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Data Reveals the Most Popular Books are Written by Men

By February 20, 2019Authors, News, Reading Habits

Many people just pick up a book, read it and decide from there whether they love it or not, for others the gender of the author is important. The gender gap in literature has been present for years, perpetuated through history by male nom de plumes and lack of respect generally for female literature.

Some bookshops have even gone so far as to create visual experiments to show how many of the shelves are dominated by male authors.

With this in mind maybe it should come as no surprise to find that data collated by Wordery reveals that the world’s most popular books are written by men and that males dominate the reads that have stood the test of time.

Using data from Ranker, key findings from the research showed that:

– Male author J.R.R Tolkien is one of the most popular writers according to both men and women, with The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit appearing in the list of top books
– Of the 100 most popular books, 82 were written by men and only 18 were written by women
– Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice appears in the top rated books by women at number four but fails to appear in the most popular list as voted for by men
– To Kill A Mockingbird by female author Harper Lee is the top-rated fiction book as voted for by readers

You can use the infographic below to see exactly how the gender gap works and to see how each book scored.



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