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A heartbreaking work of staggering desperation. That’s how one London critic referred to a UK publishing house’s pledge of a 1,000 pound payoff to any man caught reading their fiction titles in public.

Demographic studies show that only 44 percent of men read fiction, compared to 77 percent of women and so drawing on the promise of an untapped market, the campaign also insinuates that men who read quality fiction are like catnip for women on the hunt for a well-read man.

Whether you buy that notion or not, sales data show that when it comes to books, men read male authors, non-fiction, and anything about spies or uncomplicated sex with hotter partners than they’d get in real life. Reading into the literary likes of the elusive adult male.

Guests:

Karen Joy Fowler, author, “The Jane Austen Book Club”

Adam Langer, author, “Crossing California”

Rob Williams, creative director, Penguin, UK.