… are more apt to lie about the books they’ve read. A British study of the reading habits of 2,000 people found that women read more books. Surprise. Novelist Ian McEwan concluded much the same thing just by trying to hand out novels one day in a London park and finding not a single taker among the males he approached:  ” “When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.” (The hopeful takeaway in that remark: But not until then.)

Yet the study also found other differences and similarities:

Men are also more likely to have shelves full of books that have never been opened.

The only similarities between the sexes came among those who have two books on the bedside table at once and who start one book on the middle of reading another, switching easily. Twelve per cent of women were in this category – exactly the same number as men.