Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
My libraries Cloud library features page has some categories which appear to be mostly female authors (Contemporary Women, Coming of Age) and some which seem to be mostly men (True Crime, Sports) and some which appear to be more mixed (popular this month, Biographies and Antobiographies). 'Lost in the Stacks' seems to be a bit biased towards female authors. [caveat: this is based on a brief scan of the first page of offering for the categories noted, I didn't check all 21 categories)
Oh. And with regard to library borrowing... the few times I've been in a library in the last year or two, all of the staff was female, and most of the patrons were female as well. These females were indeed mostly to be found in the YA/fantasy sections (the younger ones), or the romance section (the older ones), and some in the mystery section. It was hard enough to find a guy somewhere, the ones I saw were mostly in fantasy, science fiction, and horror.
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I've rarely seen a male librarian but the few times I've been stuck waiting for the library to open it's been a fairly even spread of male and female patrons waiting outside. (our library opens at 10AM BTW)
As for my reading I've noticed that most of the mystery authors I've read have been by women (mostly golden age mysteries) and most of the humor books I've read are by men (mostly PD) but other genres tend to be more even.
I think that any male/female split in reading is likely a factor of the fact that romance books are devoured by their primary readership (which is overwhelmingly women). As a woman who isn't much of a romance reader, I've noticed that many books I'd classify as romance still end up in my Bookbub and BookGorilla emails under another category.