More on Reading
Here’s another piece on the British study that asked men what their watershed novels were. The researchers found that many men (surprise!) didn’t read novels. It’s a follow up to a study last year of what women’s favorite novels were.
I found a few things interesting. One, they seemed to conflate watershed and favorite, which, as I’ve mentioned before, can be two different things. There are books I’ve read that helped me make life decisions, and while they’re among my favorites, they might not be the one(s) I name when asked for a favorite. Two, this article notes that while men don’t read novels, they still are in control of most of the novel-producing and -awarding machinery out there.
This article discusses the study as well, but it gets interesting more than halfway down when it talks about why we read. Some literary critics have gotten together with scientists, and they’ve found proof (and use abstruse lit-crit jargon to talk about it) that we read novels in order to try to know our minds, and the minds of others.
There are lots of reasons to read, of course, but the one they name is probably my primary one. Temporary escape of reality is ranking rather high for me, lately, especially on days when both boys cry at once. The screaming toddler plus the wailing baby is so loud, and so awful, that it’s almost, but not quite, funny. It makes me long for a book during naptime.