Middle Aged Mama

Blogging about my Midlife Adventures

Confessions of a Sexist Reader

· ·

I just finished reading a great novel, “The Rules of Seeing“.

54434821_10216400119408556_3344329383711080448_n

But here’s the thing: it was written by a man. Shock horror!

I can literally count on one hand the number of books by male authors I read in a year – which is quite sexist of me really, when you consider that I love to read, devouring roughly two novels per week.

But – most of the time, I only read books by female authors.

bookshelf kitty
Miss Fleur checked – there’s no books by male authors on this shelf!

In fact, in the three years or so that I’ve been tracking my reading habits on Good Reads, only 11 male authors have cropped up in the list of 315 books I’ve read! I’m no good at maths but I’m pretty sure that’s less than 1%.

For a long time I refused to read any novel written by a man, mainly due to my taste in books. I enjoyed a steady diet of historical romance and chick lit, which tend to be written by women.

books
A haul from the op shop and not a male author among them …

I was convinced that a mere man couldn’t write in a way that would be interesting to me as a woman. Men are from Mars Women are from Venus and all that – men just don’t get emotions and nuance and want to delve into characters – aren’t they all about the action?

There are a couple of notable exceptions – like Nicholas Sparks (“The Notebook“) and John Green (“The Fault in our Stars“).

I’ve never really been into crime, suspense, sci fi, thrillers, horrors, action and adventure, fantasy, westerns, detective novels, mysteries, and the like which means I haven’t read too many books by male authors.

However the last year or two I have consciously tried to expand my reading repertoire, dabbling in other genres – and I’ve discovered that men can write a great story too!

Here are some of the male authors and their books that I’ve enjoyed.

5 Male Authors to Try

Todd McCaffrey. One of my exes introduced me to the “Dragons of Pern” series, by Anne McCaffrey, over 30 years ago – best described as a mix of sci fi and fantasy. These days, her son Todd McCaffrey has picked up the pen and continues to write stories about the planet Pern. So it was relatively easy to transition to a male author in this case, as he was writing about the world his mother had created many years before.

todd mccaffrey

Robin Sloan. I’m pretty sure that when I first picked up “Mr Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore” I thought Robin was a girl. But I enjoyed the book so much I forgave him for being male, and went on to read “Sourdough“. Both delve into the realm of fantasy.

sourdough

Daryl Gregory. My folks gave me “Spoonbenders” for my birthday one year and it was a rollicking good read about a family with psychic abilities. Not sure what genre it belongs to – sci fi? Fantasy?

spoonbenders cover

Gregoire Delacourt. “The List of My Desires” is about a middle aged woman who wins millions on the lottery but doesn’t tell anyone. It’s been translated from the French by Anita Bell, so did I perceive a woman’s touch in the English version that may have been lacking in the original?!

53886948_10216400118768540_3616674222023114752_n

Nicolas Barreau. I loved “Paris is Always a Good Idea” – how can you not love a book with that as the title. But guess what. Turns out ol’ Nicolas is actually a pseudonym of the German author Daniela Thiele – a woman!

paris is always a good idea

So it turns out I’m a bit of a “reverse sexist” in my reading habits, but I *am* trying to change my ways.

Can you recommend any other male authors that are worth checking out?!

NB This post may contain affiliate links.



Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hi Janet – We probably have different tastes in books, as I love mystery/suspense. However, you might like Alexander McCall-Smith, especially his ‘No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Novels’, though he often has female protagonists in some of his other series too, like the Sunday Philosopher’s Club series. I also love Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mysteries, starring 11-year-old chemistry genius Flavia. Quite funny. Alan Bennett’s novella ‘The Uncommon Reader’ was another good one. The Queen stumbles across a mobile library van outside Windsor Castle and takes up reading, with hilarious consequences. I’ve also enjoyed some of Davis Bunn’s books. He writes in a variety of genres, including women’s and inspirational fiction, though I’ve especially liked his suspense ones. And one you might like is ‘Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet’ by Jamie Ford. Beautifully written parallel narrative about the love between a Chinese boy and Japanese girl in the US just after Pearl Harbour. It jumps back and forth from 1940s to 1986 and is just beautiful. Sigh.

    And I loved the blockbusters ‘The Book Thief’ by Marcus Zuzak and ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr. Beautiful writing in both.

    So don’t give up, Janet. There are some great male writers out there who can and do write wonderful female characters.

  2. I agree with Nola – the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency books are great (also the TV series). I also mainly read novels and biographies by women but since joining a book group I’ve broadened my reading quite a bit. Here are some of the books by male authors that we read which you might enjoy: ‘The Course of Love’ by Alain de Botton (follows a marriage over a 17 year period); ‘The Rosie Project’ by Graeme Simsion (about a guy with Aspergers who tries to change in order to win over Rosie after many dating failures); ‘Paris Echo’ by Sebastian Falks (a fascinating story, told from the perspective of an American women researching women’s experience of WW2 in Paris and a young Algerian man living temporarily in Paris).

  3. Snap! I don’t read male authors either. Well, rarely. The only one I can remember in recent years is The Slap by whatshisname (can’t spell or pronounce it ?), and I didn’t like it. So yeah, no recommendations here. You’re welcome. ?

  4. I don’t read male authors much either – I find they tend to love writing lengthy pages of battle scenes and gore, and less about the character of the characters. It’s probably because I’m not a Tolstein fan or detective/crime/horror genre reader either. I’ve read all the Anne McCaffrey books and I think some of Todd’s as well. I think I’ll be sticking with Nora Roberts/JD Robb for now.

  5. Oh yes! I highly recommend Mike Gayle (who writes chick lit from a male perspective – he’s fabulous) and Khaled Hosseini, an Afghan author who writes beautifully often about challenging subject matter and of course, Mitch Albom (start with Tuesdays with Morrie.) Now that I think about it though, most of the books I read are written by women too!