Male "Milestone Books"

[Colr]

From the Guardian (reads like the researcher had a bit of a sub-agenda but here goes:-

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The novel that means most to men is about indifference, alienation and lack of emotional responses. That which means most to women is about deeply held feelings, a struggle to overcome circumstances and passion, research by the University of London has found.
Professor Lisa Jardine and Annie Watkins of Queen Mary College interviewed 500 men, many of whom had some professional connection with literature, about the novels that had changed their lives. The most frequently named book was Albert Camus's The Outsider, followed by JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. The project, called Men's Milestone Fiction, commissioned by the Orange prize for fiction and the Guardian, followed on from similar research into women's favourite novels undertaken by the same team last year.



The list in full

The Outsider by Albert Camus
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Ulysees by James Joyce
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
MilanKundera - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
1984 by George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

[egb_hibs]

It does indeed look very like a male guardian reader's list.

I'm only surprised it was populist enough to give a nod to tolkein.

[egb_hibs]

I agree with this woman quoted in the article:

'"The men's list was all angst and Orwell. Sort of puberty reading," she said'

[Colr]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

I agree with this woman quoted in the article:

'"The men's list was all angst and Orwell. Sort of puberty reading," she said'

there's a lot of teenage pish in there right enough. In particular:-

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (grow out of it!!!)
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Colr

there's a lot of teenage pish in there right enough. In particular:-

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (grow out of it!!!)
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I don't think she was just referring to books about or written for teenagers, was she.
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notwithstanding the classic status of some of these books, all that moody overcoat and coffee stuff is oh so pubescent at heart as well.

[Bartok]

Astonished to discover that I've read all of those.
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I'd only put Slaughterhouse Five and maybe The Grapes of Wrath in my top 20 though.

[wee 162]

Again in a book list fecking Ulysses get's in despite being unreadable pish!

[Bartok]

Originally Posted by wee 162

Again in a book list fecking Ulysses get's in despite being unreadable pish!

If you think that one's bad you should try Finnegan's Wake
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[Colr]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

I don't think she was just referring to books about or written for teenagers, was she.
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notwithstanding the classic status of some of these books, all that moody overcoat and coffee stuff is oh so pubescent at heart as well.

neither was I.

Don't agree on 1984, though.

[Colr]

Originally Posted by Dixie Chicken

If you think that one's bad you should try Finnegan's Wake
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Agree with that - i tried the abridged version with notes and still couldn't work out what he was on about. Just obtuse.

[Colr]

Bird's list:-

1. Pride and Prejudice

2. To Kill a Mockingbird

3. Jane Eyre

4. The Women's Room

5. The Handmaid's Tale

[Bartok]

Originally Posted by Colr

Bird's list:-

1. Pride and Prejudice

2. To Kill a Mockingbird

3. Jane Eyre

4. The Women's Room

5. The Handmaid's Tale

Don't forget these:


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[egb_hibs]

Originally Posted by Colr

Bird's list:-

1. Pride and Prejudice

2. To Kill a Mockingbird

3. Jane Eyre

4. The Women's Room

5. The Handmaid's Tale

whereas a Real Man's list, as opposed to these bedwetting lit-fops, would most likely be more like:

1. Tom Clancy

2. Stephen King

3. Sports Autobiography

4. Popular History

5. Popular Sporting History


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[Colr]

Originally Posted by egb_hibs

whereas a Real Man's list, as opposed to these bedwetting lit-fops, would most likely be more like:

1. Tom Clancy

2. Stephen King

3. Sports Autobiography

4. Popular History

5. Popular Sporting History


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I mentioned the bird's list to the bird I'm married to and she thought that it seemed made up of the books that pre-pubescent girls read so maybe the prof. should be equally scathing about both lists as they seem to reflect a lack of reading after folks leave school.

I think women read fiction more than men do, so she's right on that.