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Male reviewers are from Mars…

The Literary Saloon, the blogging arm of the book review site The Complete Review, has often taken The New York Times Book Review to task for its paltry coverage of translated books, as well as its heavy tilting toward works of non-fiction and away from fiction.

In its latest post, the LS wearily notes that this pattern continues in this past weekend’s issue of the NYTBR, but finds yet another disturbing trend: the “perverse” divide in reviewer gender.

“All four full-length fiction reviews (all of novels written by women) are by women, while a single one of the twelve non-fiction reviews is by a woman — and, get this, it’s of a book called: My Mother’s Wedding Dress. The not-so-subtle message is, of course, that fiction is girlie-stuff which real men don’t bother with (Sam Tanenhaus certainly seems to have very little respect for it), while non-fiction is strictly man-stuff — except, of course, those limited titles that you can’t pay a man enough to touch (like books titled: My Mother’s Wedding Dress …).”

Boys on one side, girls on the other – who knew North America’s most widely read and influential book review section was just like a Grade 7 dance?

Related links:
Read about the NYTBR gender divide at the Literary Saloon

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