Image description
A Twitter screenshot which shows a quote-retweet and a reply to said QRT.
The quoted tweet from Alex & Books (@AlexAndBooks_) on November 5, 2025 reads,
Books men like to read vs. Books women like to read:
and has an image of a graph titled “Goodreads reviewers by genre and sex (Thelwall M., 2017)”; the data seems to be from the 2017 paper “Reader and author gender and genre in Goodreads” by Mike Thelwall. The graph has a list of Goodreads genres on the Y-axis and percentage of readers on the X-axis, with bars for “Males” and “Females” (representing the gender proportion of reviewers in a sample of books within each genre), and the list of genres sorted from highest male readership to lowest male readership. The most striking thing about the graph is that females overwhelmingly dominate in nearly all genres, with only four genres having more male than female readers (and only relatively small margins even then). The genre with the highest male-to-female ratio (roughly 59% to 39%) is philosophy.
I have provided tabular editions of this data below in two versions: an abbreviated version with only the genres and percentages, as in the graph, as well as a full version with all the data from the paper plus the percentages (since the percentages were not in the original paper, only raw numbers).
The QRT from august (@regularagust) on November 8 reads,
This becomes way funnier to look at if you know what the philosophy section in the average bookstore looks like.
The reply from 滿帖子乖謬之言觀汝似有瘋症 (@remmettmaxwell) on November 8 reads,
what we imagine: “phenomenology of the being and cognition” by j. j. r. von Grosseschleichen (1889)
what they mean: “locking in: 12 lessons on the meaning of life i learned from being with the operators in the coast guard auxiliary”
Data (abbreviated, percentages only)
| Genre[1] | Male % | Female % |
|---|---|---|
| philosophy | 59.1% | 40.9% |
| sequential-art>comics | 57.8% | 42.2% |
| politics | 56.4% | 43.6% |
| sequential-art>graphic-novels | 54.9% | 45.1% |
| science-fiction | 49.8% | 50.2% |
| history | 46.9% | 53.1% |
| religion | 42.0% | 58.0% |
| science | 41.4% | 58.6% |
| literature | 40.9% | 59.1% |
| horror | 40.8% | 59.2% |
| classics | 36.5% | 63.5% |
| non-fiction | 35.8% | 64.2% |
| reference | 35.0% | 65.0% |
| novels | 34.6% | 65.4% |
| biography | 34.2% | 65.8% |
| adventure | 33.9% | 66.1% |
| psychology | 33.7% | 66.3% |
| short-stories | 32.7% | 67.3% |
| thriller | 32.2% | 67.8% |
| travel | 30.9% | 69.1% |
| mystery>crime | 30.4% | 69.6% |
| poetry | 29.8% | 70.2% |
| art | 29.4% | 70.6% |
| fantasy | 27.8% | 72.2% |
| autobiography>memoir | 24.9% | 75.1% |
| christian | 24.4% | 75.6% |
| fiction | 23.9% | 76.1% |
| humor | 23.1% | 76.9% |
| thriller>mystery-thriller | 22.9% | 77.1% |
| mystery | 21.8% | 78.2% |
| sequential-art>manga | 21.1% | 78.9% |
| suspense | 21.1% | 78.9% |
| historical | 17.8% | 82.2% |
| historical-fiction | 16.9% | 83.1% |
| fantasy>magic | 16.8% | 83.2% |
| romance>m-m-romance | 15.8% | 84.2% |
| young-adult | 15.0% | 85.0% |
| childrens | 13.1% | 86.9% |
| food-and-drink>cookbooks | 13.1% | 86.9% |
| animals | 12.6% | 87.4% |
| adult | 12.3% | 87.7% |
| fantasy>paranormal | 11.7% | 88.3% |
| contemporary | 10.4% | 89.6% |
| childrens>picture-books | 9.8% | 90.2% |
| adult-fiction>erotica | 6.3% | 93.7% |
| romance | 5.4% | 94.6% |
| romance>paranormal-romance | 4.0% | 96.0% |
| womens-fiction>chick-lit | 3.6% | 96.4% |
| romance>contemporary-romance | 2.7% | 97.3% |
| romance>historical-romance | 2.5% | 97.5% |
Data (full)
| Genre* | Books | Ratings | Male reviewers | Female reviewers | Male % | Female % | Reviews for RQ5[2] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| philosophy | 5131 | 95606 | 11234 | 7772 | 59.1% | 40.9% | 857 |
| sequential-art>comics | 8567 | 166331 | 13334 | 9749 | 57.8% | 42.2% | 1263 |
| politics | 3894 | 34030 | 12657 | 9790 | 56.4% | 43.6% | 490 |
| sequential-art>graphic-novels | 6961 | 169828 | 13204 | 10828 | 54.9% | 45.1% | 878 |
| science-fiction | 9967 | 261253 | 22221 | 22363 | 49.8% | 50.2% | 1614 |
| history | 16315 | 199503 | 33017 | 37310 | 46.9% | 53.1% | 4033 |
| religion | 5056 | 54552 | 11505 | 15890 | 42.0% | 58.0% | 676 |
| science | 4463 | 71467 | 9908 | 14006 | 41.4% | 58.6% | 938 |
| literature | 3697 | 77384 | 9679 | 13979 | 40.9% | 59.1% | 92 |
| horror | 5545 | 161636 | 9923 | 14398 | 40.8% | 59.2% | 914 |
| classics | 5187 | 664000 | 10818 | 18831 | 36.5% | 63.5% | 556 |
| non-fiction | 40208 | 507491 | 69899 | 125264 | 35.8% | 64.2% | 8215 |
| reference | 6039 | 27524 | 8862 | 16453 | 35.0% | 65.0% | 580 |
| novels | 4564 | 52933 | 11389 | 21551 | 34.6% | 65.4% | 76 |
| biography | 7925 | 103156 | 18571 | 35705 | 34.2% | 65.8% | 1627 |
| adventure | 4822 | 83352 | 13506 | 26298 | 33.9% | 66.1% | 180 |
| psychology | 3259 | 49520 | 6378 | 12558 | 33.7% | 66.3% | 617 |
| short-stories | 7834 | 96615 | 8555 | 17644 | 32.7% | 67.3% | 758 |
| thriller | 5003 | 86473 | 12521 | 26326 | 32.2% | 67.8% | 453 |
| travel | 2941 | 31811 | 4369 | 9781 | 30.9% | 69.1% | 654 |
| mystery>crime | 4786 | 72899 | 11691 | 26793 | 30.4% | 69.6% | 272 |
| poetry | 7011 | 111621 | 5686 | 13389 | 29.8% | 70.2% | 1943 |
| art | 4469 | 30879 | 4043 | 9718 | 29.4% | 70.6% | 876 |
| fantasy | 19909 | 1057426 | 26409 | 68596 | 27.8% | 72.2% | 2758 |
| autobiography>memoir | 3673 | 67055 | 8576 | 25807 | 24.9% | 75.1% | 480 |
| christian | 4356 | 45478 | 7915 | 24530 | 24.4% | 75.6% | 796 |
| fiction | 41475 | 1218673 | 69470 | 220826 | 23.9% | 76.1% | 5187 |
| humor | 6409 | 87725 | 10417 | 34633 | 23.1% | 76.9% | 516 |
| thriller>mystery-thriller | 3167 | 26621 | 7562 | 25407 | 22.9% | 77.1% | 30 |
| mystery | 13093 | 389375 | 20210 | 72440 | 21.8% | 78.2% | 3645 |
| sequential-art>manga | 6623 | 285353 | 349 | 1306 | 21.1% | 78.9% | 162 |
| suspense | 3829 | 41560 | 6874 | 25647 | 21.1% | 78.9% | 79 |
| historical | 8654 | 137803 | 12514 | 57776 | 17.8% | 82.2% | 260 |
| historical-fiction | 9243 | 309406 | 12213 | 60237 | 16.9% | 83.1% | 1909 |
| fantasy>magic | 3028 | 60821 | 3188 | 15762 | 16.8% | 83.2% | 70 |
| romance>m-m-romance | 5729 | 125520 | 1100 | 5847 | 15.8% | 84.2% | 525 |
| young-adult | 11286 | 621919 | 10739 | 60915 | 15.0% | 85.0% | 1943 |
| childrens | 14147 | 163267 | 11264 | 74404 | 13.1% | 86.9% | 1989 |
| food-and-drink>cookbooks | 3642 | 36381 | 1183 | 7833 | 13.1% | 86.9% | 899 |
| animals | 3280 | 29674 | 3501 | 24264 | 12.6% | 87.4% | 294 |
| adult | 7043 | 72240 | 7151 | 50876 | 12.3% | 87.7% | 101 |
| fantasy>paranormal | 9094 | 261909 | 4556 | 34374 | 11.7% | 88.3% | 599 |
| contemporary | 13853 | 204599 | 8471 | 72730 | 10.4% | 89.6% | 227 |
| childrens>picture-books | 7410 | 131850 | 4754 | 43752 | 9.8% | 90.2% | 2945 |
| adult-fiction>erotica | 6981 | 78255 | 906 | 13487 | 6.3% | 93.7% | 427 |
| romance | 29205 | 676026 | 6805 | 119519 | 5.4% | 94.6% | 3342 |
| romance>paranormal-romance | 4239 | 110105 | 706 | 17100 | 4.0% | 96.0% | 288 |
| womens-fiction>chick-lit | 4072 | 91559 | 1318 | 35144 | 3.6% | 96.4% | 481 |
| romance>contemporary-romance | 7403 | 91478 | 868 | 30965 | 2.7% | 97.3% | 212 |
| romance>historical-romance | 3767 | 103730 | 555 | 21370 | 2.5% | 97.5% | 872 |
edit: just realized the link I gave for the paper wasn’t the open access link I used, so here’s a direct link for that one
The symbol > indicates that the category on the right has been classified by Goodreads as being a subcategory of the category on the left. ↩︎
Review Question 5: Are there differences in the types of things that male and female reviewers write about male and female authored books in specific genres? ↩︎
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Surprised “fantasy > magic” has such imbalance
scifi stays winning
I cannot fathom why color e-readers are as popular as they are. Manufacturers are starting to drop b&w readers and going heavy into color e-readers, which to me defeats the purpose, as color ones do not have as bright of a white background and contrast on text isn’t as sharp (so less book-like). I guess the answer is that there’s just that many manga/comics readers.
i read in dark mode and all i want is a simple device that i can put downloaded books on, with a low-light dark grey screen with light grey text that soothes my eyes as i read a comfy book in bed or on the train. comic book e-readers should be another category of device
conclusion: westerners despite gender norms goon either to novels or to nazi yappers
The average politics section in a bookstore looks like this
Nazi section of the bookstore
Next to the history section which here consists of the gulag archipelago and waffen SS memoirs
*takes copies of gulag archipelago and moves it to the fiction section *
Within days Ukrainian intelligence declared that they didn’t believe Navalny was murdered, but that never stopped libs from making a martyr of a fascist.
Libs have never cared about reality, they love their unfalsifiable conspiracy theories
Navalny lol what a loser
Marketing is divided by gender. This list is entirely a marketing problem, there is almost no romance written for or targeted at men.
Also Romance is on this list like 8 times yet not other genre is split up like that.
Also women are the primary readers of almost every fucking genre listed because there’s just more women actually reviewing books on Good Reads. There’s literally only 4 genres there with more male reviewers.
Also it really shouldn’t be any surprise that the two things that are historically the most patriarchal, Philosophy and Politics, have more men?
Comics = Marvel slop too
Graphic Novels = Marvel slop and Judge Dredd
Oh I need to point out that Erotica and Adult writing is garbage data too because much of the genre is usually posted by hobbiests online for free in kink communities or adapted into text-based games that are basically digital versions of choose your own adventure. Some of those make the breakout into VNs, are we counting those or have I muddied the line between books and videogames too hard now? It’s a pretty blurry line with that content. With that said most of that online is male spaces, so they’re just not being marketed to offline and find it in niche spaces online because western marketers haven’t realised there’s money to be made.
I bet this data looks different in some cultures where the marketing segments are treated differently, willing to be it’s different in Japan for example.
Yeah, I don’t think you can draw fine-grained conclusions about readership based on the source the data was sampled from and the study’s methodology, and that’s literally not even a question the original study was asking (I’ll post the research questions below). I honestly just thought that the reply was funny, and it required the original QRT for context.
Research questions
• RQ1: In which genres do female reviewers give higher ratings than male reviewers and vice versa?
Although reviewers tend to be more positive towards books authored by their own gender, does this occur once genre has been factored out and, if so, does it occur universally across genres? As discussed above, gender homophily does not seem to be a big factor in the social web and so this should not obscure book preference gender homophily.
• RQ2: In which genres are reviewer ratings biased towards books authored by the same gender?
One aspect of gender in book reviewing that does not seem to have been examined before is the relationship between reviewer gender and the reception of their review by other readers. For example, do readers empathise more with reviewers if they are from the same gender as the author or the reader, or does one gender tend to be more authoritative in the role of reviewer?
• RQ3: In which genres are female reviewers more liked than male reviewers and vice versa?
• RQ4: In which genres are reviews of books authored by the same gender as the reviewer more popular?
Finally, although there are theories about why different genders might enjoy specific types of books (e.g., Radway, 1984) there is little empirical evidence about how writer gender influences the way in which readers of different genders understand or engage with books in the genres that they have chosen to read.
• RQ5: Are there differences in the types of things that male and female reviewers write about male and female authored books in specific genres?95% of xitter dudebro “analysis” is looking at a sociological phenomenon and going “look at this evidence of biological essentialism!”
Also 95% of TERF “analysis”, horseshoe theory real
What about my Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The only romance men are reading is mlm? Is reading books that gay?
I was just in my local Barnes and Nobles and fr the philosophy “section” is just one shelf, and 50% of it is just different editions of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. And that’s not counting the other stoic shit. At least they had a copy of Capital lol
It’s sad. You can’t even find any pop philosophy at mine, like The Book by Alan Watts. I don’t have a lot of physical books but I’d like to have some Sartre or Camus in my collection at some point.
Capital
😀
in the Twenty-First Century
😑
Dude I hate Marcus Aurelius and his stoicism. “There’s nothing one can do”, “we should just accept things as they are and not really try to change anything ever”… brother you are THE EMPEROR OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. You are the person who CAN do the most like ever. Instead you choose to whine and be a little pussy? Come the fuck on.
Lol, I do sympathize with this to an extent, but I do think that this book has some good tidbits for those struggling with the ‘choose your battles’ problem. Accepting that you won’t influence everything, and letting that not impact you deeply in a negative way, can really help in focusing on what you can do. MA was definitely mixing these 2 things up quite often, where he could actually affect things but was stoic anyways, but I don’t think dismissing it outright is useful to communists.
It just pisses me off that he thought HE would be the dude to pass on that message and live the ideology. And that makes a bunch of privileged chuds think “if not even Marcus Aurelius could actually change things, why should I try?”. When they could actually do something.
Yeah, these people are also highly ignorant of the history and culture in which Aurelius found himself. I read it like this: MA was living in a world and culture and position where taking action, being decisive, and such were all givens. Of course he had to be able to do all that, and why focus on something so obvious? So MA was wrestling with the, for him, harder aspects of powerlessness which, though limited, were his main enemy.
Chuds read things like it’s an evangelical reading the bible: every word is the truth regardless of any context. (This is also a western Marxist tendency regarding Marx). So MA saying he couldn’t change something is read as nothing can ever change so complain about attempts
Synthesis: https://existentialcomics.com/
As a philosophy dweeb, like 20% of the total books described by that men’s “philosophy” bar in the graph are literally just Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and Art of War, and another 40% are just things in that orbit but more ignominious. Maybe the Five Rings, too.
I had no idea women read so much more manga than men though. That’s really interesting. How did that happen? Obviously women read a lot of manga, but I didn’t think it would be more than 4x the amount of men who do.
This graph is based on goodreads users who have bothered to post reviews. The data could entirely be a result of:
-
women might use goodreads more than men.
-
women might be more inclined to post reviews about a book they read
-
a dozen other variables that are unaccounted for
Basically i struggle to see this graph as anything other than graphing goodreads users interactions with goodreads. I don’t see how it can be used for ANYTHING else especially not some general statement that women read more of genre x than men.
-
Men just dont read
Agree, but “sequential art” is the lightest reading here short of picture books, and men do read plenty of western comics, to no one’s surprise, so I don’t see why manga specifically is so skewed.
a lot of manga men would read gets adapted, but a lot of manga remains unadapted and a lot of it is for women (ex: shoujo/josei, much of the yuri/yaoi genre)
this is also goodreads, so i expect a moderate western bias and tgirls are probably a non-insignificant amount of this readership
Both very good points
I recently found out (precure?), a manga/anime targeted towards girls/women, rivals one piece in popularity; there’s a gigantic market out there, but the fanfare is usually for media targeted towards guys
I know a man who wouldn’t read a book to save his life, married to a woman whose favourite room in their house is her library/home office.
I do not understand what she sees in him. But they are pretty cute together, for an “opposites attract” straight couple. And I guess he does give surprisingly good hugs for a guy.
A lot of people looked down on me for not reading books when I was younger. I was reading that manga, with pictures ew, made for small pants like myself, while the very intelligent big pants people they were all into books, the most serious books, like Harry Potter or later it was translated works by Jordan Peterson, books about the grandest, that hustle.
Sci fi with perfect gender equilibrium. The perfect genre
My fav section is the “controversial knowledge” section.
i will never understand grown ass adults who read YA fiction
I recently went through Redwall again, one of my favorite book series when I was younger. I would definitely categorize it as “young reading,” but It was a nice, breezy trip and very light for when I was tired and going to bed. The Earthsea series is also classified as YA, but I think anyone of any age would be better for having read it. Le Guin is simply a master of her craft.
as a hobbyist writer, I say it’s because there’s a lot of interesting development can be done of a character in YA-type storylines and plotlines because it’s from a child (or teen, i guess, 12-15?) to an adult which, depending on what story can include a lot of changes throughout life as when compared to much more… spread out subtle changes of adult life (I think anyway, maybe I’m just biased or whatever)
They weren’t wearing glasses and misread it as “yassification”
It’s an interesting age for emotional character development.
And there are also a lot YA where the characters are aged down for the label without changing the writing because publishers market YA better.
People demand a breezy read.
One of my friends reads YA fiction but also regular fantasy; I don’t personally understand what would draw someone to it. I’d watch the movie(s) like hunger games and such, but I sure as heck ain’t reading it.
