Books By Women That Every Man Should Read

[Music] hello hope you're having a good day i want to make a video today uh talking about this well-intentioned article that was published recently in the guardian called books by women that every man should read and uh this has provoked a lot of discussion and uh i have some thoughts and feelings about it my myself um so there's an article like discussing this issue and why it is being brought up and then there are recommendations from prominent male authors that are suggesting uh books by women that they think every man should read i guess there's a kind of way of being like hey buddy uh women write some pretty good books too so uh here are some suggestions and uh so i'm going to discuss this issue in general because i have some thoughts and feelings about it and then i can't resist a book list so i'm gonna look at some of these uh recommendations uh that are given and and some of the issues that they raise in themselves of of uh which books they recommend and how they recommend them so uh in general uh looking at this overall issue um this is sort of brought up because it uh quotes this statistic that uh roughly the average women will read 50 50 books written by men and written by women whereas men it quotes that men on average will read 80 books by men and 20 books by women uh so first off to say uh whenever any statistics are quoted in any news article or news item i i and don't give a source of those statistics i immediately start questioning like well where did these statistics come from what were were the amount of people that were surveyed to get these statistics and where were they surveyed and all of those have a really big factor into uh how these statistics this i have real trouble saying that statistics were made because um yeah that that will affect uh the the outcome of it if you only survey like 100 people from a certain area of say like oxford and a certain neighborhood i mean that's that's going to affect um what the the results are um not that that i'm saying i'm questioning these statistics because i i think it probably is true of of the general reader and that that's kind of uh my impression i mean not of my readership circle um not of me and a lot of male readers i know online and have interactions with read a lot more books by by women um than that figure suggests um but uh but yeah in general um i think uh this is a kind of issue that that uh that men primarily read books by other men and it's uh something that i've brought up before here on my channel and uh which i had a very personal response to when i was uh confronted once by someone that had looked at my blog and said do you only read books by women even though it was quite clear that it was pretty much 50 50 that i read books by both men and women but uh but this issue comes up when uh men see that and then uh if men aren't in the majority of the media that is being consumed then men assume that there is a prejudice there against them um in some way in a i think a kind of slightly paranoid way and uh the thing is that i think that this is a a big much larger issue to do with culture in general in a certain kind of masculinity and conception of the actions and the expectations of what men should be consuming and how they should be acting and and and so you know i certainly found this being a man that that other men will look at my reading and then make assumptions about me based on that that reading um even though i do read quite a lot of books by men as well and i and probably say that uh in terms of like general readers i read a lot more books by men than other men that would criticize me for seemingly only reading many books by by women uh do you see what i mean and so yeah that um uh that really concerns me and this came up again recently when uh someone commented on a blog post of mine saying like you know you really should read more books by by men it's great that you read lots of books by women and uh but lots of books by queer authors but what about straight men it seems like you're i'm having a bias towards these these other authors and uh and so i said well look at some of the books that i read in the past month and there's this book this book and this book by a straight man and he said oh no no you misunderstood what i meant time i really meant that uh you should be reading books uh by men that are under 30 um that are heterosexual and that are white or english speaking and like wow okay how specific are you going to get in terms of uh making suggestions for my reading in in that way and uh so of course we're all we all just read what we're drawn to wanting to read i mean unless we're reading for professional reasons uh you know we're mainly reading for enjoyment and pleasure and leisure so you should read what you're drawn to but at the same time i think we should be looking at uh if you only read books by men over the past five years um maybe question like well why aren't i reading more books by women as well or maybe i should mix up my reading a little bit so i think it is all like a big um issue that that um that is there but yeah i think it's more to do with the larger culture in in general and and and the the whole though i think this is like a well-intentioned exercise i think there is something a bit icky about it of of men recommending books by women as if men wouldn't listen to recommendations of books written by women given by other women it's a bit weird and and strange and uh and actually i loved there was a uh social on social media on twitter there was um this really great response uh that somebody posted uh sort of to this whole article in general i mean there's been lots of posts about it but by amber sparks who who posted this saying some books by men you may enjoy ladies the book with wizards that motorcycle book the time when a man was sad i remember a woman in my youth the older man and the young nymphet some thoughts by me men go to war about a family but definitely not domestic fiction and uh yeah that's something that is uh kind of a response to something that's covered in this article too of this conception uh that uh some of these male writers um wrote of why they think uh men mainly read books by other men of this stereotype that uh women mainly write about domestic fiction in relationships and feelings whereas you know men write about war and power and big ideas and of course there's endless examples of women that write about these issues too but uh but yeah there's this whole issue that stereotype that that exists which um i'm really if if men are still believing that in the year 2022 i don't know if just some suggestions by prominent male authors of female writers to read i i don't know if that's gonna do enough to correct this this much bigger uh in in society so yeah that's that's that's the whole issue in general and it is one that i'm continuously confronted by um or at least every once in a while i get you know a sort of odd comment um like that on my blog recently about my reading habits and sort of criticizing them and and and that's definitely something i experience as a male reader of these stereotypes and and perpetuating these masculine ideas about expectations of what i should be reading and how i should be acting and so yeah have have issues with that so let's let's look at some of these uh this list of uh male authors recommending their favorite book by a woman um so first off you have howard jacobson uh recommending middlemarch by george eliot great that's a great novel uh but uh but in this he says uh at the the end of this short thing he says no man or woman can be considered educated who hasn't read it at least twice well okay i oh why do we have this thing and it's one of the things i like least about the bookish or literary community that there is this snobbish attitude about what we should be reading and if you haven't read this thing or if you haven't read it twice then you're not educated then you're not a good reader i think that is such a snobbish and horrible attitude i have read middlemarch only once and i guess that means according to howard jacobson i'm uneducated or not educated enough and i'm sure lots of other people have had that experience as well i mean i'd like to reread it sometime but i've just not got around to it yet because there's lots of other books to read and you know what i tried reading howard jacobson's novel the thinker question and i i couldn't get through it i read about 150 pages and i was just bored i i didn't find it uh interesting and i didn't find it funny um i think it was meant to be a comic novel but that wasn't coming across to me so i mean my advice to howard jacobson is maybe spend less time rereading middlemarch and more time writing in novel that's actually engaging uh but then who am i to say that um because you know this is a prize-winning author that is much lauded uh who am i to say but uh but yeah i can personally couldn't finish this novel and when i got this down to to look at it and see what page i got to um i found inside my my bookmark was uh to get to see janelle monae a number of years ago um which was a lovely thing to to come across but uh yeah uh that's fun to revisit it to see that ticket but uh but i don't think i'm going to go back to reading that book anytime soon or anything else by howard jacobson so next recommendation is by ian mcewen uh who's good on him he recommended a brand new book uh which is we had to remove this post by hannah berwalt um which is a book i talked about recently in a book haul video um she's a dutch author and this is a novel all about our social media age and a kind of critique of that and uh is meant to be quite humorous as well and some people commented that this is a really great book and it's quite slender so yeah this is a book that i i do want to read soon simon rushdie recommends mrs dalloway by virginia woolf uh which is always a really great recommendation um you know the way that this novel also portrays the after effects of war as well as a woman giving a party i mean i guess that's a kind of strategic uh recommendation to say that that hey uh here's a woman virginia woolf that wrote about both these things very well um which she did so yeah this is an amazing novel and she is an amazing writer so great and then richard curtis who sort of started off this article um the the beginning of it discusses how um he realized that he had had this i guess unconscious bias for quite a long time that he'd mainly been reading books by men so over the past few years he's consciously been trying to read more books by women and he recommends the awesome olive kitterage by elizabeth strout a brilliant writer and a brilliant novel about a very difficult woman and yeah i just i love this book so much so um yeah what a great recommendation uh you also get uh stuart turton um recommending the god of small things by aaron dottie roy another great novel that yeah i would definitely recommend as well you have michael donker recommending homegoing by yaa jiasi and this amazing family saga which is so immersive and wonderful and fascinating and just completely gripped me all the way through so and has such an amazing cover um here for the uk hardback edition um so i just love this novel as well as uh her follow-up novel transcendent kingdom which i'd also definitely recommend uh there's uh blake morrison who recommends regeneration by pat barker um a great novel about war um yeah that i'd also like really highly recommend andrew marr recommends the seasonal quartet by ali smith i'm hoping at some point there'll be an omnibus edition of all of the the seasonal quartet in in one book um i think that is coming at some point but uh but yeah such a brilliant series and so yeah definitely something that i recommend everyone should read as well um derek owusu uh recommends the terrible by ursa dolly ward which is a novel i i haven't read but um but i i definitely um was interested in reading and want to to read as well um he says that he he read it three times because he just just so engrossed by it he doesn't give the qualification that if you don't read it three times then you're not educated enough because he definitely wouldn't believe that or think that or say that uh so you know what sort of author would say something like that simon sharma um recommends uh anything by daphne de marie uh because she is such a great writer and i i read rebecca for the first time a couple of years ago and yeah what an amazing novel so good uh sanjeev boskar recommends to kill a mockingbird by harper lee um which um some people were uh kind of mocking that uh anyone if you say to a man what's a great book by a female author to kill a mockingbird it's the first one that comes to mind and yeah any list of books should i think include or at least a list like this should include a mixture of classics as well as contemporary books and so i guess it's good that it's on there and it is an amazing novel but it's been an established classic for a really long time adam thurwell recommends uh cherie by colette which is a really great uh novel so engrossing and uh moving story about gender and relationships and all of those dynamics uh and uh rob doyle recommends orcs and crake by margaret atwood and yeah what an amazing uh engrossing imaginative dystopian novel uh that that so says so much about gender as well as so many other things to do with the environment and society in general and where it is going um so yeah a really great novel um you have krishna guru murthy the journalist recommending the goldfish finch by donna tartt which is such an engrossing wonderful novel even though it's quite long i think i read it over the course of a few days because i was so gripped by it lee child recommends the the last widow by karen slaughter a book i've not read but says that it's a great story great characters pace thrills and action um so uh so yeah i guess that's the kind of description that is uh meant to entice men justin webb recommends uh the sea the sea by iris murdoch i have this beautiful first edition of the novel that my partner got for me and yeah this is such a wonderful novel um a prize-winning novel that uh is all about uh the life of a man focusing on his meditations and reflections on life and and yeah what a brilliant writer iris murdoch was uh then john boyne recommends the secret diary of adrian mole aged 13 and three quarters by sue townsend i've not read this book um i'm and i'm not really that interested in john boyne's opinions or recommendations so i'm just going to move on from that the writer chris power recommends my phantoms by gwendolyn riley so i've not read this her most recent novel but i don't want to because i read her novel first love and did not enjoy it at all but i know she has plenty of fans so if you're a fan of gwendolyn riley then great i'm glad you enjoy and appreciate her her work but personally i do not and then you have moses mackenzie recommending uh sinions winning and getting married like christmas by maya angelou and the the great authors uh one of her works of autobiography and uh yeah this is a book i've not read but um that i'm sure i would really enjoy reading so that is the list that they give um obviously there are many many more books by written by women that are definitely worth reading and that um you know i would say should be required reading by it by men uh i want to because i want to throw in some of my own suggestions as well um even though there are so many books written by women that i would definitely recommend that i have recommended on this channel there's the shore by sarah taylor another great family epic um that is so sweeping and immersive and fascinating um looking at the changes in society on this one small island but also changes in this this family over the generations of of uh their experiences and the reverberations of uh things that occur in the past um which then also have an impact upon the the present um such an amazing novel that i really highly recommend uh because it's me also joyce carlos i'm gonna throw in her novel uh what i lived for um which is an amazing study on even though uh joyce carlos primarily writes about the experiences of adolescent women and girls uh also wrote this amazing novel all about a a certain type of man and uh exploring uh day in his life and all about his experiences and thoughts and feelings and prejudices and ideas and uh complex uh his complex psychology um in such a fascinating way that is so gripping and wonderful and um so yeah definitely another book by joyce carlos that i would recommend and then uh finally uh the novel the eighth life uh by nino haritach villi iva penchant for family sagas and this is another brilliant one following multiple generations of the family over wartime and uh their experiences and is so gripping and immersive and uh i just have so many wonderful things to say about this book um has it's filled with so many great stories that are really gripping and how lucky are we that a new novel by nino harry touch philly is being published in english later this year so i'm really looking forward to that more to come yeah a great epic book so those are all my suggestions and some thoughts and feelings about the issues that this article raises i'm sure there's a lot more to say about it let me know in the comments below if you have any thoughts or feelings about this issue as well as these particular suggestions that are made by these prominent male authors um in in this article uh yeah and i think it's great that this is being raised as an issue but uh but yeah the way they're going about trying to create change i don't know if this actually gonna have any impact will male readers read this and be inspired to pick up a novel by a woman maybe and if they do that's great but yeah i think there's a lot more that needs to be done to change this whole conception of masculinity in our culture i mean there's a lot being written about there's uh a lot being said about this in the news and so it is an issue i think that is gradually changing and uh where where where our ideas and thoughts and feelings about it are are slowly changing over time but uh yeah no more work needs to be done so thank you for listening to me ramble about this this issue and going through this list um uh uh but uh yeah i'd love to know your thoughts and reactions in the comments below and i will speak to you again soon have a wonderful weekend bye-bye

Channel: Eric Karl Anderson

Views: 5,415

Keywords: booktube, books for men, reading suggestions, fiction for men, masculinity, Middlemarch by George Eliot, We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, The Seasonal Quartet by Ali Smith, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Shore by Sara Taylor, What I Lived For by Joyce Carol Oates, The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili

Id: 29wJjd_09aQ

Length: 21min 51sec (1311 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 04 2022