A story from television’s Today show looks at why men don’t read more fiction. A National Endowment for the Arts study found that women out-read men in fiction titles 55-33 percent. More than half of all women read fiction, but only one man in three does. One Ohio man in the story says that “fiction kind of questions how you think about the world and around you. I think sometimes that’s great, and that’s why I like reading fiction.”
He is in the minority. The gents prefer stories rooted in the real world.
Okay, it’s television journalism, but it’s a 5-minute story and that’s a big one for TV news. At one point in the story, men are advised to go into a bookstore and ask the bookseller what they might enjoy reading. It’s not as dangerous as asking for directions on the road, fellas.
Reading fiction and novels has been shown to improve compassion as well as mental acuity. Keeping plotlines and characters in mind is a good cognitive workout, according to studies.
It’s not that men don’t read fiction at all. They’re more comforted by discovering facts than reading stories of emotion and imagination, perhaps. Take a look at the Today story and enjoy a conversation about it with anybody you know who reads. This is a fresh take on the gender bias issue.
