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Old 09-05-2018, 06:03 AM   #10
patrickt
Wizard
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I've noticed the same thing. My preferred genre is mystery/detective. I generally prefer novels written by men. That said, it's sometimes impossible to know without buying the book and reading it. The name of the author can be totally false. A person can be having books published under two names, one of each gender. Frequently, the short biographies are careful to conceal the gender.

In my opinion, men read different books, read for a different reason, and what they're looking for in a book is different.

I've always been a compulsive reader and years ago I was reading a book by Wallace Stegner over dinner in a cafe and another customer engaged me in conversation. It ended with me joining a reading group. I didn't know what a reading group was. It was great. It led me to read books I wouldn't normally read and we had great discussions about what we'd read. Most of the guys were connected to the local university. Out of thirteen guys, eleven were liberals. All ranged from 30 to 70. All but one was partnered with a woman. The woman had a separate reading group.

The women's group read totally different books but once a year the men's group had to select a book the women's group demanded we read. One year when we discussed the women's book it didn't go well. The wife of that night's host listened in. The men complained of factual errors that ranged from mountains in at part of Wyoming that had no mountains to the army using DC-3s to fly people around the country. The men found the errors ruined the reading and the wife jumped up and raged, "None of that matters. It's the relationships that are important."

And she was absolutely right as a representative for women. Part of what I enjoyed about Tony Hillerman's books were the details about the Navajo life and culture. My wife read one of the books and had absolutely no interest in that. She was looking for relationships. And, since most readers are women, over the years the series changed to include far more relationship details.

I also question how well a woman can understand a man's motivation or vice versa. Men are often more honest than women on motivation. I said one day that for men, sex is the goal and for women it's a means to reach the goal. Men agreed and women were furious.

Although I disagree with the percentage, the majority of fiction books are written by women. I had an acquaintance who wrote science fiction books. He had nine published books being sold. His annual income from writing was four figures. But, writing was his job. Supporting the family was his wife's responsibility. I wonder if more women write because they have the freedom to do so.
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