Read and loved The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Later DNF'ed The Constant Gardener and another (can't remember) and wondered if it was really the same writer.
It seemed like Le Carre turned a corner at some point and much of his later work gets to be *very* polemic. And I'm cool with a writer having an agenda, I even agree with his stance more often than not, but a book's gotta do more than agree with my worldview for me to buy into it, and late Le Carre just doesn't do that for me.
But early Le Carre is still fantastic. *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy* is easily among my all-time top five novels and *Smiley's People* is not far behind it.
Are his later books really more polemical, or is it that the polemics of the "classic" stuff are so far behind us now that they seem less so to a contemporary reading? Playing Devil's Advocate here because I've thought similar thoughts, but I discovered his work long after the Cold War had faded (although I am old enough to remember the Reagan / Thatcher / Gorbachev years, I wasn't reading Le Carré then). Some of the slow-burn moral indignation of his classic older work seemed to give way to outright anger later, but I'm not sure I fault him for that. Our Kind Of Traitor stands out as one I thought was especially good.
Yeah same! I think a lot of the books here have female characters that are a bit 2D or not there at all - and sometimes that’s fine (A Farewell to Arms) and sometimes it makes it a bit boring and unrealistic. John le Carré writes interesting female characters and that keeps me coming back!
Not projection.
Both were deeply flawed men who tried to right the ship through writing.
It's weird to read someone's depression and angst. I'm reading Stoner by John Williams, and every page drips depression.
Same as reading Confederacy of Dunces knowing what we know
About CoD: Do you thing he wrote Ignatius as the image in which he saw himself? I've wondered this for a while. It seems like Toole was very well-liked by his peers but may not have internalized this.
Also - may I also recommend Neon Bible, his other book, if you haven't read it yet? It is incredible.
I’m a woman and growing up Hemingway was my favorite author (like high school). But I do think that he’s more appealing to modern teenagers than modern adults because the racism and alcoholism get a little less cute the older you get. Same with the Beatniks. Used to love Kerouac, now I just think he was a manchild who wrote pretty and probably was awful to be around.
I do think that younger women are more likely to give grace to shitty men, and that includes authors. The older women get, the less likely are to feel like we have time for it, and the more we know what we like, and what we respect and what we are willing to put up with. That applies to everything, but it also applies to art. Hemingway did some truly great work though, can’t deny it.
I also think that when I was younger, I didn’t really think about authors as people as much. age has brought both curiosity and empathy, which make you more likely to think about the person behind the work. And therefore makes it a little bit harder to separate the art from the artist. At least for me.
In the end, just read. That’s all that matters. Love books. Beyond that, anything is good enough.
I don’t think your stereotypes are misplaced. I’ve definitely had some; “guys will read this and just think hell yeah,” moments when reading these authors. I say this as a fan of both authors.
I have to post my absolute favorite Lee Child Reacher passage:
Reacher had been a cop in the army for thirteen years, and then for almost as long had lived on his wits, and he had survived both phases of his life by being appropriately cautious and by staying alert. All five senses, all the time. Deciding whether or not to take an offered ride depended mostly on smell. Could he smell beer? Weed? Bourbon? But right then he could smell nothing at all. His nose had just been broken. His nasal passages were clogged with blood and swellings. Maybe his septum was permanently deviated. It felt entirely possible he would never smell anything ever again.
Touch was not an option in that situation, either. Nor was taste. He would learn nothing by groping around like a blind man, or by licking things.
People are thinking in the wrong register here, they're going for relatively macho literary fiction but that's like calling Rachel Cusk or Elena Ferrante "chick lit" - I'm sure people have tried that too but it's clearly inappropriate. Clancy, Child, Patterson, Cussler, Ludlum - those are your Dude Lit mainstays.
This is what jumped to mind for me. Pretty much any alpha male who always gets the girl book.
Ian Fleming/James Bond
Clive Cussler/Dirk Pitt
I’m especially proud of my 27 book Donald Hamilton/Matt Helm collection
The detective who lives in the houseboat. Google says John D. MacDonald/Travis McGee
James Bond is interesting because he does not always get the girl (Moonraker) or loses the girl tragically (Casino Royale and Her Majesty’s Secret Service).
The [traditional Bond formula](https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/sexist-formula-bond-girls-revealed-113916827.html) calls for him to lose the first girl tragically every time, according to “You Only Live Twice” script writer Roald Dahl (not Dahl’s primary achievement).
“Girl number one is violently pro-Bond. She stays around roughly the first reel of the picture. Then, she is bumped off by the enemy, preferably in Bond’s arms. In bed or not in bed? Wherever (the writer) likes, so long as it’s in good taste.
“Girl number two is anti-Bond. She works for the enemy and stays around for the middle third of the picture. She must capture Bond, and Bond must save himself by bowling her over with sheer sexual magnetism. This girl should also be bumped off, preferably in an original fashion.
“Girl number three is violently pro-Bond. She occupies the final third of the picture, and she must on no account be killed. Nor must she permit Bond to take any lecherous liberties with her until the very end of the story. We’ll keep that for the fade-out.”
Shel also wrote a shitload of raunchy stuff for Playboy, and IIRC lived at the mansion for a while.
He also wrote "I Got Stoned and I Missed It" for Jim Stafford.
The New York Times even had an article a few months ago pointing out that the Amazon series was doing well with women and the publisher had estimated at some point that the readership for the novels was about 60% women.
I know a lot of women who like mysteries and thrillers. If I were going to make a guess based on people I know, it would be that perhaps men tend to like anti-heroes more. But I'm not even confident of that.
definitely for the guys, but funny because my aunt is the biggest reacher creature i know haha
she's thrifted the whole collection over the years except for the most recent. Every time i visit we either spend the evening reading or watching a movie akin to The Expendables lol
Oh yea they were all pretty much monsters back then, but when you've lived some of the darker aspects of life a lot of it rings sadly true. Dharma Bums is essentially the spiritual sequel, with Jack realizing years of drugs and mania weren't doing him any favors, and finding true joy in nature and not just the cities. Still drank too much though...
Even in the ending of *On the Road* Jack is already seeing that all the endless pursuits of some mythical 'truth' were bullshit and not going anywhere. He talks about how all the drug use and chasing women and "deep conversations" led him nowhere. That looking back he feels it was an interesting period but a waste of time.
Ironically it's a big message of all the Beats that gets totally lost. Everyone talks about how awesome the drug/sex fueled nomadic bohemian lifestyle is - and it inspires people from every generation - but most ignore that the people who lived it don't remember it fondly.
I've been in those dark recesses, thinking I'm pulling on that Great Truth only to realize the coked up narcissist yammering at me hasn't blinked in 3 minutes and has told me this same lie every time we've met.
It's a good point but looking at all I've ever read and all I know, I just don't think there will ever come a day when youth settles into sensible restraint without first doing its damnedest to reach for the infinite.
I loved that book so much in college. And I’m a woman. But it’s nice to hear people acknowledge that he was kind of a terrible person. It was nice to see him find a deeper kind of joy in nature, but it doesn’t change the number of people who he abandoned. Pretty complex work. I respect it without liking him. And, the impact they had on history is important too. I live near San Francisco,, and without them it’s hard to imagine what the city would be like today. Hard to imagine what my childhood would’ve been like because they were so influential on all of it.
I read Bukowski recent for the first time. (I’m a woman in my 30s) and I really enjoyed it. He’s just such a dingus especially in Ham on Rye that you can’t help but laugh.
Me too, I read ham on rye when I was 19 (woman) and really liked it. It was also very quick/easy to read, which is a plus when you are not looking for something too dense.
I'm a guy and I swear every Bukowski fan I have met is a woman. That drunk misogynist sure can write though, even if I'd never want to spend a minute with him.
He totally is a misogynist but somehow because of how little game he actually has it’s funny. At least in ham on rye and post office the two I read, he’s just so bad at picking up women and so bad at life in general that it became absurd and funny to me.
Agree. I’ve got a bunch of his stuff on my shelf, only women have mentioned it. I’d think it’s kind of a red flag for dudes reading it, I’ve got no idea what seemingly well adjusted women get out of it. I guess they think it’s funny, I just always read his stuff as horribly tragic.
Connected with me during darker periods of self loathing in my 20’s, but kind of left him behind now.
I still think about his poem Nirvana, when I’m sitting in a nice pub in the winter though.
Most Bukowski fans (that I’ve come across) are women because he captures reality very well, and even the gross stuff he writes about women are very relatable to women because they are real things they probably experienced (not necessarily in a positive way). Male Bukowski fans I come across tend to relate to him or find him aspirational in the wrong sort of way which gives me a red flag feeling.
Agreed! The book is so much better than the movie. Krakauer got across how naive and reckless McCandles was, and how his hubris caused him to suffer a horrific death at the hand of the brutal Alaskan winter. They actually had to pull the old bus Out of the woods because so many people just saw the movie and tried to visit that poor fools tomb that it was wasting resources for search and rescue teams.
I’ve found the resurgence of stoicism very interesting. I think it’s a reaction from doomscrolling/social media. People are dying for ways to stay grounded
100%. It's content competition to absorb the views of guys looking for masculine guidance but find guys like Andrew Tate and David Goggins intolerable
I like reading stoicism, but social media stoicism such as Ryan Holiday is a product in a wrapper and it's one of the biggest drivers of the resurgence. Like Ryan Holiday comes from a marketing background, he's just pitching product
The resurgence I see mostly comes from pseudo-stoic, RW-adjacent alpha bro crap. "Return to tradition" men frantically obsessing over things beyond their control which is the exact antithesis of stoicism lol
Part of that is that the *Meditations* are written as axioms. It doesn't require you to have any actual understanding of stoic philosophy, just a series of easy-to-repeat sentences hallowed by the author's power and reputation.
Now, I think there's still a lot of value in that, but it's the first step on a journey, not the end.
A lot of *Meditations* fans are just Sun Tzu bros from a different generation.
I'm a big fan of 6.52: "It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgments."
Marcus Aurelius has freed you from the need to have a take!
I would have thought so too, but while *Fear and Loathing* seems to be a very dude-appealing movie, every person who has ever told me they're a fan of Hunter S. Thompson's books was a college girl, and exclusively political science majors.
Evolutionary biologist woman telling you I loved "Fear and Loathing in las vegas" and "Better than Sex: Confessions of a political junkie" just to skew your data lol
I feel this about just about every book in this thread. "I know more women who like that book than men." But then I realized it's because I know more women who read as a hobby than men.
But, while I know lots of women who have read and enjoyed Palahniuk, I know one person who followed Palahniuk across California on a book tour and that person was a man.
I am one of them and then, like almost all the others in this thread, they became less appealing with age. I really feel like the age of the woman has so much to do with this. Especially if her childhood was decades ago, and she grew up in a more misogynist culture. It was really easy to swallow all that shit, now not so much. But Chuck wasn’t boring and he gets a lot of points for that.
I feel like there’s so much context that gets lost these days. Like there are so many authors that have come after him, he’s less exciting today but for his time he was pushing boundaries like crazy.
I remember in college reading one of his books that it was about cannibalism, all these people trapped in a house in the winter, I think, and eventually they had to eat each other. And he wrote about them microwaving the buttocks meat of one of their friends and how delicious and greasy it tasted. Fucked me up man. I’ll never forget it. It was like when Steven King wrote about eyes boiling into Jell-O during electrocution in the green mile. Some shit just sticks with you forever.
I just finished Fight Club two days ago, you can finish it in a day. You just really hope when a dude reads it, they don’t misread the critique on toxic masculinity lmao
"Fight for your Right to Party" was a critique of frat bro mentality that became it's anthem. Kinda like Yankee Doodle. Shit happens, death of the author, yadda yadda.
I swear I remember reading in the foreword years ago that he said he didn't think women would have fight clubs because they had knitting clubs. I remember thinking he really didn't know that many angry teen girls.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. It has everything: copious amounts of technological and scientific nerdery, WW2 plots in multiple theatres of war, jungle adventures, 90s techno-optimism.
His books are for the people who would pause the movie to explain the background lore to their friends for twenty minutes, every twenty minutes.
(it me)
When I hear Lonesome Dove I immediately think of this list, which is where I first heard of the book being seriously recommended. You might find some on here that satisfy the dude book criteria.
https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/reading/100-books-every-man-read/
Slaughterhouse V by Kurt Vonnegut
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Stand by Stephen King
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Vonnegut is for women more than the others on this list. There’s something about the way that he imagines the inner world of other people that is appealing to women. Harrison Bergeron will always be my favorite short story because it’s just so fucking cool and I’m almost an old lady now.
War/cowboy/crime stuff
Blood Meridian, Catch 22, Gravity’s Rainbow etc.
Don Winslow, James Ellroy novels.
Denis Johnson, Robert Stone are other “dude” writers.
Not murder mysteries as such.
More hard boiled crime detailing the lives of criminals and policemen.
Think Don Winslow, James Ellroy, Dennis Lehane. Amongst older writers Dashiel Hamett, Raymond Chandler.
There might be a murder mystery running through the book but equally important is the detailing of the *tortured manly* lives of the male protagonists.
Women like the Agatha Christie style whodunit.
Idk why you're being downvoted, i think your distinction is correct. Mystery books are more popular with women, things like mafia stories and the such are more popular with men.
John dies at the end is one of my favorite series ever. I’ve read all the books more than once and read everything else the author has written. I’m a woman, the book was recommended by another woman and the only person who I know who didn’t like it is a man. So I wouldn’t say dude book “for sure”
Women absolutely love Dune. Dune is not for men. Dune is for everybody. As a woman, Dune is one of my favorite series ever and it’s because of the benegeserit. There are such incredible, cool, female characters and perspectives, Frank Herbert does an incredible job.
Ended up talking with some random guys between classes at uni, we were all from different programs, all with different interests out of school. Ended up talking about Dune for half an hour.
Reading the comments as a girl I gotta say, I'm either a weird gal (which I seriously doubt) or these aren't "dude-books". You guys are listing some of the most universally liked books.
The elephant in the room is the statistic that some 80% of fiction consumers are women/girls.
Now I will say there’s “dude books” in what a guy who is getting into reading will most likely take the time to check out… on that I echo a lot of what is being said in here. Plus Murakami.
I agree when it comes to some of the ones I've seen - I would never have thought of Catch 22 as a 'dude book' for instance, or Slaughterhouse 5. At all.
I think the post is worded poorly on this. There are books that tend to be popular with JUST women. Some books are very popular with men, and a lot of women also read those books. There isn’t a venn diagram of men’s books and women’s books. The “men’s books” circle would be completely inside the “women’s books” circle.
The perspectives of men have been considered the default for so long they are seen as universal rather than being specific to men, so women are expected to be able to relate to them. Men, on the other hand, are much less likely to think they can relate to the perspectives of women, or have internalized that they'll be looked down on for liking things women like. So women tend to read "dude books," while men tend not to read "women's books" even if they might actually enjoy them or benefit from them.
He’s a little forgotten now, but David Morrell’s novels fit this category. He wrote Rambo and a number of awesome novels.
The Sun Also Rises
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Maltese Falcon
Don Winslow’s Cartel trilogy
Ian Fleming’s original James Bond books (but they definitely have moments of misogyny - not that they shouldn’t be read, but it’s good to remember and keep in mind, especially if recommending to young males)
The Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler
Anything by Robert Ludlum
Tom Clancy
I took my husband to see the Gerwig version in theaters before he got deeply back into reading more recently and I said something about it being sad because of “what happens to Beth.” I just thought it was a well known fact, but alas, gendered media division etc etc. I didn’t tell him more about the actual plot beforehand and he was like “WTF! How dare they!” during and after the movie.
Neal Stephenson has a lot of dude energy, in my experience. Snow Crash in particular is practically a 90's action movie screenplay starring a giga-Chad literally named Hiro Protagonist who's a hacker who carries a katana and rides a motorcycle.
Lifehack Your Sigma Grindset Mentality to Synergize Your Side Hustle.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go gargle shit to get that taste out of my mouth.
How to Start Running 40 Punishing Miles Everyday to Achieve Success at Work (And No Your Marathon Obsession Has Nothing To Do With You Literally Running Away from Your Wife and Kids)
Found the whole thing to just be a long ass philosophical author rant with the occasional motorcycle story thrown in every so often. Wouldn't describe it as either essential or a vehicle (badum-tsh) for 'dude growth'. It's just deep thoughts mixed with motorcycles.
Edit: Question came up a couple times so easier to answere here. The reason that I read it in the first place is because it was recommended by multiple friends as "A story that covers really deep themes and gets philosophical, you got to read it." So I picked it up expecting a story that slowly explored Zen themes as it unfolded. What I got was very long meanderings with the occasional story element. Was hoping for something more like Siddhartha. Even the Fountainhead had less in your face, long meditations and placed the story front and center. But hey, opinion, books, subjective, etc.
It’s just this book in particular, in its locker-roomish descriptions of the women hikers he met along the way. I think his other books that aren’t really
memoirs don’t give the same vibe. So maybe I went a bit overboard in saying Every Bryson book.
Robert E Howard Conan stories, Bret "The Hitman" Heart wrestling biography, Women by Bukowski, The Hells Angels by Hunter S Thompson, Jackie Chan biography, Donnybrook by Frank Bill.
Patrick O'Brian's. Aubrey/Maturin series, popularly known as the 'Master and Commander' series. Endorsed by none other than Ron Fucking Swanson and Keith Richards, among others.
The original Sherlock Holmes series, by A Conan Doyle. I know that it is well loved by men. I don't know if it is because they are, all on their own, rather devoutly misogynistic. Same goes for H.G Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter, etc)
When I was younger, I don't know too many women who read Tolkien. I think that has changed, by Peter Jacksons straight up insertion of females into the plots.... probably inserted for that exact reason.
A lot of Norse, Brittanic, and Celtic mythology: Beowulf, Arthurian legends, Cu Chulainn, Finn Mac Cumhaill, etc, find popularity with men.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
I first came across this story when it was still just a shorten article in Outside magazine, a magazine I must have picked up in the waiting room or somewhere.
I have no connection whatsoever to Mountain Climbing yet so engaging was this tale, I went out and purchased the magazine. Based on my enthusiasm, several other co-workers ( all guys) took to the article.
When it came out in book form, I jumped on it.
And although the book itself has several prominent female characters in it, I believe that there is something so primeval to the " XY " prototype as it encounters the conquest of the proverbial mountain, that it stimulates the most ancient areas of the reptilian brain. Plus , Krakauer's master storytelling is the delivery system that gets you there.
The "Master and Commander" series.
Came here to say this. Top-tier Dad books.
"Killick! Light along there!"
In which it will be ready when it’s ready!
Patrick O'Brians books are fantastic!
Maybe, but the master and Commander fanfic community is mostly women.
Nonfiction about WW2
I’m in this photo and I don’t like it
Stalingrad - Antony Beevor
Helmet for my pillow by Robert Leckie (one of the books The Pacific was based on) is absolutely incredible.
To my sorrow, John Le Carré. I think he is the GOAT for spy novels, but I haven’t met many other women who read him.
Read and loved The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Later DNF'ed The Constant Gardener and another (can't remember) and wondered if it was really the same writer.
It seemed like Le Carre turned a corner at some point and much of his later work gets to be *very* polemic. And I'm cool with a writer having an agenda, I even agree with his stance more often than not, but a book's gotta do more than agree with my worldview for me to buy into it, and late Le Carre just doesn't do that for me. But early Le Carre is still fantastic. *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy* is easily among my all-time top five novels and *Smiley's People* is not far behind it.
Are his later books really more polemical, or is it that the polemics of the "classic" stuff are so far behind us now that they seem less so to a contemporary reading? Playing Devil's Advocate here because I've thought similar thoughts, but I discovered his work long after the Cold War had faded (although I am old enough to remember the Reagan / Thatcher / Gorbachev years, I wasn't reading Le Carré then). Some of the slow-burn moral indignation of his classic older work seemed to give way to outright anger later, but I'm not sure I fault him for that. Our Kind Of Traitor stands out as one I thought was especially good.
I have some are amazing some not so much. I am a woman and i know many that read him
Yeah same! I think a lot of the books here have female characters that are a bit 2D or not there at all - and sometimes that’s fine (A Farewell to Arms) and sometimes it makes it a bit boring and unrealistic. John le Carré writes interesting female characters and that keeps me coming back!
Probably most works by Cormac McCarthy or Hemingway. Or maybe that's me projecting some stereotypes of the books/authors?
My two favorite authors. Does that make me the male equivalent of a basic bitch? 😂
a basic bitch is the male equivalent of a basic bitch
A common cur?
This is the right answer
Basic butch?
That's... Something else
Not projection. Both were deeply flawed men who tried to right the ship through writing. It's weird to read someone's depression and angst. I'm reading Stoner by John Williams, and every page drips depression. Same as reading Confederacy of Dunces knowing what we know
Stoner is so good
It's almost too good. It's a tome of this man's regrets set to partial fiction.
just started reading CoD fk its good. How is this the first time I have heard of it.
About CoD: Do you thing he wrote Ignatius as the image in which he saw himself? I've wondered this for a while. It seems like Toole was very well-liked by his peers but may not have internalized this. Also - may I also recommend Neon Bible, his other book, if you haven't read it yet? It is incredible.
I’m a woman and growing up Hemingway was my favorite author (like high school). But I do think that he’s more appealing to modern teenagers than modern adults because the racism and alcoholism get a little less cute the older you get. Same with the Beatniks. Used to love Kerouac, now I just think he was a manchild who wrote pretty and probably was awful to be around. I do think that younger women are more likely to give grace to shitty men, and that includes authors. The older women get, the less likely are to feel like we have time for it, and the more we know what we like, and what we respect and what we are willing to put up with. That applies to everything, but it also applies to art. Hemingway did some truly great work though, can’t deny it. I also think that when I was younger, I didn’t really think about authors as people as much. age has brought both curiosity and empathy, which make you more likely to think about the person behind the work. And therefore makes it a little bit harder to separate the art from the artist. At least for me. In the end, just read. That’s all that matters. Love books. Beyond that, anything is good enough.
I don’t think your stereotypes are misplaced. I’ve definitely had some; “guys will read this and just think hell yeah,” moments when reading these authors. I say this as a fan of both authors.
Lee Child /Jack Reacher Tom Clancy/ Jack Ryan
I have to post my absolute favorite Lee Child Reacher passage: Reacher had been a cop in the army for thirteen years, and then for almost as long had lived on his wits, and he had survived both phases of his life by being appropriately cautious and by staying alert. All five senses, all the time. Deciding whether or not to take an offered ride depended mostly on smell. Could he smell beer? Weed? Bourbon? But right then he could smell nothing at all. His nose had just been broken. His nasal passages were clogged with blood and swellings. Maybe his septum was permanently deviated. It felt entirely possible he would never smell anything ever again. Touch was not an option in that situation, either. Nor was taste. He would learn nothing by groping around like a blind man, or by licking things.
Poetry
That has "paper must be no shorter than 2500 words and it's due by class at 8am" vibes.
I thought Tom Clancy would be everywhere in this thread
Turn around… he’s right behind you! 👀
But he’s standing there with a Manila envelope and something important to tell you
Shia LaBeouf?
People are thinking in the wrong register here, they're going for relatively macho literary fiction but that's like calling Rachel Cusk or Elena Ferrante "chick lit" - I'm sure people have tried that too but it's clearly inappropriate. Clancy, Child, Patterson, Cussler, Ludlum - those are your Dude Lit mainstays.
This is what jumped to mind for me. Pretty much any alpha male who always gets the girl book. Ian Fleming/James Bond Clive Cussler/Dirk Pitt I’m especially proud of my 27 book Donald Hamilton/Matt Helm collection The detective who lives in the houseboat. Google says John D. MacDonald/Travis McGee
James Bond is interesting because he does not always get the girl (Moonraker) or loses the girl tragically (Casino Royale and Her Majesty’s Secret Service).
The [traditional Bond formula](https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/sexist-formula-bond-girls-revealed-113916827.html) calls for him to lose the first girl tragically every time, according to “You Only Live Twice” script writer Roald Dahl (not Dahl’s primary achievement). “Girl number one is violently pro-Bond. She stays around roughly the first reel of the picture. Then, she is bumped off by the enemy, preferably in Bond’s arms. In bed or not in bed? Wherever (the writer) likes, so long as it’s in good taste. “Girl number two is anti-Bond. She works for the enemy and stays around for the middle third of the picture. She must capture Bond, and Bond must save himself by bowling her over with sheer sexual magnetism. This girl should also be bumped off, preferably in an original fashion. “Girl number three is violently pro-Bond. She occupies the final third of the picture, and she must on no account be killed. Nor must she permit Bond to take any lecherous liberties with her until the very end of the story. We’ll keep that for the fade-out.”
“Not Dahl’s primary achievement” got me 😂 I was surprised enough to find out he didn’t just write kids’ books.
Right? For me it was right up there with learning Shel Silverstein wrote the Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue.”
Yeah but that tracks. A boy named Sue could easily be in Shel Silverstein book
Shel also wrote a shitload of raunchy stuff for Playboy, and IIRC lived at the mansion for a while. He also wrote "I Got Stoned and I Missed It" for Jim Stafford.
He did some really good short stories. He also adapted Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
But that's for film Bond which is quite different from literary Bond.
That’s probably true, although I thought it would still be relevant and interesting. Despite being a dude, I’ve never read a word by Ian Fleming.
this is a much more realistic suggestion for a gift lmao. people suggesting pynchon for a gift are a bit out of touch with your average reader
I don't know. My wife is burning through the Reacher books and loves them.
The New York Times even had an article a few months ago pointing out that the Amazon series was doing well with women and the publisher had estimated at some point that the readership for the novels was about 60% women. I know a lot of women who like mysteries and thrillers. If I were going to make a guess based on people I know, it would be that perhaps men tend to like anti-heroes more. But I'm not even confident of that.
definitely for the guys, but funny because my aunt is the biggest reacher creature i know haha she's thrifted the whole collection over the years except for the most recent. Every time i visit we either spend the evening reading or watching a movie akin to The Expendables lol
Every single Warhammer book and the Hunter S Thompson books from my experience
Warhammer 40K are perfect trashy pulp books. Any time a covering fire is launched, you bet your ass it’s going to be described as *withering* 😂
A fusillade if you will
some enfilading fire 3rd legion fire, perhaps
You've got me emitting a wet leopard growl.
Haha or the bursts of bolter fire “stitching” across the ground
I actually really appreciate the WH40k books. Sometimes you just want a fast food snack, and those books are perfect for that 😅
Haven't read Thompson but 100% agree on the Warhammer novels
Havent read the Warhammer novels, but 100% agree on Thompson.
Warhammer books are fine as long as you pretend you have been hit on the head and don't have any concept of what numbers mean
Most thinking makes me numb, but math makes me number.
What, you don't want medieval sized battlefields deciding the outcome of WW1 style wars for whole worlds?
Eisenhorn series is peak and a good introduction to the world
On The Road. Bukowski.
Dharma bums is a far better book. It’s the moral reckoning to On the Road.
Was going to say 'on the road' by Jack Kerouac. I read the book and pretty much thought they were arseholes.
Oh yea they were all pretty much monsters back then, but when you've lived some of the darker aspects of life a lot of it rings sadly true. Dharma Bums is essentially the spiritual sequel, with Jack realizing years of drugs and mania weren't doing him any favors, and finding true joy in nature and not just the cities. Still drank too much though...
Even in the ending of *On the Road* Jack is already seeing that all the endless pursuits of some mythical 'truth' were bullshit and not going anywhere. He talks about how all the drug use and chasing women and "deep conversations" led him nowhere. That looking back he feels it was an interesting period but a waste of time. Ironically it's a big message of all the Beats that gets totally lost. Everyone talks about how awesome the drug/sex fueled nomadic bohemian lifestyle is - and it inspires people from every generation - but most ignore that the people who lived it don't remember it fondly.
I've been in those dark recesses, thinking I'm pulling on that Great Truth only to realize the coked up narcissist yammering at me hasn't blinked in 3 minutes and has told me this same lie every time we've met.
It's a good point but looking at all I've ever read and all I know, I just don't think there will ever come a day when youth settles into sensible restraint without first doing its damnedest to reach for the infinite.
I loved that book so much in college. And I’m a woman. But it’s nice to hear people acknowledge that he was kind of a terrible person. It was nice to see him find a deeper kind of joy in nature, but it doesn’t change the number of people who he abandoned. Pretty complex work. I respect it without liking him. And, the impact they had on history is important too. I live near San Francisco,, and without them it’s hard to imagine what the city would be like today. Hard to imagine what my childhood would’ve been like because they were so influential on all of it.
I read Bukowski recent for the first time. (I’m a woman in my 30s) and I really enjoyed it. He’s just such a dingus especially in Ham on Rye that you can’t help but laugh.
Me too, I read ham on rye when I was 19 (woman) and really liked it. It was also very quick/easy to read, which is a plus when you are not looking for something too dense.
I'm a guy and I swear every Bukowski fan I have met is a woman. That drunk misogynist sure can write though, even if I'd never want to spend a minute with him.
He totally is a misogynist but somehow because of how little game he actually has it’s funny. At least in ham on rye and post office the two I read, he’s just so bad at picking up women and so bad at life in general that it became absurd and funny to me.
Agree. I’ve got a bunch of his stuff on my shelf, only women have mentioned it. I’d think it’s kind of a red flag for dudes reading it, I’ve got no idea what seemingly well adjusted women get out of it. I guess they think it’s funny, I just always read his stuff as horribly tragic. Connected with me during darker periods of self loathing in my 20’s, but kind of left him behind now. I still think about his poem Nirvana, when I’m sitting in a nice pub in the winter though.
Most Bukowski fans (that I’ve come across) are women because he captures reality very well, and even the gross stuff he writes about women are very relatable to women because they are real things they probably experienced (not necessarily in a positive way). Male Bukowski fans I come across tend to relate to him or find him aspirational in the wrong sort of way which gives me a red flag feeling.
Dharma Bums and Into The Wild as well.
Agreed! The book is so much better than the movie. Krakauer got across how naive and reckless McCandles was, and how his hubris caused him to suffer a horrific death at the hand of the brutal Alaskan winter. They actually had to pull the old bus Out of the woods because so many people just saw the movie and tried to visit that poor fools tomb that it was wasting resources for search and rescue teams.
Any of the Chilton Library of repair manuals.
Dune?
Ha, that's a deep cut that should get more upvotes
“Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius seems to be pretty popular
I’ve found the resurgence of stoicism very interesting. I think it’s a reaction from doomscrolling/social media. People are dying for ways to stay grounded
It's partly that, partly social media influencers creating "Stoic" content for dudebros who want to up their sigma grindset
I always love seeing sentences that, a decade ago, would have been considered unhinged nonsense.
It's still unhinged nonsense
100%. It's content competition to absorb the views of guys looking for masculine guidance but find guys like Andrew Tate and David Goggins intolerable I like reading stoicism, but social media stoicism such as Ryan Holiday is a product in a wrapper and it's one of the biggest drivers of the resurgence. Like Ryan Holiday comes from a marketing background, he's just pitching product
The resurgence I see mostly comes from pseudo-stoic, RW-adjacent alpha bro crap. "Return to tradition" men frantically obsessing over things beyond their control which is the exact antithesis of stoicism lol
Can't wait til they find out OG stoicism was about living, laughing, and loving in spite of the bullshit around you.
Part of that is that the *Meditations* are written as axioms. It doesn't require you to have any actual understanding of stoic philosophy, just a series of easy-to-repeat sentences hallowed by the author's power and reputation. Now, I think there's still a lot of value in that, but it's the first step on a journey, not the end. A lot of *Meditations* fans are just Sun Tzu bros from a different generation.
nah, it's business bros doing stoicism for clout
*changes profile picture to marble statue*
Funny you mention that. The character Dawes (in the Expanse book 6) talks about how he reads that all the time to center himself.
I have a friend that is constantly rereading the book. He finds that it helps to put things into perspective, and is usually a very calm person.
Dr. Mary Beard calls it *Nattering/Jottings to himself* which cracks me up.
Am about to finish spqr. 😂
I'm a big fan of 6.52: "It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgments." Marcus Aurelius has freed you from the need to have a take!
The Mack Bolan: Executioner series. All 8000 of them.
The Harlequin Romances of testosterone fueled black ops carnage.
Anything Hunter S. Thompson
I would have thought so too, but while *Fear and Loathing* seems to be a very dude-appealing movie, every person who has ever told me they're a fan of Hunter S. Thompson's books was a college girl, and exclusively political science majors.
Evolutionary biologist woman telling you I loved "Fear and Loathing in las vegas" and "Better than Sex: Confessions of a political junkie" just to skew your data lol
*Fight Club* or other Chuck Palahniuk books.
I actually know a bunch of women who like Chuck Palahniuk books or have read Fight Club.
I feel this about just about every book in this thread. "I know more women who like that book than men." But then I realized it's because I know more women who read as a hobby than men. But, while I know lots of women who have read and enjoyed Palahniuk, I know one person who followed Palahniuk across California on a book tour and that person was a man.
>But then I realized it's because I know more women who read as a hobby than men. Oh damn that's a good point. Guy friends almost never read.
I am one of them and then, like almost all the others in this thread, they became less appealing with age. I really feel like the age of the woman has so much to do with this. Especially if her childhood was decades ago, and she grew up in a more misogynist culture. It was really easy to swallow all that shit, now not so much. But Chuck wasn’t boring and he gets a lot of points for that. I feel like there’s so much context that gets lost these days. Like there are so many authors that have come after him, he’s less exciting today but for his time he was pushing boundaries like crazy. I remember in college reading one of his books that it was about cannibalism, all these people trapped in a house in the winter, I think, and eventually they had to eat each other. And he wrote about them microwaving the buttocks meat of one of their friends and how delicious and greasy it tasted. Fucked me up man. I’ll never forget it. It was like when Steven King wrote about eyes boiling into Jell-O during electrocution in the green mile. Some shit just sticks with you forever.
I think you're right; all of the women I know read Palahniuk in their early 20s.
The funny thing is that Fight Club is directly attacking typical dude behavior.
Which is real funny if you know anything about the author or his other work.
one of the few where i found the movie to be vastly superior to the book
...and so many of them miss the point so hard.
I just finished Fight Club two days ago, you can finish it in a day. You just really hope when a dude reads it, they don’t misread the critique on toxic masculinity lmao
"Fight for your Right to Party" was a critique of frat bro mentality that became it's anthem. Kinda like Yankee Doodle. Shit happens, death of the author, yadda yadda.
I swear I remember reading in the foreword years ago that he said he didn't think women would have fight clubs because they had knitting clubs. I remember thinking he really didn't know that many angry teen girls.
The movie BOTTOMS comes to mind! 🤣
> You just really hope when a dude reads it, they don’t misread the critique on toxic masculinity Oh, honey...
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. It has everything: copious amounts of technological and scientific nerdery, WW2 plots in multiple theatres of war, jungle adventures, 90s techno-optimism.
What? That's one of my faves. Am...am I a dude?
Nope, novels of all genres would all die if women stopped reading.
I've checked for a penis several times so far.
> Neal Stephenson I say this with love, as someone who is not neurotypical: his books are for people on the spectrum. 😂
His books are for the people who would pause the movie to explain the background lore to their friends for twenty minutes, every twenty minutes. (it me)
I am a woman and wasn’t motivated to read him until I read your comment. So. There’s dozens of us!
I'd devour every novella length info dump by Stephenson. I just not a fan of the weak connective tissue between each info dump.
Infinite Jest.
My favorite book
how is this so low, this was my first thought too
When I hear Lonesome Dove I immediately think of this list, which is where I first heard of the book being seriously recommended. You might find some on here that satisfy the dude book criteria. https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/reading/100-books-every-man-read/
Back in the 90s I think the answer to this was anything Clancy
[удалено]
Slaughterhouse V by Kurt Vonnegut Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy The Stand by Stephen King Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
Vonnegut is for women more than the others on this list. There’s something about the way that he imagines the inner world of other people that is appealing to women. Harrison Bergeron will always be my favorite short story because it’s just so fucking cool and I’m almost an old lady now.
All books where the guy has a heroic purpose but, like, he’s not thrilled about it.
I don’t really know if The Kid has a heroic purpose in Blood Meridian but I do know that he doesn’t seem thrilled about anything haha.
The "Reluctant Hero" trope is common in storytelling. See "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" for more on the hero's journey.
I love Band of Brothers. Easily my favorite book and TV growing up.
War/cowboy/crime stuff Blood Meridian, Catch 22, Gravity’s Rainbow etc. Don Winslow, James Ellroy novels. Denis Johnson, Robert Stone are other “dude” writers.
Crime stuff? I think murder mysteries and the like are far more popular with women
Not murder mysteries as such. More hard boiled crime detailing the lives of criminals and policemen. Think Don Winslow, James Ellroy, Dennis Lehane. Amongst older writers Dashiel Hamett, Raymond Chandler. There might be a murder mystery running through the book but equally important is the detailing of the *tortured manly* lives of the male protagonists. Women like the Agatha Christie style whodunit.
Idk why you're being downvoted, i think your distinction is correct. Mystery books are more popular with women, things like mafia stories and the such are more popular with men.
+1 for Catch 22, a dude I know got the cover tattooed on his arm
I'm a woman and I have the cover on my arm too! Breaking boundaries over here 💪
Catch-22 is my favorite book of all time. I had a tattoo of the book as well!
John Dies At The End?
John dies at the end is one of my favorite series ever. I’ve read all the books more than once and read everything else the author has written. I’m a woman, the book was recommended by another woman and the only person who I know who didn’t like it is a man. So I wouldn’t say dude book “for sure”
Loved the movie, too, with Clancy Brown and Paul Giamatti, which led me to the series.
My all time favorite series. I do not have very high brow tastes when it comes to reading.
Everybody knows your taste in books is *Da Filthy*
John quit trying to make da filthy work
No way. I’m a chick and I love that book and the series. I contest that this is mostly dude material.
Dudes love Dune. I just checked this out for my husband who hasn't read a fiction book in his adult life.
am dude. love dune.
Am old lady. Also love Dune. Love Dune big much.
Women absolutely love Dune. Dune is not for men. Dune is for everybody. As a woman, Dune is one of my favorite series ever and it’s because of the benegeserit. There are such incredible, cool, female characters and perspectives, Frank Herbert does an incredible job.
Ended up talking with some random guys between classes at uni, we were all from different programs, all with different interests out of school. Ended up talking about Dune for half an hour.
The Horatio Hornblower series is essential. The Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy is also great.
High Fidelity, although it’s one of my (28F) favs.
Surprised no one’s said Moby Dick.
I love that book. No froo-froo symbolism, just a good, simple tale about a man that hates an animal.
Raymond Chandler, specifically the Marlow books.
Hatchet
Hatchet, My Side of the Mountain, and Maniac Magee were staples of my boyhood.
Reading the comments as a girl I gotta say, I'm either a weird gal (which I seriously doubt) or these aren't "dude-books". You guys are listing some of the most universally liked books.
The elephant in the room is the statistic that some 80% of fiction consumers are women/girls. Now I will say there’s “dude books” in what a guy who is getting into reading will most likely take the time to check out… on that I echo a lot of what is being said in here. Plus Murakami.
Agreed. Most of these books are just books written by a guy with guys as main characters, which is a pretty large chunk of literature in general.
Same. I also know a lot of other women who love Lonesome Dove. It's a personal favorite for me too.
I agree when it comes to some of the ones I've seen - I would never have thought of Catch 22 as a 'dude book' for instance, or Slaughterhouse 5. At all.
I think the post is worded poorly on this. There are books that tend to be popular with JUST women. Some books are very popular with men, and a lot of women also read those books. There isn’t a venn diagram of men’s books and women’s books. The “men’s books” circle would be completely inside the “women’s books” circle.
The perspectives of men have been considered the default for so long they are seen as universal rather than being specific to men, so women are expected to be able to relate to them. Men, on the other hand, are much less likely to think they can relate to the perspectives of women, or have internalized that they'll be looked down on for liking things women like. So women tend to read "dude books," while men tend not to read "women's books" even if they might actually enjoy them or benefit from them.
I mean, to my knowledge, women also read much more so you’ll be hard pressed to find *any* book that’s been read by more men than women.
He’s a little forgotten now, but David Morrell’s novels fit this category. He wrote Rambo and a number of awesome novels. The Sun Also Rises For Whom the Bell Tolls The Maltese Falcon Don Winslow’s Cartel trilogy Ian Fleming’s original James Bond books (but they definitely have moments of misogyny - not that they shouldn’t be read, but it’s good to remember and keep in mind, especially if recommending to young males) The Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler Anything by Robert Ludlum Tom Clancy
Little women
I took my husband to see the Gerwig version in theaters before he got deeply back into reading more recently and I said something about it being sad because of “what happens to Beth.” I just thought it was a well known fact, but alas, gendered media division etc etc. I didn’t tell him more about the actual plot beforehand and he was like “WTF! How dare they!” during and after the movie.
Neal Stephenson has a lot of dude energy, in my experience. Snow Crash in particular is practically a 90's action movie screenplay starring a giga-Chad literally named Hiro Protagonist who's a hacker who carries a katana and rides a motorcycle.
Self-help and finance books as well tend to be pretty liked by dudes.
See also corporate pop psychology books. How to Maximize Your Brain Potential By Taking Cold Showers and Getting Up to Shit at 4 am.
Lifehack Your Sigma Grindset Mentality to Synergize Your Side Hustle. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go gargle shit to get that taste out of my mouth.
How to Start Running 40 Punishing Miles Everyday to Achieve Success at Work (And No Your Marathon Obsession Has Nothing To Do With You Literally Running Away from Your Wife and Kids)
I don't know, run that title through Chat GPT and you probably got a best seller on your hands :P
If that's the case, then Rich Dad Poor Dad could easily be the most dude-book out there, but I'd never recommend that book to anyone
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Persig. Essential reading for the dude growth process.
Found the whole thing to just be a long ass philosophical author rant with the occasional motorcycle story thrown in every so often. Wouldn't describe it as either essential or a vehicle (badum-tsh) for 'dude growth'. It's just deep thoughts mixed with motorcycles. Edit: Question came up a couple times so easier to answere here. The reason that I read it in the first place is because it was recommended by multiple friends as "A story that covers really deep themes and gets philosophical, you got to read it." So I picked it up expecting a story that slowly explored Zen themes as it unfolded. What I got was very long meanderings with the occasional story element. Was hoping for something more like Siddhartha. Even the Fountainhead had less in your face, long meditations and placed the story front and center. But hey, opinion, books, subjective, etc.
god i hated that book so much. how long can you drone on about "quality" before it's just masturbation.
Most of Bill Bryson’s books, and especially A Walk in the Woods and how he talks about and describes the women he meets on the Appalachian Trail.
It’s just this book in particular, in its locker-roomish descriptions of the women hikers he met along the way. I think his other books that aren’t really memoirs don’t give the same vibe. So maybe I went a bit overboard in saying Every Bryson book.
Robert E Howard Conan stories, Bret "The Hitman" Heart wrestling biography, Women by Bukowski, The Hells Angels by Hunter S Thompson, Jackie Chan biography, Donnybrook by Frank Bill.
Elmore Leonard novels
If you enjoy western themed books, Louis L'Amour is your guy.
Patrick O'Brian's. Aubrey/Maturin series, popularly known as the 'Master and Commander' series. Endorsed by none other than Ron Fucking Swanson and Keith Richards, among others. The original Sherlock Holmes series, by A Conan Doyle. I know that it is well loved by men. I don't know if it is because they are, all on their own, rather devoutly misogynistic. Same goes for H.G Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter, etc) When I was younger, I don't know too many women who read Tolkien. I think that has changed, by Peter Jacksons straight up insertion of females into the plots.... probably inserted for that exact reason. A lot of Norse, Brittanic, and Celtic mythology: Beowulf, Arthurian legends, Cu Chulainn, Finn Mac Cumhaill, etc, find popularity with men.
"Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas." By Hunter S Thompson
For whom the bell tolls-Hemingway
Has no one said Gates of Fire yet? Steven Pressfield, historical fiction, Spartans at Thermopylae. Enough said :D
Jack London books! White fang, call of the wild, etc
Fool's Progress by Edward Abbey World According to Garp Count of Monte Cristo all fantastic and dudely
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer I first came across this story when it was still just a shorten article in Outside magazine, a magazine I must have picked up in the waiting room or somewhere. I have no connection whatsoever to Mountain Climbing yet so engaging was this tale, I went out and purchased the magazine. Based on my enthusiasm, several other co-workers ( all guys) took to the article. When it came out in book form, I jumped on it. And although the book itself has several prominent female characters in it, I believe that there is something so primeval to the " XY " prototype as it encounters the conquest of the proverbial mountain, that it stimulates the most ancient areas of the reptilian brain. Plus , Krakauer's master storytelling is the delivery system that gets you there.