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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

  1. The symbol > indicates that the category on the right has been classified by Goodreads as being a subcategory of the category on the left. ↩︎

  2. 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? ↩︎

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    31·
    23 hours ago

    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.

    • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      20·
      22 hours ago

      95% of xitter dudebro “analysis” is looking at a sociological phenomenon and going “look at this evidence of biological essentialism!”

    • AernaLingus [any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      3·
      15 hours ago

      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?