Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Readers prefer authors of their own sex, survey finds

Goodreads analysis shows an overwhelming proportion of books read, by both sexes, were written by authors of the same gender

Andy McNab
Boys’ own … soldiers queuing to have books signed by Andy McNab at Tidworth Army Camp. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian
Book review website Goodreads has uncovered a sharp gender divide in reading preferences, with analysis of 40,000 of its members finding that they leaned almost entirely towards selecting books by writers of their own sex.

2014 has been dubbed “the year of reading women” after a campaign by the author Joanna Walsh took off in January, but Goodreads’ data showed that male authors accounted for 90% of men’s 50 most-read titles this year. Before female writers rush to find a new male pseudonym, however, the converse is also true: according to Goodreads, “of the 50 books published in 2014 that were most read by women, 45 are by women, and five are by men”. And one of those men was Robert Galbraith, or JK Rowling.
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