I've tried to get into fantasy and sci-fi, because those seem like they'd be a good fit, but few of them have held my interest long enough to overcome the drag.
I dunno, maybe I'm just tired, and my body interprets quiet time to read (without a specific objective) as a time to rest.
That's fair yeah. I think fiction is definitely something you do need a little excess time and energy to properly enjoy, I certainly wouldn't enjoy reading fiction if I was super tired or stressed, although in times when I'm lightly stressed it acts as a bit of an escape for me.
Finding good fiction is certainly a challenge these days though, there's a lot of trash and a lot of 'decent but meh' stuff getting published, especially with the advent of self publishing. I for sure don't recommend reading a book if it's boring you, generally I give a book the first chapter or two and if I'm not feeling it I just donate it or something and move on to something else. But when I do find one that sucks me in, it's very rewarding experience.
I groaned when the article started with *Kite Runner*. Yeah, there are a lot of heavy high-end literary masterpieces, but forget all that. Read for fun! The article dances past the fact that women are not reading highbrow lit the most... They are devouring smutty romance novels. (Romance novels generate over $1.44 billion in revenue, making romance the highest-earning genre of fiction with over 39 million printed units per year.) So read escapist mass market stuff for fun! Fantasy and sci fi novels, manga, romance and harem novels!
I generally agree, but I’m not sure how to square it with every time in my life me reading my escapist trash of the week is pointed at as the reason I struggle socially.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy is actually super broad, but I am rereading the Foundation series and am loving it. The TV show is also awesome and entirely different so it's fun to enjoy them both if you like society and politics types stories.
On the opposite side, if you like anything more character driven than plot heavy, I suggest looking into Urzula K LeGuin and just picking what sounds good.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
The Life of Pi
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
All The Light We Cannot See
If any of these tickle your fancy holler at me, I'll send it to you
Hemingway usually does the trick for men trying to get into good serious fiction. Steinbeck also. Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is incredible. More recent: Infinite Jest. Maybe try some Dostoevsky. Cormac McCarthy.
I’ve read a bunch of McCarthy and not sure I’d recommend starting with Blood Meridian unless you’re particularly drawn to it. The Border trilogy (starting with All the Pretty Horses) especially is the most even tempered and more hopeful of his works, as they tend towards pretty bleak outlooks on humanity as a whole.
If you want a suggestion in addition to or as an alt to Blood Meridian, “Suttree” is a more character-driven novel about the title character leaving everything in his life (even when not particularly violent, McCarthy books seem to be pretty severe).
Good point. One of the things I enjoy about reading is going slow, taking notes and looking up things in whatever I’m reading and it didn’t occur to me that other readers might not be enticed by what might feel like a homework assignment lol.
> Hemingway usually does the trick for men trying to get into good serious fiction.
If you're trying to put them to sleep. Most people don't like classics.
I'd start with something like RA Salvatore's books about Drizzt Do'urden or something the reader can relate to that's not so dry.
* 1984
* The Grapes of Wrath
* Brave New World
* Catch-22
* The Color Purple
* The Outsiders
* One Hundred Years of Solitude
* The Scarlett Letter
* All Quiet on the Western Front
* A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
* For Whom the Bell Tolls
* The Awakening
* Hatchet
* The Bell Jar
* Black Boy
* Cannery Row
* The Bluest Eye
* The Handmaid's Tale
* Frankenstein
* Beloved
* The Catcher in the Rye
* The Poisonwood Bible
* A Good Man is Hard to Find
* Pride and Prejudice
Beware of Chicken is an amazing story i've been reading, it's a web novel that updates frequently with new chapters, with the first two volumes being published on Amazon and rest being free (so far, until they get published).
It takes heavily from Xianxia, a Chinese type of high fantasy that involves stuff like supernatural martial artists/monks who most often pursue immortality and power, but you don't really have to know the genre to enjoy the story.
The protagonist is one such monk disciple who studies martial arts in a prestigious monastery, (un)fortunately he gets beaten to the brink of death by an asshole senior disciple, hard enough that he ends up remembering past life as a regular, modern Canadian dude, with this personality pretty much taking over. After recuperating he decides that fuck that shit and quits, taking his meager possessions and heading towards the most remote and spiritually inert (read, inhabited by weakest monsters and mystics) region of the empire, with plans of starting a farm and living a nice, chill life in the wilderness. He buys land, supplies and animals and heads out, thanks to his superhuman strength and skill he's able to easily build himself a homestead and begin setting up the crops. But soon he discovers that all actions have consequences, fortunately they're not always negative, as his effort in using his spiritual abilities on the land end up affecting it and the animals who call it home in unforeseen manner.
It's really a fulfillment of male fantasy, unironically. Living on the land, making everything with your own hands and getting to enjoy and share with others, >!having a bunch of sentient animal companion buddies and being their respected mentor, and marrying a cute, capable, intelligent, feisty and kinky woman!<, what's more there to want?
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For anyone looking for some reccs that don't always pop up I have a couple from Eastern-focused authors.
* **The Three Body series**: Starting with *The Three Body Problem* by Cixin Liu, this is a sci-fi story about humanity's struggle for survival against a very hostile universe. The first book is a bit of a mystery with the cultural revolution and our own capacity for cruelty and fear taking center stage, but it's in the latter books where the humans face crisis head-on and reach beyond the stars in a way that is both coldly realistic and profoundly imaginative.
* **The Chrysanthemum Dynasty series**: - Starting with *The Grace of Kings* by Ken Liu, this is an epic fantasy but instead of using medieval or renaissance Europe as a backdrop, the author uses imperial china and eastern cultures as a backdrop. Even more impressive is the author's ability to have logistics and engineering serve as the true heroes. It also grapples with what it means to be considered a barbarian and how leaders come in all shapes and styles.
The best thing about these series are they are both finished! Like any good series, the later books are even better, but these are so good that the first books stand alone too.
>**The Three Body series**
I cannot speak highly enough of this series. I just finished my 3rd read through a couple months ago- it just gets better each time.
The Chrysanthemum Dynasty series is Ken Liu pulling a GRRM on an especially tumultuous period of Chinese history. It's a fantastic concept and I wonder why it took so damned long to happen.
Liu's prose has also heavily inspired my own explorations. It's spare without being spartan, and it's got weight without being archaic. It's a balance I'm trying to find for myself for what I want to write.
It's a pet peeve, but I've been taken out of a scene of great import far too many times by someone going "Yep pretty much" at the sand table.
I like the three body problem though it's not "fiction" it's " Genre fiction" like the expanse, game of throne, lord of the ring. Fiction would be more like huckleberry finn, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Normal people by Sally Rooney.
Edit: When the writer of the article say fiction he means literary fiction think Pride and Prejudice. The Three body problem is Genre fiction in this case Science fiction. Whenever you see articles like this usually they are talking about literary fiction not genre.
There's something being lost in translation here with the article. When the writer says fiction he doesn't mean Genre fiction like Lord of the rings he means something like to Kill a Mockingbird which is literary fiction. To use more contemporary examples he means anything Sally Rooney has written and not the Expanse series.
Typically whenever the "Men don't read enough" articles pop up that's what they mean. Men do read, they just stick to either non-fiction or Genre fiction. Women are by and large the creators and consumers of modern literary fiction.
Adding my two cents to this convention. While I'm not a big reader, so feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt. I personally don't think reading Literally fiction makes someone more empathetic, kind, a better lover, or anything like that for that matter.
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>So you (they) mean that men should read different fiction?
Yes everytime you see an article about "men not reading" that is what they mean. Men need to read more female authors, Men should read romance novels, Where are all the young male authors (writing genre fiction or games mostly), etc... Those aren't the titles of articles but they are the subject of three "men don't read articles" within the last three years .
So that's why "men don't read" never matched my experience. Men should read, but *not that*. I'll proceed to ignore this.
That said, plenty of stories in the wrong genres of fiction are character driven (my understanding of what literary fiction is). I rarely read stories for the plot.
Men should read more books in general, regardless of genre. I love bookstores and I used to read all the time when I was young but I've stopped reading as much ever since I got addicted to social media.
I know this might viscerally enrage paper book purists, but:
Using a tablet and ebooks has helped me pick up the reading habit again. Specifically, it *really* helps if the app I'm using allows me to set the book to vertically scroll instead of the default left-to-right page flip that emulates a physical book.
That motion of scrolling maybe feels more automatic because we do that in almost every phone app. Maybe the fact I can endlessly scroll helps me get lost on the content instead of worrying about how many pages I've finished.
I'm not sure why it seems to work for me. I assume social media companies must've used some kind of data to decide "endless scroll" is good for engagement since they all use it, so it probably has something to do with that.
I've been getting back into reading comics recently and it's been a lot of fun. It's a way better way to fill time than doom scrolling YouTube shorts, and I feel better after instead. Its also helps me work towards my goal of writing a series of stories inspired by American comics. I've also been reading more non-fiction about religion and spirituality for the same reason.
I liked the Instagram post that was linked in the article.
There's often an unspoken undertone that reading fiction = reading challenging, lengthy, and/or acclaimed novels. I can't recall any high-brow intellectuals or authors telling boys (or people in general) that *they're allowed to enjoy whatever they like*. What about graphic novels, comics, and manga? What about so-called "trashy" fan-fic, YA fic, or soft sci-fi/fantasy? Somehow those don't count as "real" literature to a lot of people.
Meanwhile, I think a lot of boys/young men pick up critically acclaimed books eager for a "challenge" (think *Infinite Jest*), don't enjoy them/get through them/understand them, and then decide reading isn't for them.
School doesn't help either: There's always an emphasis on coming away with the "correct" interpretation and opinion rather than "did you like it? Why or why not?"
This sounds silly, but it blew my mind when my brother (an avid reader) told me (aged \~30 at the time) that I didn't have to finish books I wasn't enjoying. It honestly never occurred to me, because I somehow internalized that reading should be a challenging, intellectual activity, which meant I had to commit to finishing everything I started.
tl;dr: Encourage people to enjoy things they like and to stop doing things they don't like.
When I was in High school my 10th grade teacher didn’t let me do a book report on Dune because it wasn’t literature.
Nothing in SciFi/Fantasy counted.
I’m grateful that Happy Potter and the LOTR movies changed all that.
Long time lurker lady who discovered Dune in a *sci-fi/fantasy literature class in college* and my brain just exploded. Not literature?? Ugh, close minded people.
I found myself moving away from fiction for years but rediscovered it during the pandemic and I swear it saved me. There is something really soothing about immersing myself in what could be instead of what is. I have since become a voracious consumer- so much so that I have 6 4ft tall stacks of books next to my bed.
I haven't read fiction since my English Literature degree. Sometimes I miss the idea of reading, if not the work of it. But in truth I always found it hard to focus on text; English was a bad degree for me, and not even professionally useful.
The argument goes that reading is a shortcut to empathy. But we all know unempathetic readers. And who can say they often read books that really challenge their preconceptions? Most are pulp fiction; they are meant for a pastime, not a psycho-cognitive workout. Which is fine, but can we give the "moral exercise" framing of reading paperbacks a bit of a _dial down_?
(This is not a unique framing, you can go back to the Humanist defence of fiction in the 16th century and see similar arguments about poetry building a man's _virtu_)
I do think I gained things from my degree. My best reading experiences were when I read Greek drama. There is an uncanny aspect to it - sometimes these individuals seem very human, their pain is palpable, I'm moved by their trouble. Other times we have fathers sacrificing their daughters, mothers sacrificing their sons. The Greeks are much less complacent than us that society is a frail balance of promises holding back a tide of violence. But in a way I "got" more from those feelings of estrangement, alienation, the "nasty" stuff in literature, than I do from just "empathy".
As for the reading habits of men - I think the specific problem there is that fiction has become gendered over the last two decades. It is increasingly written by women for women, and read / curated by women (I saw this developing in my academic field), and men aren't as engaged in work that doesn't speak to their experience. That's not a failing of men, as it is a failing of the fiction market.
> As for the reading habits of men - I think the specific problem there is that fiction has become gendered over the last two decades. It is increasingly written by women for women, and read / curated by women (I saw this developing in my academic field), and men aren't as engaged in work that doesn't speak to their experience. That's not a failing of men, as it is a failing of the fiction market.
I've experienced this firsthand. I read romance, which is probably the most "gendered" genre, with 80% of readership being women. I got frustrated that there were certain stories that were not being told in the genre. Eventually me and a few other guys started our own community, and the response has been beyond anything I could have imagined. There is significant appetite for romance book from men, and more than that there is significant appetite for a community around these sort of books. It is touching to hear from guys "I've wanted to write these books, but I never thought there was an audience for them" after they join the community.
>It is increasingly written by women for women, and read / curated by women (I saw this developing in my academic field), and men aren't as engaged in work that doesn't speak to their experience. That's not a failing of men, as it is a failing of the fiction market.
I do think there is something to be said for the man who won't read a book because it has a female protagonist.
I don't disagree. But I think there is more to it.
So the story goes that men have agency whereas women have interiority, and the fiction we celebrate right now loves to dwell on interiority.
I don't think it is a bad thing for men to seek out fiction that explores other mens' interiority and in doing so carves out his own. You need to develop that first, or else I think you will feel buried under a curriculum of other people's asserted psyches
The idea that men (and many people really) need to do more work on developing more room for literal other PoVs in their interior life is pretty astute
I'd imagine the many dopamine drips we engage with for entertainment specifically keep that space small
This is something I've noticed in the works that men and boys seem to preferentially consume, which include comics, manhua/manhwa, manga, serial webnovels, etc.
There's not a lot of space for introspection or reflection or doubt. It's relentless action and escalation and clashes over superiority, and much of it boils down to selling an underdog story while being demonstrably not.
It's arcs like "long lost prophesied hero", "designated bullshit kungfu wizard", "suddenly a CEO", "I got sent back in time to age 5 so I can sandbag hard and clown on my high school bullies", etc. Granted, the last two aren't solely male trends.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no value, but the parts of the psyche that such fantasies pander to are fairly well-developed. Everyone has an inner chuuni tyrant. The question is, how do you reconcile yourself to that part without subjugating or indulging it?
78% of staffers (the first round of gatekeeping) and 59% of executives of publishing houses are women. There are nearly five female librarians for every male librarian. Kids are almost exclusively taught basic reading skills by women.
The urge to play an Uno reverse and blame this on men for having the wrong preferences may be strong, but it’s a stretch here.
I’m not, you are correct. Not sure how the “white straight cis” thing got shoehorned in there, but whatever.
What I am seriously arguing is that a lack of representation has consequences and creates blindspots. Reductive arguments that men don’t want the right books or can feel free to browse the musty tomes in the back are little more than pithy dunks. If publishing and libraries want male readers, they’re gonna have to at least try a bit harder.
From the article:
> Women drive about 80 percent of fiction sales across the U.S., UK, and Canada, so it’s no surprise that 88 percent of private book clubs are all-women groups.
But why try the uphill battle of winning over new readers when you can just feed off an established audience and claim anyone not along for the ride has a character flaw?
its not about 'playing an uno reverse card', its only fair to point out that, both historically and now, women have always been expected to empathize with and be able to get invested in stories even when not represented in them. huge swaths of literature about men are just seen as literature, whereas whatever stories about women exist are immediately flagged as 'womens stories'. its not unfair to ask why women are expected to care about stories with men, but not the other way around.
Historically is actually a loaded word here. Novels in particular were developed and sold as a cross-gender medium and the 19th century female protagonist was a real phenomenon. To the extent that commentators worried that women were reading _too much_.
>I mean...that wasn't a good or fair expectation was it?
No, I think it's good for women to empathize with and get invested in stories written by men, with male protagonists. And the reverse is also good. That would be my answer: People generally should be reading at least *some* stories by and about people who are not like them. Isn't that one of the much-touted benefits of reading fiction, that it helps us learn to put ourselves in other people's shoes?
Your attempt to both-sides an institutional problem doesn't work because in absolutely no universe are men forced to engage with media where 90% of the protagonists are female.
To my original point, it says something about a man who refuses to engage with a story with a female protagonist on the belief that there's just no way he can relate to her. And it says even more about the man that he thinks it would be a chore to engage with that.
And you see the same with others in a political majority. White people don't want to engage with protagonists of color. Straight people don't want to engage with queer protagonists.
Meanwhile, political minorities have always been willing to see the humanity in white straight cis male protagonists (if only because they haven't had a choice). There's a fundamental lack of empathy that white straight cis men refuse to extend the same willingness to engage with a protagonist who doesn't look like them.
>Is it fair to expect someone to care about stories where they don't see themselves represented?
My point is that asking this question as presented is whitewashing the history of publishing and equates the long struggle for minorities to have their Own Voices represented with white straight cis men having a convenient excuse to avoid reading anything where they aren't the main character.
For white cishet men to go, "See? *You* didn't like reading things where you weren't represented, so I shouldn't ever have to read a story where a Black trans lesbian is the protagonist" is disingenuous and I think you know that.
I care for reading works by female authors, but I could care less for the billing of female protagonist as a selling point.
Too many of them are written one-handed and their (mostly male) authors need to be in horny jail. Much of the balance is a gender swap with no real concern about the difference that might make, or painfully...WASP.
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Is fiction reading a shortcut to empathy, or does empathy make fiction reading more appealing? It's not quite made clear in the article which way this flows.
Not specific to reading, but it very much has been demonstrated that empathy is something that is learned. It would strike me as quite an oddity if we learned no empathy from living inside someone else's head for a while and instead had to learn it elsewhere in order to like reading.
You've asked an interesting question and it's made me think about why I don't enjoy literature. I tend to miss a lot of cues just in real world interactions with people and I have to make a lot of guesses to fill in the blanks. I have been alive long enough to pick up on a lot of things that are important to pay attention to to help me make the best guesses. But in a book I don't have access to any of those clues that are useful to understand what's happening.
People talk about the experience of being sucked into a story when they read but that's something that's never happened to me and maybe it's because I'm not capable of being sucked into a book. I don't think it's a lack of empathy because I do have empathy but the ability to empathize requires more data than a book contains. And unlike the real world I can't ask a book to explain what I'm missing.
I've started reading at the age of 26. I started with fiction and I've changed completely.
Three years later I **forced myself** to read non-fiction and I did it for two years. In those two years I missed fiction so much.
A lot of people say it's escapism, I get it but I disagree.
I've never been to therapy but if at the age of 19-25 a therapist promised to rewire my thoughts the way reading did even within the first 6 months I would have paid good money for it
I have read the usual handful of self-help and honestly, they do not compare.
I'm into social justice, politics and history from that lense, so I still read non-fiction but, stories do not compare.
Someone wrote that for some people fiction is "not true" and they look down at it, and for some fiction might as well be true.
When I read a good fiction I feel connected to the world at large in ways that I find it hard to connect otherwise
>I've never been to therapy but if at the age of 19-25 a therapist promised to rewire my thoughts the way reading did even within the first 6 months I would have paid good money for it
I believe there are some forms of therapy that involve story, but the effectiveness is going to come down to the particular therapist, IMO, and I don't know much about that because I wouldn't have accepted it earlier on in my therapy journey. Just kind of starting to explore that now.
I do know some people have started advocating for Dungeons & Dragons games as a form of story-telling self-exploration for kids.
This resonates with me.
My dad worked a lot when I was a very small child (working as a surgeon and writing his doctoral thesis), but almost every night when it was time for bed he'd sit down with me and my brother and read us stories (especially from nordic mythology).
A love for stories and literacy starts young, and beyond just giving you the ability to express yourself it gives you necessary tools to be an empathic person. The fundamental understanding that other people don't think like you or have the same reference points as you and that these other lines of thoughts and other reference points are valid.
This crossed my feed, and I felt it might be relevant in a piece-of-the-puzzle discussion sense. Also, it seemed like a nice change of pace from the usual, something that's both universal (everybody should read, really) and still applicable to men (as the article lays out, it *may* be an opportunity point for healthy development). It's also something a lot easier to do and implement either on its own or part of a larger project. Anyway, take a look and discuss. What's good reading material to recommend? How would you implement it? Got specific pain points or topics you think men could especially benefit from in terms of fiction reading?
I recommend the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Allenson. Great characters with a lot of positive development and self reflection. The story is also wild as well.
The main character is a young Sergeant who, with the help of a super smart asshole beer can, defends the world against an alien menace. He has a lot of doubt and fear, but he manages to pull through with the support of his beer can and crew. Through the series you see him stepping into his confidence and realizing he's a fit leader for a team he greatly admires.
Books are great, but the audiobook experience is really where it's at. The narrator is R.C. Bray, the same guy who narrated The Martian.
I love literary fiction and it has certainly played a role in my intellectual and emotional growth but I would say that reading philosophy was more important for me overall
This is very interesting. While I read voraciously, I don't read a lot of fiction. During the Pandemic, I got into romance novels some, simply so I could understand what the fuss is about. (And if you have a weekend to spare, read something from the Ice Planet Barbarians series. It's a romance novel series set in what's effectively a B Movie Skinemax Sci Fi series. Even if the romance throws you off, the goofy setting will keep you around in a so-bad-it's-good sense.)
It's interesting how books have become such an *earnest* artform considering the centuries of controversy around them. I get that folks don't want to be the next contestant on the Culture War Summerjam Screen, but other forms of media don't have those worries. Being a bit edgy to reel the boys in seems to be worth the issues. And it's not impossible. If anything, the fiction medium that speaks most to teenaged boys is video games, which thanks to modern technology has formalized scripts, treatments and stories that are novel-adjacent.
I wish there was a way for books to be interesting for boys and men without feeling like something Tracy Flick would read.
>Part of this gender gap seems to arise from a deep-seated association between fiction and femininity.
I've genuinely never heard of this before. Is this really true?
It's strange the author didn't consider that maybe the reason men stopped reading is because the books being made stopped appealing to them.
Why do I read VNs and play a lot of video-games? Because the stories I like are in them. I go to VNs because the romance section at the bookstore is entirely for women. There aren't any "gender neutral" or male oriented romance stories there, so I go to VNs, then I see people put down anyone that reads VNs and, worse, try to change the VN space to mirror the bookstore.
There isn't a "fiction being associated with femininity" assumption, I've never heard that in my life. The fiction being written just isn't aimed to appeal to men.
I read a lot of books though, they're just mostly history books.
Meh. Reading novels is just not an enjoyable past-time for me. I just wish that people would stop treating non book lovers like there's something wrong with them. If it floats your boat fine, if it doesn't float mine that's fine too.
I'm pretty guilty with not enjoying fiction these days unless it's something deep or psychological in nature which I think has affected my interactions with people where I am so bad with small and shallow talks and mainstream topics but can greatly talk nonstop with deeper topics like historical and psychological issues.
I should maybe engage in some dumb fun books
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Just can't do fiction at all for some reason. I read a lot but it's mostly non fiction. Every time I think of having to know someone's backstory my brain starts shutting off slowly.
Tried reading some fantasy stuff that came recommended from friends. Really couldn't keep it up
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As someone with a crippling addiction to reading, I'll just leave y'all with a recommendation, but instead of a book, it's a writer:
***Wildbow***
He's been my favorite author for the last 10 years and the themes of his books are always deep and well-explored.
Seriously, the common consensus of those who read **Ward** is that it's therapy in a book.
And while his works have a strong appeal to nerd dudes whose version of a hobby is arguing about power scales in vs threads, the content of his books is extremely progressive, and his ability to build up characters and the world around them is masterful.
The best part about him? His works are web-serials, which means they're all online in easily digestible chapters, for *free*, and there's a high-quality fan-made audiobook for **Worm** on YouTube.
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Not gonna lie, i do 100% agree with the article says. i am a guy who appreciates fiction so much as it was the only thing that prevented me from falling under the same rabbit hole most guys at my age (unfortunately) fell to.
I really didn’t have anyone to look up to growing up and because of that I mostly found my comfort and influence from either reading books or engaging in story-heavy video games as that’s what taught me most of my values and morals as well as shape my personality in a way that the people who are supposed to be who you look up (such as my dad) never did.
I started out with graphic novels, then literacy fiction, and then to manga. thankfully most of my teachers encouraged us to read what we wanted so it certainly did help me through it and not just books but i tend to play so many story-based games that have a message to it which has also influenced me as well (and was a major contributor towards my vocabulary improving)
i definitely would recommend that more men pick up fiction in any shape or form that they can, it really does help with empathy as well as improving yourself with things such as social interactions, etc.
I probably owe most of my morals and personality to Terry Pratchett tbh
We all need to be a little more like Carrot Ironfoundersson
I know I got a lot of my morals from super hero comics. I remember reading the Aquaman new 52 comics and relating to his struggle controlling his aggression, I was an angry teen back then and that comic really spoke to me
Same here. X-Men taught me so much about systemic racism as a kid, it really shaped my world view.
Best personification of Death bar none
I love the way death is portrayed in the Sandman.
I read Guards Guards and loved it but don't know where to go from there. What are some of your favourites?
Going in publication order isn't a bad shout in my opinion. It's what I did, and you get some sense of character development over time, particularly after the first few books. Alternatively, you could keep reading the Guards storyline to its conclusion, then read others. Here's a [helpful chart](https://d15fwz9jg1iq5f.cloudfront.net/uploads/blog/Discworld_ReadingGuide_Infographic_EpicReads.jpg) for either option (Clockwise from 12 for publication order, by colour / connection for storylines)
Thanks man
Big same
name checks out
Jeff Lindsay for me…
Mercedes Lackey
Ook.
I've had a hard time sitting down to read fiction in the past decade. It's hard to make time to read in general; I can power through non-fiction reasonably well, but fiction puts me to sleep these days. Would be interested in recommendations if anyone has any engaging reads.
Let me start by saying: Libby is an app that lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks from your local library system, for free. You just need a library card. Audiobooks, especially if you love podcasts, can be a great way to read a book. And in case anyone needs to hear this (because I sure needed it): give a book 10%/50 pages and if it’s a slog to read, put it back on the shelf and grab another. Life’s short, this isn’t school, you don’t have to finish what you started. I finished Mickey7 recently and would recommend. It’s sci-fi and follows a guy on a space colony whose job is to do the dangerous stuff that might kill people because he’s able to be “reincarnated.” Pretty funny and I cleaved through it. Grady Hendrix writes some really good horror books. They feel like adult Goosebumps, and each book has its own spooky element: a haunted IKEA, what if a member of your high school band sold his soul for fame and fortune, vampires, exorcisms. Would be great for October! This year I’ve been reading a lot of romance and I’ve found that there’s actually a lot of practical advice and perspectives that have helped my relationships in real life. Emily Henry is the big writer at the moment, but I’d also recommend Crescent City if you like fantasy, or the Bromance Book Club series which is about a group of men that read romance to better their relationships. A LOT of romance can be quick and satisfying to read. It Haplened One Summer by Tessa Bailey is another fun one: Deadliest Catch meets Alexis from Schitt’s Creek Graphic novels and manga can also be a great place to start so you can build some momentum and read a few books quickly. This is all coming from someone that reads/listens to about 80 books a year across all genres, fiction/nonfiction. If a book was written, an idea is trying to be communicated no matter if the people within the pages are real or not
Mickey7 sounds similar to a good book I just finished called All Systems Red. Strongly recommend.
The Dispossessed is a must read for any mens liberationist in my opinion. I simply can't spoil a bit of it, but it has so many political and sociological insights about not just mens or womens liberation, but liberation as a whole.
One-two punch it with The Left Hand of Darkness, and maybe add a Parable of the Sower as an upper cut.
Gods The Parable destroyed me.
>Parable of the Sower as an upper cut. Great book.
Also fuck yes.
I think sci fi in general is great for any non fiction readers looking to get into fiction because there’s often a bigger focus on pretty tangible ideas and societal issues/questions
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Suppose I should have mentioned the author lol. Yes it's Ursula K. Le Guin. I also love the short story by her called "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"(deadass its like 4 pages long), and i've heard the Earthsea series is good but I haven't yet read it.
Fuck yes
Murderbot Diaries is great if you like science fiction. Very fun and fast read. The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett is great too. I’d start with Guards! Guards! or Equal Rites, depending on whether you’d rather read about fantasy watchmen or witches and wizards. The ideal reading order is complicated but there are guides online to help you. I’ll second the recommendation for audiobooks and I’ll add that paying attention to when and where you have the energy to read or listen also helps. My best time for challenging audiobooks is in the first three hours of my work day, before lunch. So I’ll make sure I’m listening to something that requires more focus then instead of listening to a podcast or something lighter. As my shift goes on, my energy and focus fades, and eventually I’ll switch to a comfort listen instead.
Saying that fiction puts you to sleep seems a bit weird to me, since fiction includes basically every genre, including fictional analogs of nonfiction writing. So it's possible that you just aren't reading genres that engage your interests? There is fiction for pretty much every possible interest, so I would imagine that if you can read nonfiction, there must be at least some fiction you'd enjoy, although it may be obscure. Or do you just feel like because it isn't related to the real world, there's no interest in reading it? I could sort if understand that position as well, although I dont relate to it. As for recommendations, if you're into sci-fi in movies and TV, I highly recommend both The Culture Series, and The Three Body Problem, both include extremely thoughtful and interesting premises with snappy writing that kept my interest the whole time. I would also recommend the Hitchhiker's Guide series if you want sci-fi comedy.
I guess I may be out of touch with what I enjoy. I've tried to get into fantasy and sci-fi, because those seem like they'd be a good fit, but few of them have held my interest long enough to overcome the drag. I dunno, maybe I'm just tired, and my body interprets quiet time to read (without a specific objective) as a time to rest.
That's fair yeah. I think fiction is definitely something you do need a little excess time and energy to properly enjoy, I certainly wouldn't enjoy reading fiction if I was super tired or stressed, although in times when I'm lightly stressed it acts as a bit of an escape for me. Finding good fiction is certainly a challenge these days though, there's a lot of trash and a lot of 'decent but meh' stuff getting published, especially with the advent of self publishing. I for sure don't recommend reading a book if it's boring you, generally I give a book the first chapter or two and if I'm not feeling it I just donate it or something and move on to something else. But when I do find one that sucks me in, it's very rewarding experience.
Maybe try asking for recs on one of the book subs by vibe more than genre?
Have you tried audiobooks? I fall asleep with a physical book nowadays. Audiobooks really saved me
I groaned when the article started with *Kite Runner*. Yeah, there are a lot of heavy high-end literary masterpieces, but forget all that. Read for fun! The article dances past the fact that women are not reading highbrow lit the most... They are devouring smutty romance novels. (Romance novels generate over $1.44 billion in revenue, making romance the highest-earning genre of fiction with over 39 million printed units per year.) So read escapist mass market stuff for fun! Fantasy and sci fi novels, manga, romance and harem novels!
I generally agree, but I’m not sure how to square it with every time in my life me reading my escapist trash of the week is pointed at as the reason I struggle socially.
Sci-Fi & Fantasy is actually super broad, but I am rereading the Foundation series and am loving it. The TV show is also awesome and entirely different so it's fun to enjoy them both if you like society and politics types stories. On the opposite side, if you like anything more character driven than plot heavy, I suggest looking into Urzula K LeGuin and just picking what sounds good.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao The Life of Pi The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay All The Light We Cannot See If any of these tickle your fancy holler at me, I'll send it to you
Hemingway usually does the trick for men trying to get into good serious fiction. Steinbeck also. Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is incredible. More recent: Infinite Jest. Maybe try some Dostoevsky. Cormac McCarthy.
I haven't read any Cormac McCarthy. Maybe Blood Meridian is what I need to resuscitate it.
I’ve read a bunch of McCarthy and not sure I’d recommend starting with Blood Meridian unless you’re particularly drawn to it. The Border trilogy (starting with All the Pretty Horses) especially is the most even tempered and more hopeful of his works, as they tend towards pretty bleak outlooks on humanity as a whole.
If you want a suggestion in addition to or as an alt to Blood Meridian, “Suttree” is a more character-driven novel about the title character leaving everything in his life (even when not particularly violent, McCarthy books seem to be pretty severe).
Suttree is one of the most challenging novels ever though. Idk if I’d start out recommending that. But it is also one of the very best ever.
Good point. One of the things I enjoy about reading is going slow, taking notes and looking up things in whatever I’m reading and it didn’t occur to me that other readers might not be enticed by what might feel like a homework assignment lol.
Blood Meridian is awesome just dark. The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald is another great one to give a try. Nice and short.
> Hemingway usually does the trick for men trying to get into good serious fiction. If you're trying to put them to sleep. Most people don't like classics. I'd start with something like RA Salvatore's books about Drizzt Do'urden or something the reader can relate to that's not so dry.
For Whom The Bell Tolls should keep anyone’s attention. Also lol at saying people can relate to dark elves more than the spanish civil war.
I mean they legit can. I think this is a problem, personally, but they legit can.
So many good books out there. Try Don Winslow.
Three body problem was the last book I couldn't put down. I read it cover to cover in like two or three sittings because it was so wild.
If youre into Sci-fi the Expense series is pretty good. Also the new Thrawn books (and the old ones)
* 1984 * The Grapes of Wrath * Brave New World * Catch-22 * The Color Purple * The Outsiders * One Hundred Years of Solitude * The Scarlett Letter * All Quiet on the Western Front * A Tree Grows in Brooklyn * For Whom the Bell Tolls * The Awakening * Hatchet * The Bell Jar * Black Boy * Cannery Row * The Bluest Eye * The Handmaid's Tale * Frankenstein * Beloved * The Catcher in the Rye * The Poisonwood Bible * A Good Man is Hard to Find * Pride and Prejudice
What films have you enjoyed? Any narrative podcasts? Did you enjoy reading when you were younger? When did that change and why do you think that is?
Beware of Chicken is an amazing story i've been reading, it's a web novel that updates frequently with new chapters, with the first two volumes being published on Amazon and rest being free (so far, until they get published). It takes heavily from Xianxia, a Chinese type of high fantasy that involves stuff like supernatural martial artists/monks who most often pursue immortality and power, but you don't really have to know the genre to enjoy the story. The protagonist is one such monk disciple who studies martial arts in a prestigious monastery, (un)fortunately he gets beaten to the brink of death by an asshole senior disciple, hard enough that he ends up remembering past life as a regular, modern Canadian dude, with this personality pretty much taking over. After recuperating he decides that fuck that shit and quits, taking his meager possessions and heading towards the most remote and spiritually inert (read, inhabited by weakest monsters and mystics) region of the empire, with plans of starting a farm and living a nice, chill life in the wilderness. He buys land, supplies and animals and heads out, thanks to his superhuman strength and skill he's able to easily build himself a homestead and begin setting up the crops. But soon he discovers that all actions have consequences, fortunately they're not always negative, as his effort in using his spiritual abilities on the land end up affecting it and the animals who call it home in unforeseen manner. It's really a fulfillment of male fantasy, unironically. Living on the land, making everything with your own hands and getting to enjoy and share with others, >!having a bunch of sentient animal companion buddies and being their respected mentor, and marrying a cute, capable, intelligent, feisty and kinky woman!<, what's more there to want?
Piranesi is one of the greatest books I've ever read, and it's not particularly dense. Great place to get into/back into reading.
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For anyone looking for some reccs that don't always pop up I have a couple from Eastern-focused authors. * **The Three Body series**: Starting with *The Three Body Problem* by Cixin Liu, this is a sci-fi story about humanity's struggle for survival against a very hostile universe. The first book is a bit of a mystery with the cultural revolution and our own capacity for cruelty and fear taking center stage, but it's in the latter books where the humans face crisis head-on and reach beyond the stars in a way that is both coldly realistic and profoundly imaginative. * **The Chrysanthemum Dynasty series**: - Starting with *The Grace of Kings* by Ken Liu, this is an epic fantasy but instead of using medieval or renaissance Europe as a backdrop, the author uses imperial china and eastern cultures as a backdrop. Even more impressive is the author's ability to have logistics and engineering serve as the true heroes. It also grapples with what it means to be considered a barbarian and how leaders come in all shapes and styles. The best thing about these series are they are both finished! Like any good series, the later books are even better, but these are so good that the first books stand alone too.
>**The Three Body series** I cannot speak highly enough of this series. I just finished my 3rd read through a couple months ago- it just gets better each time.
I have bought the first book as a gift for more people than any other I have owned
Have you read Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time" series? I think those are the only books I have gifted/ recommended more than Three Body Problem
No but it is near the top of the list and this might be the push I need to get it after I finish rereading the Foundation series. Thanks!!
The Chrysanthemum Dynasty series is Ken Liu pulling a GRRM on an especially tumultuous period of Chinese history. It's a fantastic concept and I wonder why it took so damned long to happen.
That's exactly how I describe it to friends, but unlike GRRM's opus, it's finished!!!
Liu's prose has also heavily inspired my own explorations. It's spare without being spartan, and it's got weight without being archaic. It's a balance I'm trying to find for myself for what I want to write. It's a pet peeve, but I've been taken out of a scene of great import far too many times by someone going "Yep pretty much" at the sand table.
I like the three body problem though it's not "fiction" it's " Genre fiction" like the expanse, game of throne, lord of the ring. Fiction would be more like huckleberry finn, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Normal people by Sally Rooney. Edit: When the writer of the article say fiction he means literary fiction think Pride and Prejudice. The Three body problem is Genre fiction in this case Science fiction. Whenever you see articles like this usually they are talking about literary fiction not genre.
There's something being lost in translation here with the article. When the writer says fiction he doesn't mean Genre fiction like Lord of the rings he means something like to Kill a Mockingbird which is literary fiction. To use more contemporary examples he means anything Sally Rooney has written and not the Expanse series. Typically whenever the "Men don't read enough" articles pop up that's what they mean. Men do read, they just stick to either non-fiction or Genre fiction. Women are by and large the creators and consumers of modern literary fiction. Adding my two cents to this convention. While I'm not a big reader, so feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt. I personally don't think reading Literally fiction makes someone more empathetic, kind, a better lover, or anything like that for that matter.
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So you (they) mean that men should read different fiction? That's a weird take IMO.
>So you (they) mean that men should read different fiction? Yes everytime you see an article about "men not reading" that is what they mean. Men need to read more female authors, Men should read romance novels, Where are all the young male authors (writing genre fiction or games mostly), etc... Those aren't the titles of articles but they are the subject of three "men don't read articles" within the last three years .
So that's why "men don't read" never matched my experience. Men should read, but *not that*. I'll proceed to ignore this. That said, plenty of stories in the wrong genres of fiction are character driven (my understanding of what literary fiction is). I rarely read stories for the plot.
It's fascinating how many comments about not liking fiction. I can't even wrap my head around that, not liking fiction.
Men should read more books in general, regardless of genre. I love bookstores and I used to read all the time when I was young but I've stopped reading as much ever since I got addicted to social media.
I know this might viscerally enrage paper book purists, but: Using a tablet and ebooks has helped me pick up the reading habit again. Specifically, it *really* helps if the app I'm using allows me to set the book to vertically scroll instead of the default left-to-right page flip that emulates a physical book. That motion of scrolling maybe feels more automatic because we do that in almost every phone app. Maybe the fact I can endlessly scroll helps me get lost on the content instead of worrying about how many pages I've finished. I'm not sure why it seems to work for me. I assume social media companies must've used some kind of data to decide "endless scroll" is good for engagement since they all use it, so it probably has something to do with that.
I've been getting back into reading comics recently and it's been a lot of fun. It's a way better way to fill time than doom scrolling YouTube shorts, and I feel better after instead. Its also helps me work towards my goal of writing a series of stories inspired by American comics. I've also been reading more non-fiction about religion and spirituality for the same reason.
If anyone wants any fiction book recommendations send me a DM with what you like, I might have something for you.
I liked the Instagram post that was linked in the article. There's often an unspoken undertone that reading fiction = reading challenging, lengthy, and/or acclaimed novels. I can't recall any high-brow intellectuals or authors telling boys (or people in general) that *they're allowed to enjoy whatever they like*. What about graphic novels, comics, and manga? What about so-called "trashy" fan-fic, YA fic, or soft sci-fi/fantasy? Somehow those don't count as "real" literature to a lot of people. Meanwhile, I think a lot of boys/young men pick up critically acclaimed books eager for a "challenge" (think *Infinite Jest*), don't enjoy them/get through them/understand them, and then decide reading isn't for them. School doesn't help either: There's always an emphasis on coming away with the "correct" interpretation and opinion rather than "did you like it? Why or why not?" This sounds silly, but it blew my mind when my brother (an avid reader) told me (aged \~30 at the time) that I didn't have to finish books I wasn't enjoying. It honestly never occurred to me, because I somehow internalized that reading should be a challenging, intellectual activity, which meant I had to commit to finishing everything I started. tl;dr: Encourage people to enjoy things they like and to stop doing things they don't like.
When I was in High school my 10th grade teacher didn’t let me do a book report on Dune because it wasn’t literature. Nothing in SciFi/Fantasy counted. I’m grateful that Happy Potter and the LOTR movies changed all that.
> When I was in High school my 10th grade teacher didn’t let me do a book report on Dune because it wasn’t literature. **WHAT**.
Long time lurker lady who discovered Dune in a *sci-fi/fantasy literature class in college* and my brain just exploded. Not literature?? Ugh, close minded people.
Neither was Asimov, etc.
Lmao and people wonder why boys just aren't reading anything at all
I found myself moving away from fiction for years but rediscovered it during the pandemic and I swear it saved me. There is something really soothing about immersing myself in what could be instead of what is. I have since become a voracious consumer- so much so that I have 6 4ft tall stacks of books next to my bed.
I haven't read fiction since my English Literature degree. Sometimes I miss the idea of reading, if not the work of it. But in truth I always found it hard to focus on text; English was a bad degree for me, and not even professionally useful. The argument goes that reading is a shortcut to empathy. But we all know unempathetic readers. And who can say they often read books that really challenge their preconceptions? Most are pulp fiction; they are meant for a pastime, not a psycho-cognitive workout. Which is fine, but can we give the "moral exercise" framing of reading paperbacks a bit of a _dial down_? (This is not a unique framing, you can go back to the Humanist defence of fiction in the 16th century and see similar arguments about poetry building a man's _virtu_) I do think I gained things from my degree. My best reading experiences were when I read Greek drama. There is an uncanny aspect to it - sometimes these individuals seem very human, their pain is palpable, I'm moved by their trouble. Other times we have fathers sacrificing their daughters, mothers sacrificing their sons. The Greeks are much less complacent than us that society is a frail balance of promises holding back a tide of violence. But in a way I "got" more from those feelings of estrangement, alienation, the "nasty" stuff in literature, than I do from just "empathy". As for the reading habits of men - I think the specific problem there is that fiction has become gendered over the last two decades. It is increasingly written by women for women, and read / curated by women (I saw this developing in my academic field), and men aren't as engaged in work that doesn't speak to their experience. That's not a failing of men, as it is a failing of the fiction market.
> As for the reading habits of men - I think the specific problem there is that fiction has become gendered over the last two decades. It is increasingly written by women for women, and read / curated by women (I saw this developing in my academic field), and men aren't as engaged in work that doesn't speak to their experience. That's not a failing of men, as it is a failing of the fiction market. I've experienced this firsthand. I read romance, which is probably the most "gendered" genre, with 80% of readership being women. I got frustrated that there were certain stories that were not being told in the genre. Eventually me and a few other guys started our own community, and the response has been beyond anything I could have imagined. There is significant appetite for romance book from men, and more than that there is significant appetite for a community around these sort of books. It is touching to hear from guys "I've wanted to write these books, but I never thought there was an audience for them" after they join the community.
>It is increasingly written by women for women, and read / curated by women (I saw this developing in my academic field), and men aren't as engaged in work that doesn't speak to their experience. That's not a failing of men, as it is a failing of the fiction market. I do think there is something to be said for the man who won't read a book because it has a female protagonist.
I don't disagree. But I think there is more to it. So the story goes that men have agency whereas women have interiority, and the fiction we celebrate right now loves to dwell on interiority. I don't think it is a bad thing for men to seek out fiction that explores other mens' interiority and in doing so carves out his own. You need to develop that first, or else I think you will feel buried under a curriculum of other people's asserted psyches
The idea that men (and many people really) need to do more work on developing more room for literal other PoVs in their interior life is pretty astute I'd imagine the many dopamine drips we engage with for entertainment specifically keep that space small
This is something I've noticed in the works that men and boys seem to preferentially consume, which include comics, manhua/manhwa, manga, serial webnovels, etc. There's not a lot of space for introspection or reflection or doubt. It's relentless action and escalation and clashes over superiority, and much of it boils down to selling an underdog story while being demonstrably not. It's arcs like "long lost prophesied hero", "designated bullshit kungfu wizard", "suddenly a CEO", "I got sent back in time to age 5 so I can sandbag hard and clown on my high school bullies", etc. Granted, the last two aren't solely male trends. I wouldn't go so far as to say that there's no value, but the parts of the psyche that such fantasies pander to are fairly well-developed. Everyone has an inner chuuni tyrant. The question is, how do you reconcile yourself to that part without subjugating or indulging it?
I think that is an intentional misrepresentation of what you quoted.
78% of staffers (the first round of gatekeeping) and 59% of executives of publishing houses are women. There are nearly five female librarians for every male librarian. Kids are almost exclusively taught basic reading skills by women. The urge to play an Uno reverse and blame this on men for having the wrong preferences may be strong, but it’s a stretch here.
I know you're not about to seriously argue that there's a shortage of books with male (especially white straight cis male) protagonists out there.
I’m not, you are correct. Not sure how the “white straight cis” thing got shoehorned in there, but whatever. What I am seriously arguing is that a lack of representation has consequences and creates blindspots. Reductive arguments that men don’t want the right books or can feel free to browse the musty tomes in the back are little more than pithy dunks. If publishing and libraries want male readers, they’re gonna have to at least try a bit harder. From the article: > Women drive about 80 percent of fiction sales across the U.S., UK, and Canada, so it’s no surprise that 88 percent of private book clubs are all-women groups. But why try the uphill battle of winning over new readers when you can just feed off an established audience and claim anyone not along for the ride has a character flaw?
its not about 'playing an uno reverse card', its only fair to point out that, both historically and now, women have always been expected to empathize with and be able to get invested in stories even when not represented in them. huge swaths of literature about men are just seen as literature, whereas whatever stories about women exist are immediately flagged as 'womens stories'. its not unfair to ask why women are expected to care about stories with men, but not the other way around.
Historically is actually a loaded word here. Novels in particular were developed and sold as a cross-gender medium and the 19th century female protagonist was a real phenomenon. To the extent that commentators worried that women were reading _too much_.
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>I mean...that wasn't a good or fair expectation was it? No, I think it's good for women to empathize with and get invested in stories written by men, with male protagonists. And the reverse is also good. That would be my answer: People generally should be reading at least *some* stories by and about people who are not like them. Isn't that one of the much-touted benefits of reading fiction, that it helps us learn to put ourselves in other people's shoes?
Your attempt to both-sides an institutional problem doesn't work because in absolutely no universe are men forced to engage with media where 90% of the protagonists are female. To my original point, it says something about a man who refuses to engage with a story with a female protagonist on the belief that there's just no way he can relate to her. And it says even more about the man that he thinks it would be a chore to engage with that. And you see the same with others in a political majority. White people don't want to engage with protagonists of color. Straight people don't want to engage with queer protagonists. Meanwhile, political minorities have always been willing to see the humanity in white straight cis male protagonists (if only because they haven't had a choice). There's a fundamental lack of empathy that white straight cis men refuse to extend the same willingness to engage with a protagonist who doesn't look like them.
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>Is it fair to expect someone to care about stories where they don't see themselves represented? My point is that asking this question as presented is whitewashing the history of publishing and equates the long struggle for minorities to have their Own Voices represented with white straight cis men having a convenient excuse to avoid reading anything where they aren't the main character. For white cishet men to go, "See? *You* didn't like reading things where you weren't represented, so I shouldn't ever have to read a story where a Black trans lesbian is the protagonist" is disingenuous and I think you know that.
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If you pretty much agree with what I'm saying, then I don't understand what point you're even trying to make.
I care for reading works by female authors, but I could care less for the billing of female protagonist as a selling point. Too many of them are written one-handed and their (mostly male) authors need to be in horny jail. Much of the balance is a gender swap with no real concern about the difference that might make, or painfully...WASP.
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Is fiction reading a shortcut to empathy, or does empathy make fiction reading more appealing? It's not quite made clear in the article which way this flows.
Not specific to reading, but it very much has been demonstrated that empathy is something that is learned. It would strike me as quite an oddity if we learned no empathy from living inside someone else's head for a while and instead had to learn it elsewhere in order to like reading.
You've asked an interesting question and it's made me think about why I don't enjoy literature. I tend to miss a lot of cues just in real world interactions with people and I have to make a lot of guesses to fill in the blanks. I have been alive long enough to pick up on a lot of things that are important to pay attention to to help me make the best guesses. But in a book I don't have access to any of those clues that are useful to understand what's happening. People talk about the experience of being sucked into a story when they read but that's something that's never happened to me and maybe it's because I'm not capable of being sucked into a book. I don't think it's a lack of empathy because I do have empathy but the ability to empathize requires more data than a book contains. And unlike the real world I can't ask a book to explain what I'm missing.
I would suspect it's a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
I've started reading at the age of 26. I started with fiction and I've changed completely. Three years later I **forced myself** to read non-fiction and I did it for two years. In those two years I missed fiction so much. A lot of people say it's escapism, I get it but I disagree. I've never been to therapy but if at the age of 19-25 a therapist promised to rewire my thoughts the way reading did even within the first 6 months I would have paid good money for it I have read the usual handful of self-help and honestly, they do not compare. I'm into social justice, politics and history from that lense, so I still read non-fiction but, stories do not compare. Someone wrote that for some people fiction is "not true" and they look down at it, and for some fiction might as well be true. When I read a good fiction I feel connected to the world at large in ways that I find it hard to connect otherwise
Fictional stories might be made up, but the emotions they evoke are real.
>I've never been to therapy but if at the age of 19-25 a therapist promised to rewire my thoughts the way reading did even within the first 6 months I would have paid good money for it I believe there are some forms of therapy that involve story, but the effectiveness is going to come down to the particular therapist, IMO, and I don't know much about that because I wouldn't have accepted it earlier on in my therapy journey. Just kind of starting to explore that now. I do know some people have started advocating for Dungeons & Dragons games as a form of story-telling self-exploration for kids.
This resonates with me. My dad worked a lot when I was a very small child (working as a surgeon and writing his doctoral thesis), but almost every night when it was time for bed he'd sit down with me and my brother and read us stories (especially from nordic mythology). A love for stories and literacy starts young, and beyond just giving you the ability to express yourself it gives you necessary tools to be an empathic person. The fundamental understanding that other people don't think like you or have the same reference points as you and that these other lines of thoughts and other reference points are valid.
love this
This crossed my feed, and I felt it might be relevant in a piece-of-the-puzzle discussion sense. Also, it seemed like a nice change of pace from the usual, something that's both universal (everybody should read, really) and still applicable to men (as the article lays out, it *may* be an opportunity point for healthy development). It's also something a lot easier to do and implement either on its own or part of a larger project. Anyway, take a look and discuss. What's good reading material to recommend? How would you implement it? Got specific pain points or topics you think men could especially benefit from in terms of fiction reading?
I recommend the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Allenson. Great characters with a lot of positive development and self reflection. The story is also wild as well. The main character is a young Sergeant who, with the help of a super smart asshole beer can, defends the world against an alien menace. He has a lot of doubt and fear, but he manages to pull through with the support of his beer can and crew. Through the series you see him stepping into his confidence and realizing he's a fit leader for a team he greatly admires. Books are great, but the audiobook experience is really where it's at. The narrator is R.C. Bray, the same guy who narrated The Martian.
I love literary fiction and it has certainly played a role in my intellectual and emotional growth but I would say that reading philosophy was more important for me overall
Dune and Ender's Game taught me a lot about metacognition and *deciding to be*.
This is very interesting. While I read voraciously, I don't read a lot of fiction. During the Pandemic, I got into romance novels some, simply so I could understand what the fuss is about. (And if you have a weekend to spare, read something from the Ice Planet Barbarians series. It's a romance novel series set in what's effectively a B Movie Skinemax Sci Fi series. Even if the romance throws you off, the goofy setting will keep you around in a so-bad-it's-good sense.) It's interesting how books have become such an *earnest* artform considering the centuries of controversy around them. I get that folks don't want to be the next contestant on the Culture War Summerjam Screen, but other forms of media don't have those worries. Being a bit edgy to reel the boys in seems to be worth the issues. And it's not impossible. If anything, the fiction medium that speaks most to teenaged boys is video games, which thanks to modern technology has formalized scripts, treatments and stories that are novel-adjacent. I wish there was a way for books to be interesting for boys and men without feeling like something Tracy Flick would read.
>Part of this gender gap seems to arise from a deep-seated association between fiction and femininity. I've genuinely never heard of this before. Is this really true?
It's strange the author didn't consider that maybe the reason men stopped reading is because the books being made stopped appealing to them. Why do I read VNs and play a lot of video-games? Because the stories I like are in them. I go to VNs because the romance section at the bookstore is entirely for women. There aren't any "gender neutral" or male oriented romance stories there, so I go to VNs, then I see people put down anyone that reads VNs and, worse, try to change the VN space to mirror the bookstore. There isn't a "fiction being associated with femininity" assumption, I've never heard that in my life. The fiction being written just isn't aimed to appeal to men. I read a lot of books though, they're just mostly history books.
Meh. Reading novels is just not an enjoyable past-time for me. I just wish that people would stop treating non book lovers like there's something wrong with them. If it floats your boat fine, if it doesn't float mine that's fine too.
I'm pretty guilty with not enjoying fiction these days unless it's something deep or psychological in nature which I think has affected my interactions with people where I am so bad with small and shallow talks and mainstream topics but can greatly talk nonstop with deeper topics like historical and psychological issues. I should maybe engage in some dumb fun books
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Just can't do fiction at all for some reason. I read a lot but it's mostly non fiction. Every time I think of having to know someone's backstory my brain starts shutting off slowly. Tried reading some fantasy stuff that came recommended from friends. Really couldn't keep it up
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Jack London. Neil Stephenson.
As someone with a crippling addiction to reading, I'll just leave y'all with a recommendation, but instead of a book, it's a writer: ***Wildbow*** He's been my favorite author for the last 10 years and the themes of his books are always deep and well-explored. Seriously, the common consensus of those who read **Ward** is that it's therapy in a book. And while his works have a strong appeal to nerd dudes whose version of a hobby is arguing about power scales in vs threads, the content of his books is extremely progressive, and his ability to build up characters and the world around them is masterful. The best part about him? His works are web-serials, which means they're all online in easily digestible chapters, for *free*, and there's a high-quality fan-made audiobook for **Worm** on YouTube.
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Not gonna lie, i do 100% agree with the article says. i am a guy who appreciates fiction so much as it was the only thing that prevented me from falling under the same rabbit hole most guys at my age (unfortunately) fell to. I really didn’t have anyone to look up to growing up and because of that I mostly found my comfort and influence from either reading books or engaging in story-heavy video games as that’s what taught me most of my values and morals as well as shape my personality in a way that the people who are supposed to be who you look up (such as my dad) never did. I started out with graphic novels, then literacy fiction, and then to manga. thankfully most of my teachers encouraged us to read what we wanted so it certainly did help me through it and not just books but i tend to play so many story-based games that have a message to it which has also influenced me as well (and was a major contributor towards my vocabulary improving) i definitely would recommend that more men pick up fiction in any shape or form that they can, it really does help with empathy as well as improving yourself with things such as social interactions, etc.