I want to talk about men and books for a bit. Is that okay?

Right now, I’m deep in the trenches of my PhD research, which is focused on the current state of male reading. So, as you can probably imagine, I spend a lot of time looking at who picks up a book, who doesn’t, and what might be driving those choices.

Some of the data is pretty fascinating, but staring at research papers all day gets a bit isolating. So, I figured it would be much more interesting to drag some of the findings out into the daylight and share them with you guys.

This post will be just the first in a series of updates where I’ll be unpacking male reading habits, and hopefully will leave the jargon at the door.

More than anything, I want this to be a two-way conversation. My research only tells part of the story, and getting your feedback is going to be incredibly helpful.

I’m especially keen to hear from those of you reading this from outside the UK. What does the reading culture look like in your corner of the world? Do the men in your life actually use their bookshelves, or are they mostly decorative?

Drop your thoughts in the comments, and let’s get this conversation started.

Here we go…

The statement that boys don’t read is one that has been made, regularly and often, over a great many years.

Indeed, it has become such a cultural truism that when the National Literacy Trust in the UK found that ‘between 2024 and 2025, boys’ enjoyment of reading declined across most age groups,’ the most surprising aspect of the subsequent coverage was that this observation was, in any way, treated as being surprising.

The sizeable gulf between male and female reading levels has been reported ‘consistently, in national and international assessments,’ with the pattern in research whenever this phenomenon is examined being that ‘girls outscoreboys.’ Furthermore, the fact that male reading is found to be in decline is a consistent message across all developed nations for which reading data is available.

And, of course, this is not an especially new phenomenon: ‘surveys conducted in 1940, by Jenkinson, and in 1958 by Himmelweit et al, indicated the same pattern.’ Concerns over boys’ engagement with books have been expressed ‘for the last 25 years,’ especially as to how ‘there are serious issues about boys’ attitudes and levels of achievement’ in reading. And while the title of Greig and Hughes’ article that ‘a boy who would rather write poetry than throw rocks at cats is also considered to be wanting in masculinity’ overstates for dramatic effect, the broader direction of their argument is perhaps not without merit.

We are at the point in the twenty-first century where, such is the position of young male reading that, ‘in a near-perfect inversion of the old chauvinism, it is now boys who are presumed - even by their own parents - to be too empty-headed to be interested in books.’ Moreover, it has been argued that this situation is such an embedded fact that boys themselves ‘often don’t believe they will find a book they like because they have bought into the propaganda that boys don’t read.’

Ultimately, of course, boys who do not read are likely to become men who, likewise, care not to pick up books. In a vicious cycle, this inevitably leads to a lack of male reading role models, further exacerbating the significance of the issue. As Gail Giles notes, “a boy doesn’t want to be a woman. He wants to do what a man does. And if he doesn’t see a man reading, he won’t read.”

Well, that’s my starting point.

For my next post, I want to try and square a bit of an interesting circle with you all.

Considering the broader landscape of male reading looks pretty bleak right now, why is the LitRPG market suddenly booming? It really bucks the trend, doesn't it?

Leave your comments and theories below, and let's get the debate going.

Oh, and before you go, my author website has just launched over at maloryauthor.com, so please head over and take a look at what I’ve been writing!