Ask me to select a book from a store and I will immediately gravitate towards fiction.
Nonfiction does nothing for me. So, imagine my surprise when I randomly stumbled across an article in The Guardian where Max Fletcher noted that only 13 per cent of men read daily. Even more astounding was the claim that, most men among that 13 per cent consume nonfiction (motivational and self-help books).
Fletcher based his claim on a UK study, which led me to conclude that British men are bizarre. However, expanding my research to US-based studies confirmed Fletcher’s assessment. An article by Sunil Iyengar for the National Endowment for the Arts observed that only 37.6 per cent of adults read novels and short stories.
The reduction was particularly noticeable in men. Now, you could argue that Africa is different. But is it? I have spent years complaining about the overwhelming number of nonfiction literature in the African section of Ugandan book stores.
I have a feeling the percentage of adults who read fiction in East Africa is equally abysmal. The question is, why are men the primary culprits? Why would they dismiss fiction in favour of nonfiction?
Some scholars blame schools. Apparently, men associate fiction with hard work because they spent their primary and secondary school years tolerating Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and other challenging authors whose books they could barely comprehend.
The experience made reading repulsive to them. I don’t buy that argument because women suffered through similar classes, but their love for fiction remained unchanged. Also, if reading is so anathema to men, why are they buying nonfiction?
The journalists I found who actually asked men why they favour nonfiction said the same thing. Supposedly, to many men, fiction is a waste of time. It does not provide any meaningful return on their time investment.
Nonfiction, on the other hand, provides valuable knowledge that has a practical application for their lives. But that excuse is silly. First of all, fiction is valuable. Besides the obvious (improving your mental and emotional health by providing an escape from the stressful aspects of life), fiction uses fantastical elements to educate.
Think about the thousands of historically rich essays that flooded the internet following the Battle of Winterfell (Game of Thrones), written by enthusiastic fantasy readers who discovered their love for history after devouring the works of authors like Ben Kane and Simon Scarrow.
If anything, fiction supersedes nonfiction because it makes learning fun. It also encourages audiences to seek more information later on. Secondly, as a man, you can’t tell me that novels are a waste of your time when you spend hours in any given week watching football and arguing about it online.
That doesn’t even include the time adult men spend drinking and partying. I initially dismissed one writer who argued that men don’t read because they don’t have reading role models. I couldn’t fathom that explanation.
You don’t need role models to read fiction. You read fiction because it is fun. But now that I’m thinking about it, many girls spend their childhoods in book clubs. They also enroll in literature courses led by female teachers and dominated by female students.
Maybe men are failing in the fiction department for that reason. They don’t have the male version of Oprah’s book club to inspire them to read. To clarify, there’s nothing wrong with reading nonfiction (besides the fact that it’s boring).
However, I wholeheartedly oppose this notion that every activity in your life must serve a practical purpose. If you are the kind of man who typically drowns in biographies and memoires, I would urge you to give fiction a chance.
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