Thoughts of a Fiction 20 Per Center －フィクション小説二割さんの考え－

I heard on the news recently that in Britain 80 per cent of fiction sales are to women, and only 20 per cent to men. 

Men are just less likely to read books, and less likely to listen to audio books.  And for those men who do read, they read a higher proportion of non-fiction than women do.  I wonder why? 

Since non-fiction contains truth, and fiction contains lies, perhaps the simple answer is that women are more comfortable with lies than men are! 

Or maybe women are better at empathising than men.  To read a novel to the end, you have to care about the characters.  Maybe men just don’t care.  “So Harry Potter’s parents both died and he is an orphan.  So?  It’s a tough life.  Grow up and stop complaining!” 

I am one of the 20 per cent of fiction readers who is a man.  I have been listening to The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens recently.  But I have also been reading less fiction and more non-fiction as I get older.  My last two books before I started Dickens were an autobiography of a great Scottish comedian (“Windswept and Interesting”, by Billy Connolly) and a travel documentary (“Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days”).  I must be becoming more manly.

 

Vocabulary:

to empathise – to understand and share the feelings of others

an orphan – a child whose parents are dead

manly – having the good qualities traditionally associated with men, such as courage and strength