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The Gender Balance of The New York Times Best Seller List

I was struck but how disproportionately male my reading genres are - I ran across a comment decrying Infinite Jest as one of those 'jerk off bro books' - so started examining some of my reading habits. It should have obvious to me when I was reading Beckett 15 years ago, and a woman I was chatting with not understanding who or why,  said that it "must be a guy thing." I still love some science fiction and will finish off the few remaining Dick and Vonnegut I haven't read, and the non-fiction I read will, for now, stay focused on systems sciences and programming, but I have stopped Infinite Jest - great writing, but the story devolved into themes around drug rehab and  cross-dressing amputee assassins - and I am now on one a search for authors. I'll start maybe with Austen and Highsmith - I loved the Ripley series, although the genre is lopsided male - and will peruse the Nobel list as one avenue for better female representation.

The Gender Balance of The New York Times Best Seller List

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