Esquire has apparently decided to publish fiction for men.
I do think it’s a good idea to attempt to target men with fiction. Look at the depressing stats. The typical female avid reader reads nine books in a year, while the typical male avid reader reads only five, only half as much. (What the FUCK definition of avid reader do these people have? I read nine books in the last two weeks.) Women read more in every category except history and biography, and men account for only 20% of the fiction market. Men still dominate the upper echelons of literary fiction, due to the well-known “women are cooks, men are chefs” phenomenon, but everywhere else it’s ladies all the way down.
As someone who very much likes books and values their continued existence, I think we need to get more readers, and men certainly seem to be an underserved group. As someone who has been greatly enriched by zir favorite books and cannot imagine life without them, I think that people who don’t enjoy books in some form (whether audiobook, ebook, classic book, or what) are missing out on one of life’s greatest joys, and I hate that so many men don’t get that. And as someone who wants a career as a writer about men… fuck. Read already.
I do question, however, whether Esquire’s approach is the best way to go about it. Before one goes about marketing books to men, one needs to figure out why they aren’t reading. Run focus groups. Do interviews. Issue surveys. Don’t just rely on your gender stereotypes! That way lies failure. And it really doesn’t seem like Esquire has done enough research on the “why men aren’t reading” problem to be able to solve it.
I mean, seriously? Men like “plot-driven and exciting, where one thing happens after another. And also at the same time, dealing with passages in a man’s life that seem common”? As opposed to women, who are notoriously fond of plotless, boring books in which nothing happens and there is no resonance to their lives whatsoever.
I, um, don’t think that’s what men like in books. I think that’s more-or-less what people like in books. And it’s a good thing that Esquire is attempting to publish good fiction? But I don’t think they should be calling it men’s fiction then. It’s just people’s fiction. Strictly speaking, it’s a better approach than “men like guns, right? Big guns! Also ladies with big tits who will fuck the hero in the first chapter! Maybe we can work in something about muscle cars.” But not only is Esquire’s somewhat insulting to women, I fear that it’s not actually going to help.
I guess now is the time for everyone to be all “so, Ozy, how do you intend to solve this problem?” Fuck, man, I dunno. But there’s got to be some way more effective than that.
Five books. Shame. Shame. I shame ALL OF YOU. Get off the Internet and read something with pages, plebes.
About ozyfrantz
Sadly, any attempt to market books to men as they are now is likely to end up pandering to existing gender stereotypes, if not quite as blatantly as your tits-and-guns example.
PS: Well done for managing to fit in an aside about how many books you read, I’m sure we’re all very impressed.
I’m predicting that it’s gonna be books about war. That hasn’t been done yet, has it?
Not necessarily. Let’s look at two authors in the sci-fi/fantasy genre.
John Ringo relies pretty heavily on the tits-and-guns combo. And by “pretty heavily,” I mean that every book of his I’ve read* before giving up on him altogether had at least one very physically attractive heroine, who is described repeatedly by other men as having very nice breasts. (Sometimes big, sometimes small, but always magnets for the male gaze.) At least one heroine in every book uses sex appeal to get her way; at least one heroine uses guns. Sometimes these are the same person, sometimes not. Stereotypes abound (I’m looking at YOU, Princess of Wands), as do obvious author-insert characters (thankfully, author inserts in Ringo’s books are generally MINOR characters, so that aspect at least isn’t too annoying). In Ringo’s books, men are led by their dicks, and the only way a woman can be strong or heroic is if she also looks like Pamela Anderson or Megan Fox. (Yes, some of these dick-led men are in fact primary characters and heroes of his books. But some of them just die horribly for reasons unrelated to their libidos–usually as Men In Refrigerators.)
Now, let’s look at Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series. The hero, Harry Dresden, is a wizard living in Chicago. While he is attracted to women, and this attraction often gets him into trouble, women are not defined by their…”assets.” Karrin Murphy, for example, appears in every book, and is basically physically described as “short, blonde, and an expert martial artist,” with lots of character development for her, Harry, and other recurring characters of both sexes. Aside from the obvious fighting-monster type struggles, Harry also deals with the same things as ordinary people: paying rent on his apartment, keeping it reasonably clean and zombie-proof, helping out friends in need (again, of both sexes, and they do generally return the favor when Harry needs it most), learning more about a mother who died when he was a boy, and feeding himself despite not knowing how to cook. Characters are a lot more fleshed-out, relationships (platonic and romantic) between heroes are described and developed, and each book builds on the others in logical and sometimes unexpected ways as the consequences of Harry’s decisions catch up with him.
Guess which author I’ve known more men (and women, for that matter) to enjoy?
*Except The Road To Damascus, which was a continuation of another author’s series and cuts out the annoying all-strong-women-should-be-smoking-hot idea altogether.
But I think is is interesting to compare Harry Dresden’s sexual side with the usual female protagonists in his genre (urban fantasy). Most of these female protagonists have a wish fulfillment like love live they have either outright male harems (the Anita Blake tradition) or have at least some suitors besides their primary partners, and they are certainly *never* single because of lack of willing partners.
Harry’s love life on the other hand *sucks*: the first girlfriend dumps him in one of the first books, then he’s single for half a dozens of books, then he has a fling with his boss for a few books until she dumps him, then he is single again.
I don’t know if that says anything about genders in urban fantasy, but it is something that stands out for me.
Uh.. That wasn’t bragging. That was saying that nine books a year does not an avid reader make. Ozy didn’t say “I am such a super cool awesome person because I read so many books”, they said “I read quite a few books and consider doing so to be an important qualification in being considered an avid reader.”
This. I can understand not having as much time to read as you’d like, or not being a fast reader. But I would kind of consider one book per month to be a reasonable minimum for the use of the adjective “avid.”
I generally read 2-3 books per month, and during my college years, I reached a maximum of 2 novels per week. But I had no social life then, didn’t do much around the house, and didn’t own any pets.
I do most of my book reading on the toilet. I spend a lot of time reading pages online however, the GMP gets quite a few hours a week. A lot of stories and experiences just in the comments alone, let alone the main articles. I guess I like short stories.
I don’t read books much, if I do it’s usually learning material for photography, woodworking, etc. But I get my stories from movies, games, TV, etc. Text alone doesn’t give the imagery and body language I crave in stories, Movies/TV can show that in the form I like and games fill the interactive portion quite nicely. I’ve never had a book capture my attention like a game does though.
Havent read many books lately, but I do read a shitload of blogs! Especially yours!
Could the gender divide in careers and expectations to work 50+ hours in typically male-dominated ones explain the gender gap in reading? I mean, the reason I only read about nine books a year is because I get maybe half an hour to read a day if I’m lucky, and work pile-ups lead to gaps in reading and unfinished books (and I’m only a student).
Admittedly, I read a lot more when the shininess of the computer screen isn’t distracting me, so maybe that’s the problem (and men are a lot more welcome on the interwebs).
Nine books a YEAR qualifies as an Avid Reader? I consume 9 books a month. I have a friend who does 9 books a week. What are we Obsessive Readers?
I think the problem is that lots of books suck. They tend to be overly time consuming (superfluous text), and the “classics” are generally horribly didactic.
How many classics have you read?
Here are some books you may want to try in different genres:
- The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour. He mostly writes westerns, but this book is actually set in medieval Europe. Jam-packed with adventure, travel, and so much suspense and intrigue you forget it’s also educational.
- Carrie by Stephen King. Short, but no less engrossing for that. There’s a reason this one keeps getting made into movies.
- The Accidental Werewolf by Dakota Cassidy. Yes, it’s a romance novel. But it’s hilarious. A flaky cosmetics salesgirl is accidentally bitten by a werewolf (with whom she ends up falling in love, of course). This series is a guilty pleasure of mine.
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. I had to read this for school once. I’m not generally a fan of murder mysteries, but this is very well-written, and keeps you guessing the whole way through. Ten people arrive on an island resort, and get killed off one by one–but by whom?
- Pretty much anything by Christopher Moore. His earlier bestsellers are cheap and easy to find in bookstores (both the corporate variety and the used-books variety). They are all surreal, hilarious, and most of them are also short.
And the sci-fi fantasy, since it’s my personal favorite and I know a lot of good authors for reluctant readers:
- Storm Front by Jim Butcher. First book of the Dresden Files series. Urban fantasy set in Chicago (admittedly, the geography aspect of the first few books sucks, but he gets better about that). TONS of action.
- Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison. Similar concept, with a female lead and a different (but equally well-planned-out) universe.
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. This is like if ADHD were a book. But that’s what makes it hilarious. When Arthur Dent narrowly escapes the destruction of Earth, he learns
- The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Same humorous style as Adams, but with more footnotes. This does for high fantasy what the Hitchhiker’s series does for futuristic sci-fi.
- Daughter of the Empire by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurtz. This is not the first book in the Riftwar series, but it’s a damned good introduction to it. When Mara’s father and brother are killed in battle, she is suddenly heir of the Acoma family–and the Acomas have some very powerful enemies.
- The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. Yes, it’s YA, but you won’t care. Urban fantasy about 2 teens who find out that they can use the secret language of the Universe to work magic and fight evil.
And for classic authors, how about
- Just about anything by Mark Twain. His humorous, matter-of-fact style makes it hard to put his books down.
- Dostoyevsky. Also humorous, but it’s dark Russian humor. This is more hit-or-miss.
- Any half-way decent translation of Beowulf. I mean come on, he rips the arm out of a monster with his bare hands. You can’t make that boring if you try.
- The edition of The Canterbury Tales that has the Middle English on one page, and the modern translation on the facing page. Each story is told by a different person, with a different style, ranging from whimsical talking-animal stories, to X-rated jokes, to tales of courtly love. I know you were probably bored by it in school, but that’s because the stuff that educational boards want you to read is basically all the wrong parts. Plus, when you have both versions in front of you, you get the pleasant rhythm of the original, and can easily check the modern English for things that you can’t understand.
- The Odyssey. The intro is a bit long-winded, but once you get past that, it’s awesome. Some translations are in verse (like the original), while others are in prose. Pick whichever form you like best.
The problem with long posts is it’s too easy to lose part of your post. The Hitchhiker’s Guide part should read:
When Arthur Dent narrowly escapes the destruction of Earth, he learns about a massive conspiracy involving ancient beings from another dimension; the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything; and that his long-time friend, Ford Prefect*, is actually an alien from the Betelgeuse system. He also learns that the Universe makes no kind of sense whatsoever.
* His “nicely inconspicuous” Earth name, which is actually the name of a Ford vehicle which was only sold in the UK.
Due to your mention of ADHD, the cut off was actually funny and I thought it was done on purpose. Yes, I’m probably a terrible person for laughing at that.
The Accidental Werewolf by Dakota Cassidy
It’s quite a while since I’ve read that book, so my memory may be faulty, but I from what I seem to remember it’s a good example why I don’t like romance novels.
While she is a human (well, werewolf) with human flaws (flaky sums it up nicely), he is just perfect in every sense: rich (he owns a company producing/selling cosmetics, so she can have a career in her field, yay!), high status (he is the “alpha” in his pack, if I remember correctly?), good looking, and without problems of his own besides the protagonist.
He isn’t really a person, but a wish fulfillment machine.
I really see little difference between him and John Ringo’s big titted, gun toting women you criticized earlier.
That’s the part that makes it hilarious for me. She gets a guy who’s perfect for her, AND stinkin’ rich, and she’s too busy fussing about how she’s a brunette now, and OMFG COLOR WHEELS.
She literally causes every single bad thing that happens to her in the entire book, but is more than happy to complain about it. Her friends (the protagonists of the other books in the series) at least care more about the fact that the male leads are supernatural monsters than about the fact that their new blouse no longer brings out the color of their hair. The contrast alone makes TAW a laugh riot.
I have my own list which I can post if people are interested (it’s… weird), but if I were to recommend any author for a man who wants to read more novels but doesn’t know where to go…
Elmore Leonard. He is the absolute master of dialogue, and his plots are usually quite good.
@The_L- I liked your list! Regarding how the Canterbury Tales is taught in schools, when I was 16 (6 years ago) I got to answer exam questions on the Miller’s Tale. I think they chose it precisely because it’s so rude, and they thought that would help get us into it (they were right
). I really should get around to reading the rest of them. (though definitely with translation!) My mum tells me that when she was at school they had to do the Knight’s Tale, which she found really long and boring, but was no doubt chosen because it was so clean compared with the rest. How times have changed…
Back in high school, I was on the academic quiz bowl thingy, and when we split into groups to practice, my friends and I would always label ourselves “The Scum”, because we would get every science and math question instantly, but stare blankly about anything involving art, music, literature, or history. We were proud of the title, though we never really elucidated why. I think it’s because it subverted the typical social expectation – if you don’t know/like science or math, that’s normal, ok, and nothing shameful, but if you don’t know/like the humanities, you’re somehow uneducated, boorish, unsophisticated, or otherwise broken.
That moronic attitude is all over Ozy’s post. I haven’t read a fiction book in years, thus I am a “plebe”. Never mind that I may have my own interests, because not liking what you like is some kind or moral fault.
So, turnabout is fair play- hands up everyone who’s read the latest issue of Journal of Comparative Physiology? Or for those with other interests, how about Nature Optics or Cell? Has anyone here actually read a scientific peer review research article ever? Yet you consider yourselves educated?
See, not so fun, is it? So how about you lay off the self-righteous drivel about how reading about things that don’t even exist makes you somehow a better person, and I won’t judge you for not being able to solve partial differential equations in your head or never having done vascular microsurgery.
I will, for purposes of my shaming, be willing to consider a scientific journal a book.
Much obliged.
Err…I’m a mathematics professor, and I’m also a history buff and avid sci-fi reader. Liking one kind of knowledge does not preclude one from enjoying others, and not all forms of knowledge are necessarily practical.
Besides, I learned a lot of social skills from observing the characters in books. Since I was picked on a lot as a kid for being accelerated, I didn’t have normal friendships until I was an adult, and without books (yes, even really out-there fictional books), I would have had no clue how to interact with other people.
I never said the two were mutually exclusive (I’m into sci-fi as well, though almost entirely through visual media), just that in my case, the one vastly predominates the other. That humanities etc is treated as necessary for being “well-rounded” while science and math are considered superfluous unfortunately overlaps with my interests in precisely the wrong way, such that what I like isn’t valued and what’s valued I don’t really like much.
Actually, I’ve been thinking about this, and both sides of it are kinda bullshit.
You shouldn’t be proud to be ignorant. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a humanities person who is ignorant of the sciences, or a science person who is ignorant of the humanities; ignorance is bad any which way! People should know things! Of course, thanks to our mortal lifespans, not everyone is going to know *everything*, and some people have less aptitude for some areas and that’s okay* but that doesn’t make being completely unfamiliar with a major division of human knowledge is somehow okay.
*Some people are as good at science/humanities/whatever as I am at hand-eye coordination, and not much one can do about that.
Holy mis-interpretation, Batman!
When did I ever say I lacked knowledge of humanities? Yes, I said I couldn’t answer the “quiz bowl” style questions on it, but those were designed to be as hard and obscure as possible. In fact, given that at the same time I was in or had taken AP English (both types), AP history and AP Latin (and passed the AP tests for the first 3).
I’m not espousing any sort of “anti-intellectual” viewpoint, but rather objecting to the fact that others seek to pressure me into how I spend my rather limited free time. Since, presumably, we’ve both done our “gen. ed.” duties, taking courses outside our interest area to make us well-rounded, on what basis can either of us require the other to spend free time on a subject they don’t enjoy?
Addendum: Ozy’s post is more about reducing anti-intellectualism by writing and promoting quality literature for men. Novels are a gateway drug to reading about scientific research, comparative religion, history, archaeology, and just about every other form of Really Cool Knowledge known to humanity. I once tried to read through Will Durant’s world history series for no other reasons than a) it was there, and b) it was about things that had actually happened, and that’s pretty damned cool. (It was much too dry for me to read through like that, but I find Durant to be very pleasant in small doses.)
Nobody is mocking your skills at differential calculus (please, have at it, I teach mostly remedial stuff and have thus forgotten most of the higher math I’ve learned) or microsurgery (which is awesome and makes life better for a lot of people). We need lots of different types of knowledge, and encouraging young people to read–even fiction–can be a way of building up their interest in a lot of things to which they might not otherwise be exposed.
My objection wasn’t to the fact that more people should be encouraged to read and read widely, but the tone in which it was made, suggesting that those who don’t consume vast quantities of fiction are somehow Philistines whose idea of entertainment is Jersey Shore.
Books were a big gateway for me too, but instead of fiction, I was reading every book on dinosaurs the New Orleans public library had, memorizing the list of snake families in The World Book Encyclopedia, and reading about predator-prey ratios in Permian and Triassic fossil beds.
Her point was that the average woman reads almost twice as much as the average man, and that this is a sign that something, somewhere has gone wrong. The averages shouldn’t be that far apart.
I agree – people should be more well-rounded, but there’s a big problem with your comments on science journals. Most science is now so specialized that an educated scientist from another discipline can barely understand sometime outside their field, let alone can someone without a higher science education. There are popular books about science which I enjoy – I loved the Code Book by Simon Singh, and I read an interesting (though flawed) biography of Alan Turing.
But I take great umbradge with the idea that novels are about “something that doesn’t exist.” That’s simply not true, even if the plot and characters only existed in the mind of the author.
Actually, asking who’d read JCompPhys was meant as hyperbolic – illustrating and ridiculing the different standards applied to continuing education in humanities vs sciences and the esteem they’re held in.
And my point is that the books you mention simply do not speak to the human condition the way a great novel can.
If I had the choice between the works of Shakespeare and the works of Einstein, I’d choose Shakespeare every time.
And I care about “the condition” of one of the less interesting mammal species why, exactly? I mean, I get there’s some aspect of “rooting for the home team”, but come one, we’re not even venomous.
I’m not being facetious, either. To me, nothing humans can produce can ever come close to nature, and the highest thing we can do is try to understand nature. The hopes, dreams, fears, and longing of most of the human species is, to me, less interesting than the critters I can find under a log, and if you take than as disparaging, it’s only because you have insufficient appreciation for the amazing world of invertebrates.
Why go to an art exhibit when you can snorkel on a coral reef? Why watch sports when you can flip logs in search of onychophorans? Can any novel really compare to the beauty of the microscopic fauna and flora of any drop of pond water?
There are billions of living things just on this one planet, and who knows how many more wondrous forms in the trillions upon trillions of other worlds that swirl through our ancient and complex cosmos. And you’d rather focus on the mental trivialities of a single species?
Man, we should just all kill ourselves then for daring to be self-aware.
Nothing wrong with being self-aware, or even valuing that trait, just so long as one doesn’t let it get to one’s head and jump to the asinine conclusion that humans are the be-all-end-all of life on Earth. Our existence is a mere blip in 500+ million years of multicellular evolution, and possibly a transient one if we don’t get our act together.
- C. P. Snow, 1959 Rede Lecture entitled “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution”.
I think it starts in the teenage years. In terms of fiction aimed at 9-12, things are pretty equal. When you get into the teens, the books become much more skewed towards girls.
What’s worse is that many men seem to have the attitude that fiction is somehow not “useful” and therefore not worth reading, as if novels have no capacity to tell us anything about the world. That’s depressing.
I haven’t seen a copy of Esquire in years, so I don’t know what its content has been recently, but, years ago they did publish a fair amount of fiction.
I believe there are three things which is almost essential in order to become an avid reader as an adult male. One need to start young, with good books and one need to have a good enough reading comprehension and a high enough reading speed so it can be about the story and not having the struggle to read obscure and kill the story and the joy. I believe there is a direct link between the fact that more boys than girls lag behind in reading comprehension in school and the fact that women read more books than men.
A man who didn’t read as a child or teen will probably not read as an adult.
In the beginning the stories need to be good and they need to be fetching and exciting – in short it’s preferably a page turner. This to compensate for not fully developed reading skills. A lot of “good litterature” are not page-turners. Especially not for young people not yet fully skilled in reading comprehension and reading speed. “Good litterature” can safely be saved for later when skill level is appropriate.
One person’s page-turner is not necessarily another person’s page turner. Allowing a wide selections of books to read for the pupils will result in more pupils reading.
In short I think Esquire’s effort is admirable, but I don’t think it will be very effective in getting more men to read. To do that something needs to be done already at an early school age.
I see it on the bus and train – when people bring something with them to pass the time for a long trip – women read books, men play video games on handheld devices. I mean, sure, occasionally it’s the other way around, but the divide is quite noticeable.
I don’t read as many books as I like because of a combination of lack of money to buy them (books are freaking expensive) and a lack of availability (I live in a small town with only one small bookshop). I think most of the books I’ve read are either free ebooks or ebooks I’ve… “acquired” through other means. It’s possible that the lowering of purchasing power plays a part in this whole not reading phenomenon.
If you live in the states, you’ll be happy to know about the existence of Half.com. You can get books for less than $5 from there (shipping included).
I think you’ve missed something, that the internet is just as much a legible way to read as books are, and that men, in fact may not be reading books because they are indeed more likely to find their content on the internet,and, that there’s nothing wrong with that.
Even though I do like books myself, I do think they are becoming…evolved into virtual content, partly because you can get the same quality for free, partly because you can download ‘books’ from the internet.
The blog, the wiki, the content on fictionpress.com and the ‘virtual books’ like you get on Ebooks and Kindles, are the new books.
I read a hell of a lot of slashdot news articles and comments, Gizmodo, the Good Men Project articles + comments, etc. I haven’t read a book online or offline fully for a long time, I usually read a few pages here n there and of random chapters (chap 3, then 1, then 2, etc) and mostly that’s tutorial/learning material for photography, electronics etc.
I feel obliged to mention Chuch Palahniuk (fight club, choke, invisible monsters, haunted, rant), because he prides himself on writing the kind of books that are enjoyed by men who don’t read much (possiy because when he started writing short fiction, his teacher had him read his stories out loud in bars, so you had to write something incredibly attention-grabbing). While Fight Club might be pretty typically violent, and blatantly about manliness/what it means to be a man, Palahnuik has a beautiful use of language, and writes thought-provoking stuff about a lot of things (art, addiction, loss, time travel). He seems to be a model for someone doing it right: he’s not marketing to men in a “meat and sex and guns!” kind of way, just writing really great novels that appeal to people who don’t read often.
Don’t force them to read awful shit they can’t relate to at school.
.
Give them a kindle.
Introduce them to goodreads.
(My literary horizon has expanded exponentially thanks to that fine website. I never thought there was such a diversity of stuff, that some of the books wished existed actually did and i just didn’t know about them)
There you go