Which books do male and female readers prefer?

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Hollow CityWhat do men and women want when it comes to books? Do they prefer books written by their own sex? What do they think of books written by the opposite sex?  GoodReads has surveyed 40,000 active members on their site, 20,000 men, 20,000 women, to determine what they read and what they liked.

Most popular books by a female author read by men this year, according to GoodReads, were:

City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

We Were Liars by E Lockhart

Cress by Marissa Meyer

The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Four by Veronica Roth

 The most popular titles by male authors read by female readers were:

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan

All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr

Mr Mercedes – Stephen King

The Silkworm – Robert Galbraith

The collected works of A.J. FikrySome of the titles above are ‘Young Adult’ books – many are 5* rated on our catalogue.
Inspired by the #readwomen movement to investigate, GoodReads found out of the men’s 50 most-read titles this year, 90% were by male authors and the converse is also true. Out of the 50 books published in 2014 most read by women, 45 are by female authors, five by male (one was Robert Galbraith, aka JK Rowling). “Ultimately, when it comes to the most popular 2014 books on Goodreads we are still sticking to our own sex,”

The analysis also found that in the first year of publication, 80% of a female author’s audience will be women, compared to 50% of a male author’s audience. Yet while women appear more open to reading books by both male and female authors, they prefer books by women – as do men. “On average, women rated books by women 4 out of 5 and books by men 3.8 out of 5. Surprise! Men like women authors more, too – on average men rated books by women 3.9 out of 5 and books by men 3.8 out of five,” said Goodreads.

The survey showed men and women read the same number of books in 2014 taking into account books published in any year. But women read twice as many books published in 2014 than men did. .