Novel Delights

Fiction readers score higher on empathy and social acumen tests than do readers of nonfiction.

By Marina Krakovsky, published on November 01, 2006 - last reviewed on September 11, 2007

Reading Counts

Of British women's top 20 life-changing novels, number authored by men: 6
Of British men's top 20, number authored by women: 1 (Harper Lee)
Rank of the Bible among most shoplifted books: 1
Number of years Ulysses was banned in the U.S.: 15
Of top 100 books most nominated for banning, number by Judy Blume: 5
Romance's share of popular fiction sales: 40 percent

His and Hers Bookshelves

What men and women desire in fiction.

By: Brandon Keim

When it comes to favorite fiction, men and women aren't on the same page.

Over the past two years, Lisa Jardine and Annie Watkins of London's Queen Mary College asked 900 adults about the novels that shaped their lives. Of each gender's top 20 titles, only four were shared—Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, Heart of Darkness, and One Hundred Years of Solitude. Men preferred protagonist-centered stories of isolation, overcoming, and redemption—think The Stranger, 1984, and The Metamorphosis—while women tended towards the more emotionally rich, relationship-oriented fare of works like Wuthering Heights, The Handmaid's Tale, and Pride and Prejudice.

Why the split? Men initially resisted talking about how reading affected them, but in interviews, Jardine and Watkins found that while women use novels as sources of metaphor and inspiration throughout their lives, men often read novels during their formative years as if they were how-to manuals, then moved on to nonfiction.