I read. A lot. I read constantly, and have since I was a little kid. Reading is the main activity of my life, and while how I read has changed (thanks, technology), that I read, and will continue to read, is not a question for me. Reading is like breathing for me at this point; it's just what I do. I can't imagine my life without it, and I wouldn't want to.
People read less now than they have in decades, or so the research tells us. Fewer adults read books for pleasure nowadays (although those who do read, read a lot!) Men, in particular, read less, and that's especially true for fiction, and even more true for modern fiction of the type the author of this article is championing. I'm not sure how you describe the kinds of books that women--his ideal readers--read. Adult contemporary fiction? Romantasy? Literary fiction? Oprah's Book Club fiction? Something like that, or somethings like that. Definitely not the kind of stuff that I read.
What grinds my gears about this article is the feeling that I am being hectored for not being a soy-boy when I read, and that if I could just weep a bit more when I read about the fictionalized lives of BIPOC 2SLGBTQIA+? people, the world would be a better place indeed because I would recognize how riddled I am with toxic masculinity, a colonial mindset, a cis-normative world view, and late-stage capitalism. Fucking straight guys! All we do is stream porn, Netflix, Joe Rogan, and World of Warcraft. What a bunch of assholes.
Note that the author flippantly dismissed Watchmen, a graphic novel included in Time Magazine's 100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century, and which has been made into a feature film, two animated films, and a series on HBO. Yes, yes, but it's not literature. It's more of that 'speculative fiction' gruel: horror, science fiction, fantasy. Stephen King and his penny dreadfuls (thanks Howard Bloom)! Genre fiction, like westerns, thrillers, mystery...posh. If one is not reading from the NYT's Best Sellers list, well...really, why read at all?
What a fucking pretentious, condescending douche-bag. This guy reminds of a poodle: sure, you see it for what it is on the outside, but deep inside its DNA, there is a wolf, howling to be let out. This dude needs to do some push-ups, eat a steak, and read some Conan. Asshole. Men don't read the kinds of books he values because we aren't the target audience. Those books are not for us. We don't read for therapy, or to be made aware of all of our shortcomings.
We read, as C.S. Lewis said in the movie Shadowlands, so that we know we are not alone.
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