Here’s a quick dismissal of 100 Must Read Books For Men by John Dugdale of The Guardian (whomever he is):
Bloomsbury’s pocket-size 100 Must-Read Books for Men is explicitly a response to Tim Lott’s attack on the Orange prize as sexist, aiming to take further “the debate around whether men are neglected by the British book industry”. Compiled by two former booksellers, it naturally includes crime, rock and sport titles and a sprinkling of big names, although in their case the selection policy (eg picking Gabriel García Márquez’s reminiscences of an aged paedophile sex-purchaser, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, rather than less addled efforts) can seem especially eccentric.
A scan of the list suggests men have no interest whatsoever in serious non-fiction or novels about normal, non-transgressive relationships (and references to “Brett Easton Ellis”, “Chuck Palanhuik” and a book called “The Rotter’s Club” imply confidence that they also couldn’t care less about spelling). What they do apparently crave are porn, drugs and violence. Besides García Márquez, weird sex is supplied by JG Ballard, Georges Bataille, George MacDonald Fraser (because Flashman is a rapist, the accompanying blurb usefully points out), Henry Miller, Alex Trocchi and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch; druggy excess by the likes of William Burroughs, Carlos Castaneda, Bret Easton Ellis and Hunter S Thompson; violence by thrillers, non-fiction war stories and novels such as Fight Club. It is possible to feel stereotyped
It’s also possible to try reading the book, John. if you had, you’d see that those ’spelling mistakes’ are typos and that the author names are correct on the actual entries (though we admit we missed ther apostrophe in the Coe title - shit, that means our opinions are totally without value, I suppose. Is this the first book ever to have proofreading errors?
It’s also interesting to see that John ignored the fact we cover Dino Buzzati, James Salter, M. John Harrison, A.A. Attanasio, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Isabelle Eberhardt, Garry Kilworth, Christophr Priest, Grant Morrison, Johny Rechy, Charles Willeford and Robert Silverberg. But then he probably hasn’t read them, and as they are obscure and/or fashionable, he wouldn’t want to drop thier names, would he? Try reading the book, John, then some of the books we cover you don’t know.
Serious? Here we go again, another critic who thinks that the only type of novel that can be considered ’serious’ is the sterotypical Leavite novel of class, social mores, character and family relationships. I’m really glad we ignored those kind of novels for the most part, as the are usually devoid of ideas. Good writing is important, but good writing sans ideas is next to meaningless in my view. Serious non-fiction ? I take that Graham Robb isn’t a serious biographer ? That Ben Hamper has nothing to say to humanity (but then he’s only a factory worker, isn’t he?
We wrote this book not for dilettante critics like Dugdale, who has probably only spoken to a couple of hundred other readers in his life. I’ve news for you, John - Duncan Bowis and I have talked to thousands of readers over 37 years of bookselling. You’re out of touch, John.
..and by the way, we finished writing this book before Tim Lott said a word about The Orange. All we did is exploit his publicity in a press release. it;s called marketing, without which books don’t sell, no matter how good they are. Any bookseller will tell you that, but you wouldn’t bother to ask one, would you?