Comments on: Things To Do While On Hold

By: Ann Harrington

Ann Harrington — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 21:39:39 +0000

I recall seeing a scholarly study that said that women have purchased the majority of novels since the beginning of novels as a recognized category, way back to the Georgian and Victorian eras. Be an interesting research topic if no one has looked at this recently.

By: Booksquare

Booksquare — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 20:27:46 +0000

I think JG is a little confused, on many levels. Such is the joy of unsupported arguments — it gives us stuff to make fun of (also I saw a man buying a book this past weekend, so it appears they have not completely lost their ability to purchase items).

By: Bill Peschel

Bill Peschel — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 20:14:01 +0000

Wait a minnit. What JG is suggesting is that, if men used to have the buying power but now the women do, that means that men have lost their ability to buy books. That, in essense, men are unable to buy books, because they’ve either lost interest or lost the buying power.

In theory, it seems that if men continued to buy books, they would still be able to support the writers who wrote books aimed at that market. Now they don’t.

I would guess, however, that men are buying fewer books because they can find similar material on TV and in movies.

By: Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Lauren Baratz-Logsted — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 17:25:55 +0000

I had to laugh at the headline of the Telegraph article: they make it sound like a conspiracy! 🙂 Regarding trends, I’ve noticed that more literary novels by women are being pubbed with chicky covers, chick novels have moved into a Blue Period (see the top several titles on Amazon’s Summer Beach Reads list), while men are going pinkpinkpink (Frey’s My Friend Leonard and Weber’s Miss Gazillions).