It’s no secret that most men don’t read much in a given year. Every other week there’s a headline skating across your newsfeed about it, citing the odd study and concluding with a helpless shrug that the problem is unsolvable. “What’re ya gonna do? Streaming is just so popular.”
Personally, I read around a hundred titles a year because the bug bit me when I was young. Now I spend most of my time behind a windshield, reeling in the miles on long hauls, and audiobooks keep me company. Always have. If you didn’t pick up the habit when you were young, fear not: I know plenty of seasoned gentlemen who started late with leisure reading, and a few of them credited youth fiction as a catalyst. Ten years ago, I was working in demolition in Las Vegas amid a crew of grunts and dropouts, and in a moment of downtime I asked if anyone was reading anything. I still remember how my co-worker was reluctant to admit that he, at twenty-five, was a few books into the Percy Jackson series. No shame! Those are good fun, and we all start somewhere.
