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Recent discourse has begged a popular question: Why aren’t men reading fiction? Are men reading anything at all? In this monthly series, we’re talking to men about the books they think other men should check out right now. Whether it’s revisiting a classic, getting engrossed in a memoir or devouring something fast paced and action packed, there’s bound to be something here for readers at any interest level to enjoy.
For the past year or so, you’ve more than likely heard that men aren’t reading fiction. In some ways, this is true. But did all of the reading men simply disappear, vanishing into thin air without leaving a paper trail? Of course not. Many male readers do exist. Some of them are editors, influencers, journalists, writers and, of course, the men of InsideHook’s editorial team.
So I, a female writer, have taken the liberty of asking a bunch of very cool and esteemed men what they think other men should be reading right now and why. I’ve personally vetted their coolness myself and can guarantee that these guys have done their homework — and it shows.
This month’s recommendations offer a book that’s both a prequel and a sequel, new nonfiction from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and a book so good it was recommended twice. A two-time recommendation certainly makes it a must-read. If I haven’t convinced you to read one of these yet: Valentine’s Day is over a week away, which means you have plenty of time to read a book and sound very wise and literary before going out with your date.
And if you’d like to hear my February recommendation, might I recommend The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel? It’s a literary fiction novel inspired by Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, but it’s also so much more: a dystopian story about a collapsing financial empire, greed, self-image and failure, seamlessly woven into complex characters and nail-biting prose.
Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer
“I loved the Southern Reach trilogy, Jeff VanderMeer’s dreamy, ecologically apocalyptic series of novels that seemingly ended over a decade ago. But the author came back recently to offer both a prequel and a sequel in one book. Fun fact: VanderMeer centered much of the book around a hurricane, and he personally had to evacuate his Florida home due to a hurricane weeks before publication. If ecological disaster, unreliable narrators and a critique of shadowy government agencies sound, um, prescient, the reality-shifting Area X is a place worth revisiting.” — Kirk Miller, Senior Editor
The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
“My recommendation, if you haven’t already read it, will always be The Rage of Dragons. It’s an African-inspired fantasy and one of my all-time favorites—not just for the world-building, but for what the story represents. The main character goes through real trauma and chooses to completely lock in to overcome it. Honestly, you’ll probably get more motivation from this book than from most self-help books.” — Smitty, BookToker
The Franchiser by Stanley Elkin
“In the wake of Stanley Elkin’s 1995 death, The New York Times called his writing “at once lyrical, bleak and fantastic.” It also remains incredibly vital: his novel The Franchiser was published 50 years ago, yet its evocation of relentlessly chasing success seems even more relevant now in an age of omnipresent hustle culture. (A new edition was published late last year.) In telling the story of the memorably-named Ben Flesh, Elkin evokes the turbulent inner life of a man lost in a world of endless road trips and franchise acquisitions. It also dovetails interestingly with some of the recent work of the Safdie brothers.” — Tobias Carroll, Weekend Editor
An Updated Canon: 72 Books Every Man Should Read
We’re not tossing out the old masculine lists, but we’re giving them a much-needed refreshNadja by André Breton
“I choose André Breton’s Nadja, which I’ve just published in a new and wonderful translation by Mark Polizzotti. It’s a great crazy novel about a crazy love affair, and a wonderful tour through the labyrinth of Paris. Though only together for a short time, the couple live intensely and concentrate on what is important to them: art, freedom, love and a truth that is often hidden.” — Edwin Frank, Editorial Director of New York Review Books
On the Calculation of Volume (Book 1) by Solvej Balle
“I should probably say Lost Lambs, which is The Cool Book of the Moment, and is in fact very good, but what I actually can’t shut up about is the Danish writer Solvej Balle’s series On The Calculation of Volume. It comprises seven novels, three of which have been translated into English; the fourth coming out this year. It’s about a woman who wakes up one day and discovers she’s trapped in Nov. 18 — she just keeps living it over and over again. Think Groundhog Day, but in Europe, and with no Andie MacDowell. What’s incredible about the books is how they never feel repetitive, but read like a psychological mystery: the stakes are high, and despite the date never changing, there are some truly shocking twists. There’s also some of the most incredible writing I’ve ever read about ephemerality, memory and our tenuous relationship with the natural world.” — Grant Ginder, author of So Old, So Young: A Novel
“A day is repeating itself, over and over, but instead of a peppery Bill Murray as our guide we’ve got an antiquarian bookseller of indeterminate age living in the French countryside. The rules of this time loop are different, too — protagonist Tara Selter is able to wake up in different beds (or even cities), and can sometimes bring acquired objects into the “next day” with her.
“Balle’s project is ambitious — this is the first of seven installments — and some readers are so obsessed they’ve debated learning Danish. (It’ll take years for the English translations to catch up.)
“I was fascinated, considering that level of devotion, to discover that Volume unfurls more like a poem than a film, that it’s less interested in its own puzzle box than in noticing ordinary things, over and over again: a fridge closing, a neighbor running to his shed, a certain kind of cloud moving across the sky.
“That repetition can make for a claustrophobic read, in spite of the unadorned prose. But like a magic trick, it also creates space for Ballej to poke at her Big Questions: Why do we do what we do in a day? When does an intimate relationship end? Is there time to repay this world?” — Tanner Garrity, Wellness Editor
Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage by Heather Ann Thompson
“Ten years ago, Heather Ann Thompson published Blood in the Water, a shocking, eye-opening and excruciatingly researched look at the Attica Prison uprising of 1971 and its long fallout. It won the Pulitzer for History, and it changed how I see America (which is why I included it in our list of the 72 books every man should read). Now, one of our great historians is back to excavate and illuminate another violent saga: when Bernie Goetz shot four Black teenagers on a New York City subway in 1984. I know little about this case, so I’m looking forward to filling in this blind spot. But even if you think you know it — maybe you even lived in New York at the time — Thompson is masterful in her ability to shine new light on what people thought was settled history, and this book promises to do the same with the state of our country today as it draws a direct line from Goetz to modern vigilantes like Daniel Penny and Kyle Rittenhouse.” — Alex Lauer, Features Editor
Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
“I have long been a fan of American essayist Jamaica Kincaid’s seemingly limitless insightfulness, and after being reminded of her subtle brilliances via Putting Myself Together, a collection of Kincaid’s nonfiction for publications like The New Yorker and The Village Voice released last year, I decided it was high time to revisit her various seminal works, which, naturally, led me to Lucy, her celebrated 1990 semi-autobiographical novella.
“Centered around the whip-sharp titular protagonist, freshly removed from the West Indies and transplanted into an unfamiliar New York City as an au pair for a wealthy white family in the late ‘60s, the charms of Lucy lie as much in its indelible prose as its (more relevant that ever) musings on the immigrant experience; Kincaid’s ability to so intimately capture identity, relationships, sexuality and the trials of being a young black woman with seemingly benign language or innocuous turns of phrase is unparalleled, and more than worth the hassle of tracking down the paperback.” — Paolo Sandoval, Style Editor
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
“I’ve just finished reading Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, and I’ve been recommending it to literally anyone unfortunate enough to be within shouting distance of me at the pub. It’s this beautiful, meditative novel about a man who makes his living (you guessed) scraping the sea. The protagonist, Tom, spends his days on a rickety horse-drawn cart trawling for shrimp on the beach he grew up a stone’s throw from, in a monotonous routine which feels somewhat akin to purgatory, when his regimen is interrupted by the arrival of a flash director from out of town. On a sentence level, the writing is inch-perfect, and I’m in awe of how Wood can weave what reads like a fully realised tapestry of a forgotten coastal town in less than 200 pages. It’s a great insight into duty and responsibility — two things which, as a 30-year-old man, are on my mind at any waking moment — and it’s a novel that’ll fill your ears with a delicious, haunting shush of the sea.” — Lucas Oakley, journalist, author, co-founder of Boys Book Club
The National Telepathy by Roque Larraquy, translated by Frank Wynne
“The books I love to recommend tend to have sticky, memorable premises: Several People Are Typing, The Dispossessed, The City & the City. My latest addition to this canon of fun-to-pitch books is The National Telepathy, a Argentinian novel about a sloth that can scratch two people and open up an intense, highly erotic telepathic connection between their minds. It’s a brilliantly satirical and weird book.
“Larraquy’s novel is more than just the horny sloth book, though. It’s beautifully written, funny, and full of provocative ideas about capitalist exploitation, gender anxiety, and government overreach. The book takes on a number of voices and forms, but is most memorable for the grotesquely and absurdly ecstatic telepathy sequences. These delirious trips are disturbingly sexy and luridly psychedelic, and some of the most memorable passages I’ve read in a long time.” — James Folta, staff writer at Lit Hub and the managing editor of the humor site Points in Case.
Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson
“I’ve been a fan of Kevin Wilson for a long time now, mostly on the merits of his novels The Family Fang and Nothing to See Here, but I’m just getting around to reading his most recent, from May of 2025. Run for the Hills follows four half-siblings who’ve just met, as they make their way west, from Boston to Nashville to Oklahoma, to Salt Lake City and, ultimately, to Northern California, to confront their father, who’d left each of them at various stages in their lives. It’s slyly funny, like all of Wilson’s books, and it’s full of insight on the inherent challenges and comforts of family, no matter how unorthodox it may be. Almost no one has ever reviewed a Kevin Wilson book without calling its characters quirky, and if you’re inclined to use that word at all, then I suppose it would apply here. But more so than their quirks, I find myself most drawn to their hopefulness and openness to being changed by complete strangers.” — Mike Conklin, Editor-in-Chief
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