Is there really a huge difference between what men and women read?

Both sexes, it appears, enjoy nonfiction.

MarketWatch recently trumpeted this headline: "The huge difference between what men and women read." You can always get readers to open an article about the differences between men and women - after all, I did - because apparently we have not yet figured out what they are.

There are, as I have long suspected, differences between men and women.

According the the National Endowment of the Arts, men are more likely to read nonfiction books than fiction, while the opposite holds true for women: 55% of women read fiction in 2012, and 48% read nonfiction.

The real news here is not that 7% more women read fiction than nonfiction, or that more women read fiction than men.  It is the steady decline in the total fiction-reading population.

____________________

The waning literary leanings of American adults

Year	Percentage of adults who read fiction
1982	56.40%
1992	54.20%
2002	46.60%
2008	50.20%
2012	46.90%

A ten point drop may not appear to be much, but in sheer numbers it represents a LOT of people. (Someone else will have to do the math, But given an adult population of roughly 230 million, I am sure it's more than, say, a hundred.)
____________________

The huge difference between what men and women read

MarketWatch, Published: Jan 29, 2015 3:25 p.m. ET

Most Americans don’t read fiction, but the residents of some U.S. states are far bigger bookworms than others.

The number of adults who read at least one novel, play or poem within the past 12 months fell to 47% in 2012 from 50% in 2008, according to a new survey of over 37,000 Americans, “A Decade of Arts Engagement,” by the National Endowment for the Arts, a government agency that promotes artistic excellence.

Fiction reading rose from 2002 to 2008, but has been dropping ever since — and is now back to 2002 levels. By comparison, 30 years ago 56% of Americans read fiction. The decline in fiction reading last year occurred mostly among white Americans, including women and men of various educational backgrounds; rates held steady among non-white and Hispanic groups, the report found.

Men are more likely to read nonfiction books than fiction, while the opposite holds true for women: 55% of women read fiction in 2012, and 48% read nonfiction, according to an update of a previous NEA report released in 2013. Young adults are more likely to read fiction than nonfiction books, whereas the oldest Americans (aged 75 and older) are more likely to read nonfiction books, the NEA found. Literary reading varied widely from state-to-state: It was 63% in Washington state, far above the national average, and 56% in Colorado, Rhode Island and Connecticut, but just 34% in Alabama, 36% in Virginia and 37% in Nevada.

Read more here...

Where Everybody Has a Book in Their Belly

"Iceland is experiencing a book boom. This island nation of just over 300,000 people has more writers, more books published and more books read, per head, than anywhere else in the world."

Personally, I love the idea of park benches equipped with barcodes so people can listen to a book as they sit and watch the pigeons.

Also see: 10 reasons why Iceland is the best place to be a writer

Among other literary advantages, the Icelandic government is generous with annual grants and stipends to writers, which can make the dream of working as a full-time professional writer a reality.

Iceland also sponsors a yearly writers retreat in April featuring intimate panels, workshops, and full-day outing into the spectacular Icelandic countryside (geysers!). 
_________________________________

Iceland: Where one in 10 people will publish a book

By Rosie Goldsmith, BBC News Magazine

It is hard to avoid writers in Reykjavik. There is a phrase in Icelandic, "ad ganga med bok I maganum", everyone gives birth to a book. Literally, everyone "has a book in their stomach". One in 10 Icelanders will publish one.

"Does it get rather competitive?" I ask the young novelist, Kristin Eirikskdottir. "Yes. Especially as I live with my mother and partner, who are also full-time writers. But we try to publish in alternate years so we do not compete too much."

Special saga tours - saga as in story, that is, not over-50s holidays - show us story-plaques on public buildings.

Dating from the 13th Century, Icelandic sagas tell the stories of the country's Norse settlers, who began to arrive on the island in the late 9th Century.

Sagas are written on napkins and coffee cups. Each geyser and waterfall we visit has a tale of ancient heroes and heroines attached. Our guide stands up mid-tour to recite his own poetry - our taxi driver's father and grandfather write biographies.

Public benches have barcodes so you listen to a story on your smartphone as you sit.

Read the rest of this fascinating article HERE.

Brain function is boosted for days after reading a novel

In this fascinating study, researchers found that brain connectivity was increased during and after reading a gripping novel. The interaction between parts of the brain, known as connectivity, is what allows your brain to function. Without connectivity, you would be in a vegetative state. In addition to heightened connectivity, the subjects showed grounded cognition, which is the neural mimicry of physical sensation in the brain, simply by imagining it.  The authors of the study remarked that "reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist."

I would also like to point out that in addition to being transported into the body of the protagonist, people are transported into their minds, specifically their feelings. Emotions are what allow people to store memories and to learn. The implication is that by reading a story expressing vivid emotions, people can enhance their ability to form memories, and to learn from them. Identifying with another person's emotions is an essential step toward developing compassion, as well as self-awareness. 

________________

Source: The Independent, December 28, 2013

By Tomas Jivanda

Being pulled into the world of a gripping novel can trigger actual, measurable changes in the brain that linger for at least five days after reading, scientists have said.

The new research, carried out at Emory University in the US, found that reading a good book may cause heightened connectivity in the brain and neurological changes that persist in a similar way to muscle memory.

The changes were registered in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language, as well as the the primary sensory motor region of the brain.

Neurons of this region have been associated with tricking the mind into thinking it is doing something it is not, a phenomenon known as grounded cognition - for example, just thinking about running, can activate the neurons associated with the physical act of running.

“The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist,” said neuroscientist Professor Gregory Berns, lead author of the study.

“We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else’s shoes in a figurative sense. Now we’re seeing that something may also be happening biologically.”

21 students took part in the study, with all participants reading the same book - Pompeii, a 2003 thriller by Robert Harris, which was chosen for its page turning plot.

“The story follows a protagonist, who is outside the city of Pompeii and notices steam and strange things happening around the volcano,” said Prof Berns. “It depicts true events in a fictional and dramatic way. It was important to us that the book had a strong narrative line.”

Over 19 days the students read a portion of the book in the evening then had fMRI scans the following morning. Once the book was finished, their brains were scanned for five days after.

The neurological changes were found to have continued for all the five days after finishing, proving that the impact was not just an immediate reaction but has a lasting influence.

“Even though the participants were not actually reading the novel while they were in the scanner, they retained this heightened connectivity,” added Prof Berns. “We call that a ‘shadow activity,’ almost like a muscle memory.”

Note: You can read the full study HERE. 

What are people reading? Not what they were reading 20 years ago...

This fascinating little article appeared a few days ago in USA Today. USA Today has been tracking book trends since 1993. Among the more notable trends over the past two decades is an increase in fiction bestsellers. Why?

"People today are looking for escape...Fiction provides that. In the '90s and early 2000s, we were in a different economic time. People were living the dream, not just dreaming it. "

Other significant trends: 

• Erotica is now mainstream (apparently, "dreaming" sex is better than the real thing)
• An increase in translations (due, in large part, to a girl with a tattoo)
• A decrease in bestselling self-help books (people would rather dream about sex)
• An increase in children's and teen books (not just for kids anymore)

_____________________________________

20 YEARS OF USA TODAY'S BEST-SELLING BOOKS LIST

By Bob Minzesheimer and Anthony DeBarros , USA TODAY, October 30, 2013

What 20 years of best sellers say about what we read...

How has your reading changed in the past 20 years? From readers shopping in brick-and-mortar bookstores, to the dominance of game-changing online sellers, to a digital era of e-reading and instant delivery, the book industry has gone through monumental change. And USA TODAY has been there all along. Look through 20 years of best-selling books.

When USA TODAY began its Best-Selling Books list 20 years ago, J.K. Rowling was a struggling unknown writer teaching English in Portugal. Suzanne Collins was helping to write a children's TV show for Nickelodeon called Clarissa Explains It All.

And the word "Amazon" brought to mind a river in South America or a very tall woman.

A lot has changed in two decades.

Driven by Amazon.com, about half of all books are now bought online, a click away. More than 20% are downloaded. Some 40% of adults have e-readers, tablets or other devices to read e-books.

And Rowling and Collins? They have a combined total of 225 million copies in print of the books (10 in all) of their two series for children and teens, Harry Potter and The Hunger Games.

Two decades worth of data show what's changed — and what hasn't — since USA TODAY began tracking best sellers in October 1993.

The highlights from three distinct eras:

• Self-help and other advice titles were big during the first five years (1993-1998) when most books were bought in physical bookstores.

• Rowling triggered Dickens-like excitement about reading and demolished the conventional wisdom about children's books in the second era (1999-2008), when online sales grew.

• Since 2009, fiction (as a percentage of best sellers) has risen to all-time highs and erotica went mainstream as e-books became the fastest growing part of the market.

Read the rest of this article HERE.

40% of Adults Own an Ereader ... What Are They Reading?

In spite of protests from the inhabitants of Jurassic Park, it looks like ereaders are here to stay. A recent poll conducted for USA Today and Bookish, a website designed to help people find and buy books, found that 40% of adults — including 46% of those ages 18 to 39 — own an e-reader or a tablet. That's more than double the numbers of less than two years ago. (You can read the full article HERE.)

In a nutshell, twice as many people own an ereader, and three times as many own a tablet, as compared to two years ago.

The biggest demographic for ownership is, not surprisingly, between the ages of 18 and 49, almost half of whom own an ereader.

For this group, the number of books read on an ereader outstrips print books.

Also, not only are they reading more, they are talking about it on Facebook.

The poll asked a number of other interesting questions, including: What keeps you from reading more books? (Lack of time), and (big question!) For those using ereaders, what books are you reading more of? (In order of popularity: Sci-fi, mystery, romance, and nonfiction.)

Find out what factors play a role in their book selections HERE.

What Makes You Put a Book Down?

GoodReads is famous for analyzing every aspect of reader behavior -  from what makes a person read a book, to what makes a person put it down. Here are the results from one of their recent surveys. 

These results should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, these readers abandoned Catch 22!! (I confess that although I finished Ulysses, I really didn't want to. Sometimes we persist with a "classic" even when we'd rather be reading something else. It's called guilt.) As for the top five most abandoned books, I put down every one of them. 

What Types of Books Are People Buying ... and Who Is Buying Them?

Bowker is the publishing  industry's leading source of statistics. Their 2013 Consumer Demographics report reveals some eye-opening trends. Although most buyers purchase books online, they are still buying more print books than ebooks. Who is buying? Women. What are they buying? Adult fiction. Click here for Random House's enlightening inforgraphics.

Source: Random House Notes

By Milena Schmidt and Mina Park

How do people learn about new books?  What types of books are they buying? What formats are they selecting?  Consumer insights play an important role in a publisher’s strategies, from acquisitions to pricing and marketing campaigns. During a recent industry event at Random House, Carl Kulo of Bowker Market Research shared highlights from their 2013 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics & Buying Behaviors Annual Review.

The report shares insight into buying trends from 2012, as well as the first quarter of 2013. A nationally representative sample of Americans aged 13+ is invited to take a survey on book buying each month. Responses from at least 6,000 panelists who purchased a book in the month prior to each survey are aggregated to gather insights on who the panelists are, their preferences and habits, and what’s important to them when they shop for books.

Read more ...