Comments on: Boys Just Wanna Read Stories

By: bloglily

bloglily — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:16:52 +0000

Of coure there is Barry! Your two cents are quite welcome. Sometimes who we are is very much a matter of who we’re driven to be in opposition to where we grow up — and it could be that these qualities are so strong in you because they were formed in spite of, rather than because of, what you were told you should do. I’m glad you made it over here!

LK — Your father sounds like a lovely guy. My parents took us to the library every week too. In retrospect, I think this was partly for my dad’s benefit, needing something to feed his reading habit!

By: Barry

Barry — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:06:17 +0000

There’s probably no point in me throwing in my two cents, as when it comes to reading, I’ve always been a freak: no-one in my family is a reader, no-one in the community in which I spent my early childhood was much of a reader, my school even actively discouraged me from reading, thinking it far more important that I be out playing rugby and socialising than expanding the horizons set by my very small rural community. I’m probably also a freak in that I tend to eschew adventure stories (I consumed one a day all the way through my mid teens), read sci-fi, crime and aother traditionally male novels as a sideline, and have read and enjoyed all the authors mentioned by Charlotte above.

By: LK

LK — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 22:54:37 +0000

I would agree that a lot depends on how reading is valued in the household. My parents subscribed to every newspaper and major magazine around, and my father used to drive us four kids (two boys, two girls) to the library each week. Although only two of us now are really big readers (me and my older brother), we all graduated from college.

By: bloglily

bloglily — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 19:11:12 +0000

Hi Emily, It’s so interesting to think about whether men generally like different sorts of subjects than women and why that might be. It’s worth thinking about, particularly if you’re a publisher. Writers just write what they feel compelled to write. What’s funny is that women do read men, as Charlotte points out (although I’ve gone through periods of only reading women), but I’m not sure if that goes the other way. Hmm. I need to look about me, because that does interest me. Danielle, on Kate’s post, one of the people she quotes (someone who’d made a stab at explaining the differences in reading tastes) speculated that men like to read books about “ideas” and that novels aren’t about ideas. That’s a bit silly, as you point out — we all like to learn new things, that’s why we read novels. And I’m glad you liked my survey. My children seem to enjoy being surveyed.

xxoo, Bl

By: Danielle

Danielle — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:17:40 +0000

I am like your husband in that I also love to read primarily for pleasure–for a really good story. I like the idea of being transported away from here and now to escape to somewhere else. I am not sure what you mean for reading for “ideas”. To learn something new? If that is the case, I do that too, but probably the pleasure factor comes first with certain books. I like your survey, by the way!

By: charlotteotter

charlotteotter — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 06:24:47 +0000

I came from a reading home, and my husband did too, so we are both readers of novels, and of other things. We cross over at many points – Phillip Roth, Ian McEwan, Joanthan Coe, David Mitchell – but deviate when it comes to what he calls my ‘femino-chick-lit’ – Anne Tyler, Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith. I struggle to remember any female authors he has read recently. He does like PD James, but doesn’t go for Ruth Rendell. He liked the spy novel by the head of MI5 (can’t remember her name) and will read most spy/thriller books he can get his hands on. He loves being whisked away to another world, but, it seems, the further away from our own lives the better.
No matter what books our two girls and a boy choose to read, we just hope they will be readers, and we read, read, read to them constantly.

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 01:26:27 +0000

I had a former colleague in the library world who insisted people were either born with “reading genes” or they weren’t (she was a reading fanatic. Her husband and three daughters weren’t). I lean more towards this philosophy, and am not sure the “reading gene” distinquishes between the sexes. In my family of birth, which consists of four women and two men, we are all complete book addicts (of both fiction and nonfiction, and will read all types of stuff, regardless of our gender. My father adores Jane Austen, for instance). My husband is a book addict (both fiction and nonfiction and is a former high school English teacher), and in his family of four (3 males, 1 female), only one wasn’t an addict (his brother), but when his brother does read, he tends to read fiction thrillers. The “addicts” in my husband’s family, again, weren’t that discriminatory along gender lines. That being said, I do think there are just certain things men seem to appreciate more than women, when it comes to reading, like Patrick O’Brien and Herman Melville (but maybe that’s just my own personal bias). And Qazse, I absolutely agree with you when it comes to the “specialization” of young people.

By: bloglily

bloglily — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:49:19 +0000

Here I’ve been busy working (and not reading stories, alas!) and all of you have been carrying on this wonderful discussion. One thing I think is obvious is that boys who grow up in houses where reading is valued end up having access to reading when they need it. And we all need different things in our reading at different times. What’s really lovely is how many people feel so strongly about literacy here. I like being in your company very much.

By: mick

mick — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:25:19 +0000

I like literature of all shapes and scents — definitely not the genre-prone. I’ve fallen into a rut of philosophy for the last few years, but I typically read as nearly anything I can get my hands on.

The books I like best are the ones that change something inside, whether it brings tears to my eyes, makes me think of the world in a different light, makes me laugh or makes me wish I could fly. It’s an audible click for me — *click* I awaken to something new. It is the same with music for me — I’m addicted to music and books that trigger that click.

When I listened to an audiobook of Heaney’s translation of Beowolf, I was enthralled. I rushed out and bought the book — it was a “must have” for my collection. It stirred my imagination. I’m always hunting for those books, and so I sometimes read things that are not fulfilling in that fashion, but it all worthwhile when I find a Beowolf, a Time Enough For Love, a Catcher In the Rye, a Les Liasons Dangereuses, an American Gods…

Something that makes me pause, put the book down, and give thanks that someone can touch me in such a way. Then, I pick it back up and read those passages again (sometimes over and over to savor them).

I may be a chemist, but my first love is literature.

By: Edwinek

Edwinek — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 21:58:28 +0000

I read fiction in waves. After having read a couple of novels (yes, novels, not thrillers or horror stories) there’s usually something I have an urge to learn about, so I read a non-fiction book on the subject, maybe followed by some more.

Also, I have a soft spot for biographies. Whenever I pick up a bio of some sort, it soon takes precedence. Be it Samuel Pepys, Casanova or John Cleese, reading real lives has a fascination for me.

And then, one day, I grab a novel again and a new fiction period sets in. So I think the obly reason I stray from fiction now and then (well, about 40% of the time) is the urge to learn. But still I can’t resist a good story.

By: BikeProf

BikeProf — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 19:17:52 +0000

This is another interesting take on the question, and I think it again illustrates just how complicated, if not impossible, it is to find gendered explanations. You may be right that boys are, in some cases, taught to pull away from novels, so they look to genre writing as a way of getting a good story without all the fuss. On the other hand, I am a male reader with very little patience for non-fiction or technical writing, so I don’t know how that fits into the puzzle. At any rate, I am happy to see so many good bloggers wrestling with this big question. We may not come up with an answer, but we will sure come up with something to say about men, women, and reading.

By: qazse

qazse — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 18:51:52 +0000

My son, Casey (16) has read all Tolkien, all Douglas Adams, all Potter, most Roald Dahl, much Dan Brown, some Bradbury, Twain, Crichton, and on and on. Between fiction he reads collections of facts and non fiction. His mom (Karen) devours fiction. I read non fiction. Mags, news, psych, spiritual, geography, culture,adventure. I read only a fraction of what those two read.

I think it is the family environment and one’s temperment. We have only one television and it is at the farthest reaches of our home. The living room is for guests and reading. Every room except the baths has a book case or shelf. We love books

Casey is a well rounded kid who plays cello and guitar and plays sports with his friends. He works at a camp and enjoys socializing with everyone. I think too many children are “specialized” by their parents at such early ages and miss the opportunity of a life full of varied experiences and competencies.

By: Helen

Helen — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 18:33:08 +0000

My husband is an engineer too but he is not a reader of fiction. He loves magazines, especially computer and car ones, and I know he has to read technical material at work. But if he picks up a book it is most likely to be non-fiction. He loves the mathematical books of John Allen Paulos. Strangely, though, for six months in 2001 when we had no TV, he read loads of fantasy novels and got into Philip Pullman. Mostly these were books I passed on to him but he enjoyed them very much. When we got a TV, he went back to the magazines. English is not his first language, although he is bilingual. I wonder if he would read more fiction if it was readily available in his first language? I ought to ask him.

When I was teaching I encountered so many young men with poor literacy skills that I have become super-worried that my son will be left behind when he starts school. I want to teach him to read before he goes to school. I read to him every night and have found a big pile of my old books to take back to Australia with me. He is more interested in wrestling the book off me and trying to stuff it in his mouth but it is early days. Your boys are all readers, Bloglily. That is encouraging to me.

Oh – and I agree – it is human nature to love a story whatever form it comes in.

By: Ingrid

Ingrid — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 18:27:33 +0000

This is an interesting post. This morning when I stepped into my underground train, I was again amazed by the number of people reading books. Men as much as women, so is London the city of exception ? (I wonder if the fact that mobile phones not working in underground trains has something to do with so many people reading.)

By: litlove

litlove — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 18:26:49 +0000

Bloglily, this is just a fantastic take on the question. I read it out loud to my husband and he (an engineer) and I both recognised him in it and our son. My husband pointed out that a lot of men like science fiction and fantasy a great deal, which is again an adventure genre but on a different planet. In response to the previous comment he also said that writing is different to reading in the same way that cooking is different to eating. My son adores being read to, but just can’t be bothered to read to himself. I offered to pay him this holiday if he read three books, and so far he’s read three chapters of one, but as a task, not a pleasure, which was not what I intended. He says ‘there are other things I like doing better in the daytime.’ Still, he does love comics and being read to, so there’s hope. Just got to keep the atmosphere of reading up (and that I can do!).