London - You might not be aware of it when choosing your latest reading matter, but research shows that most of us prefer books written by authors of own gender.
A global study of 40 000 readers found a stark gender divide in their reading habits.
Male authors accounted for 90 percent of men’s 50 most-read titles this year, while the reverse was true for the women’s titles.
One of the “male” books on the women’s list was by Robert Galbraith, which is a pen name used by JK Rowling. According to Goodreads, the reading website behind the research, female readers also rate books by female writers more highly. “When it comes to the most popular books on Goodreads, we are sticking to our own sex,” said a spokesman.
Elizabeth Khuri Chandler, Goodreads editor-in-chief and co-founder, said: “For the most part, people are saying that they don’t set out to read a male author or a female author. But when they look at their lists, some of them are realising that maybe they might want to explore different authors.”
Goodreads was prompted to conduct its survey after the author Joanna Walsh launched a campaign to get more people reading female authors at the start of the year.
Recent statistics from the US showed a vast imbalance in the numbers of women reviewed and reviewing in today’s literary press.
Chandler said the aim in sharing the data “was to stimulate conversation and self-reflection” and “to create a space for some friendly conversation about the subject”.
She added: “It’s been fascinating to see our members discussing the male author/female author ratio of their reading.”
The researchers also found that men and women tend to read the same number of books but that women preferred to read more recent books than men.
Chandler added: “Some men said they felt they read more male authors because of the type of books they like to read.
“They thought that more male authors tended to write in the genres or about the topics that interest them than female authors. We also noticed that most people were unaware of the gender breakdown of the book they were reading. It certainly seems like an untapped area to explore.” - Daily Mail