Statistics are a funny thing, and by “funny” I mean “likely to make my brain sad.” I recently read a statistic that claims only about 46 percent of American women read fiction (novels, short stories) on a regular basis. It’s a lower number than I would like, but reading rates in general seem to always be declining, so it can’t be that surprising. What WAS surprising is that the rate of MEN who read fiction, as of 2022 when this study was conducted, is about 27 percent. That’s appalling to me. That means that if I line up four guys, odds are only one of them will have read anything more inventive than the sports page in the past year. And THAT guy is just reading Brony fanfic.
I don’t want it to sound like I’m against nonfiction, mind you. You can read any genre you want, as long as you’re reading. I constantly beg my students to find SOMETHING to read every day, be it a video game magazine or Crime and Punishment, I don’t care. But it leaves me confused, baffled, as to what exactly it is that drives so many men away from fiction. They go to movies, they watch TV shows – but when it comes to picking up a book, they’re more likely to turn to history or how-to. I guess it goes back to the old joke about men, upon reaching a certain age, having to choose whether they’re going to get really into either grilling or World War II. (I am past that certain age, by the way, and I am obsessed with many things, but not those.)
That’s not to say I don’t read nonfiction, I do, but the funny thing is that most of the nonfiction I read is nonfiction ABOUT fiction. For instance, the current book I’m finally chopping off my To Be Read pile is Teenagers From the Future, a collection of essays edited by Tim Callahan about DC Comics’ Legion of Super-Heroes. That’s the kind of nerd I am. I like to read the analysis of fiction written by other nerds. I’ve read books about the history of Universal Studios, specifically their monster movies from the 1920s to the 50s. I’ve read books about the making of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Not long ago, when making one of my world-famous, soon-to-be sponsored by Netflix LitReels (this part is absolutely not true), I was doing a little research about movie novelizations from the 1980s. In the course of that research I discovered that Ryan North, the writer behind the current excellent runs of Fantastic Four and Star Trek: Lower Decks comic books, has written an entire book analyzing the differences between the film Back to the Future and its movie novelization. This made me realize that I needed to read the novelization again, then read North’s book, B^F.
If I’m going to read a memoir, it’s not going to be one written by a former president or supreme court justice, but an actor or a writer. Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, for example, is one of my favorite books. I go back and read it again every few years, if for no other reason than to remind myself that the best-selling writer on the planet suffers from many of the same struggles as any other schmuck who dedicates themselves to figuring out the proper order to put words in on a daily basis. I really enjoyed Growing Up With Manos: The Hands of Fate by Jackey Neyman Jones, daughter of the director of one of the worst movies ever made, about the journey to create that cinematic oddity and the strange way it has impacted her life. And actor, comedian, and talk show host Craig Ferguson’s American on Purpose is an uplifting, magnificent exploration of what my country can mean to somebody looking at it from the outside, with all the wit and humor that you would expect from Ferguson.
That’s not to say that I stick with just feel-good stuff. I’ve read, for instance, Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing and Jeanette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died, both of which dig into the lives of actors, both of which are deeply tragic in very different ways. And let’s not forget Maus, Art Spiegelman’s haunting graphic novel (yes, nonfiction graphic novels do exist) detailing his father’s experiences in Auschwitz. Spiegelman makes the interesting narrative choice of depicting the Jews as mice and the Germans as cats, with other nationalities occasionally popping up as other animals (Americans, for instance, are dogs, from the old “dogface” nickname). The result is a book that looks like a sort of hybrid of Watership Down and history’s greatest nightmare. These aren’t books that make me feel better about the world, but I’m certainly glad that I read them.
More often than that, though, I like reading books about the creation of movies, comics, television, and even other books. A few years ago, for example, I found a pair of books by Dustin McNeill and Travis Mullins called Taking Shape and Taking Shape II. The first was a deep dive into the creation of all the different movies in the Halloween horror franchise, which was cool. The sequel, however, was far more interesting: an exploration of all the scripts, pitches, and abandoned ideas for Halloween sequels and reboots that were NOT made for one reason or another. McNeil also has a solo effort, Slash of the Titans, about the long and twisted road that eventually led to the movie Freddy Vs. Jason, including discussion of some abandoned story ideas that, frankly, I think showed more potential than the final film we actually got. I’m fascinated by the creative process, and exploring the different ways these stories have been told, or even not told, is something that really compels me.
If you want me to get into history (of the two I’m far more likely to get into grilling, but let’s stick with history for now), I prefer it to be couched it in the world of fiction. Do I want to read a book about life in Victorian England? No. Do I want to read Les Standiford’s The Man Who Invented Christmas, about how life in Victorian England eventually led to the creation and legacy of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol? Absolutely. Am I particularly interested in investing any more time than I already have into McCarthyism and the moral crusading of the 1950s and 60s? That’s a no from me, dawg. but if you hand me David Hadju’s The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America, now you have my attention.
Often, when I write these Geek Punditry pieces, I’m trying to show people the universality of what I’m writing about. The thesis of this column is to discuss things I like and urge others to share in my joy. But I have to wonder if, in this instance, I’m a little too unique for that. The real world is scary enough, friends, and I sometimes think we all spend too much time immersed in it anyway, with 24-hour news networks dedicated to showing us the worst possible angle on everything that happens and 24-hour doomscrolling on social media dedicated to making the worst even more horrific. I prefer spending my time in worlds of the imagination, and I make no apology for that. So I guess what makes me a little different is that, even if I’m exploring reality, I’m doing so out of a thirst to find the paths to fantasy.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. If you were surprised at the fact that he didn’t bring up Star Trek this week, that’s because there ARE nonfiction books about Star Trek, but frankly, not enough of them.
Blake M. Petit 