Why men should really be reading more fiction

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A friend sent a meme to a group chat last week, which, like many internet memes before it, managed to plant itself deep in my mind and capture an idea in a way that more complex and expansive prose doesn’t always manage. Somewhat ironically, the meme was about the flaws of the Internet.

The text read: “People in 1999 use the Internet to escape reality,” above a commonly used image from a TV series of a face looking out a car window. Below was another face looking out the window of a different car and overlaid with the text: “People in 2026 use reality as an escape from the Internet.”

Sorry. So simple, but so spot on. With AI-generated decline – sorry, content – ​​now surpassing human-generated words and images online, with social media use having peaked and with “dumb phones” being touted as a status symbol this year, it feels as if the tide is starting to turn towards removing the general joy from life.

And what better way to combat the ever-increasing flow of mediocrity and nonsense on the Internet, and stick it to the greedy giants of the “attention economy,” than to pick up a work of fiction (best not purchased on one of these giants’ platforms), with no goal other than the sheer enjoyment and enrichment of our lives? But while the tide may be starting to turn, it doesn’t look like we’re there yet on the reading front, if we’re going there at all.

Two-fifths of Britons said last year that they had not read a single book in the previous 12 months, according to YouGov. As has been noted many times before on both sides of the Atlantic, men are the least likely to read – only 53 per cent had read any book during the previous year, compared to 66 per cent of women – both in overall numbers and specifically when it comes to fiction.

However, pointing this out, and lamenting the “disappearance of the literati,” has become somewhat controversial. A much-discussed Vox article last year asked: “Are men’s reading habits really a national crisis?” Suggesting that they weren’t, they point out that women only read an average of seven minutes more novels per day than men (while failing to note that this in itself represents about 60 percent more reading time).

Meanwhile, an UnHerd editorial last year argued that “the literary man is not dead,” positing that there is a subculture of male literary fans who are keeping the archetype alive and claiming that “podcasts are the new salons.”

This is all well and good, but the truth is that there is a gender gap between men and women when it comes to reading and engaging in fiction specifically, and it’s growing.

According to a 2022 survey by the US National Endowment for the Arts, 27.7 percent of men had read a short story or novel during the previous year, down from 35.1 percent a decade earlier. Women’s novel reading habits also declined, but more slowly and from a higher base: 54.6 percent to 46.9 percent, meaning that while women outpaced men in reading by 55 percent in 2012 when it comes to fiction, they did so by nearly 70 percent in 2022.

The gap is already evident in early adulthood, and it has also widened: data from 2025 showed that girls in England achieved A-level English literature at a rate around four times higher than boys, with this gap growing from a rate around three times higher just eight years ago.

So the next question is: Should we care, and if so, why? Those who argue that yes, we should tend to give few reasons. They point out that reading fiction promotes critical thinking and empathy and improves “emotional vocabulary.” They argue that novels often contain heroic characters and strong, virtuous representations of masculinity that can inspire and motivate contemporary men. They cite Andrew Tate, the titan of masculine toxicity, who once said that “reading books is for losers who are afraid to learn from life,” and that “books are a complete waste of time,” as an example of his advice that no To continue.

I agree with all of this – wholeheartedly, I might add. But I’m not sure how many of us, whether women or men, pick up books in order to become more virtuous people. Perhaps the most compelling, or at least motivating, reason to read novels is that they provide a form of pleasure and interest that the modern world is steadily eroding. In a hyper-capitalist culture optimized for quick browsing and distraction, being able to sit still with a novel is subversive and truly enjoyable. The real question then is why more men don’t choose one.

jemima.kelly@ft.com