There’s a lot of discussion about how roughly a third of all men don’t read, below the averages for women. I read more than a dozen articles on the subject. Then I did something radical: I consulted an English teacher for advice.

“What do boys and teenagers ask for when they want to read something?” I asked. “They go for sports books,” she replied, a topic hardly covered at all in any article I read on the subject. These all insisted that men read fantasy, science-fiction and military books. Writers of these articles state that men should read J. D. Salinger, Philip Roth, Franz Kafka, etc. Without reading, people won’t have the ability to empathize, a subject of interest for the National Institute for Health.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia.  His views are his own.  He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu or on “X” at @johntures2. His first book “Branded” will be coming out this fall, published by Huntsville Independent Press (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/).