"When Women Stop Reading, the Novel Will Be Dead"

Ian McEwan goes for a stroll in London trying to give away books to both females and males and concludes:

Cognitive psychologists with their innatist views tell us that women work with a finer mesh of emotional understanding than men. The novel - by that view the most feminine of forms - answers to their biologically ordained skills. From other rooms in the teeming mansion of the social sciences, there are others who insist that it is all down to conditioning. But perhaps the causes are less interesting than the facts themselves. Reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead.

[ Link via ArtsJournal ]

Comments

[cc]

Utterly fascinating. It might also mean that women have more imagination.
I would like to know what novels they were giving away. If they were romance novels, it might give you those results, but I wouldn't give them house room either. But I admit my taste runs to fiction and novels--a big part historical, so there is some educational component--but also pure entertainment like my addiction to good mysteries.

[Madame Bovary]

You can get in a lot of trouble reading books written just for women.

[Anna Karenina]

yes, but don't you find it absolutely necessary to have a book on hand when you're waiting for a train?