Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives

19 Jan 2021
Online

Professor Helen Taylor

Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives

Professor Helen Taylor says she always warms to men who read novels. ‘I love that they’re not reading to get facts…I think they’re reading fiction to try and understand the world from an oblique perspective.  Fiction takes you on indirect routes to truth.’ But sadly the idea that fiction is a purely female domain is taken for granted by most people involved in the world of books.

So why is it that far more women than men are readers of fiction, literary festival-goers, members of literary societies and book clubs? This is the question that Helen Taylor explores in her engaging study:  Why Women Read Fiction – The Stories of Our Lives.  

Come and listen to Helen discuss how women readers are preceived to form the life-support system for writers and publishers of fiction and why Ian McEwan once remarked ‘when women stop reading, the novel will be dead’. 

Unfortunately, due to tier 4 regulations, we are no longer able to host this event live in the church. However, we will be filming Professor Taylor's talk and the film will be made available to BLS members from 19 January. 

To join the BLS please email join@barnesliterarysociety.org.uk

 

Presented by Barnes Literary Society