#HallOfShame | Esquire's 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read

(H/T Gara LaMarche, thanks for bringing this to our attention!)

Here's what we learned from reading Esquire's 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read :

• According to Esquire, it's better to read the same male author twice than to even consider reading a book written by a woman.
• When an Esquire author says his list of books is "incomplete" and "utterly biased," he's not just saying it in the way a book lover would, owning up to how his personal tastes will flavor any list or how he could never remember every single book he wants to recommend. He's saying it like someone who just wrote a list of 80 books, and only one of them was written by a woman.

The lists says that Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories is the only book by a female author that every man should read. While other books on the list get lofty descriptions like "Freud and Einstein both hailed it as a masterpiece" or "The best book by a modern day Twain," they pull this quote from O'Connor's book to sum it up:

"She would of been a good woman... if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."    —Flannery O'Connor

In lieu of any other books by women, they include Charles Bukowski's Women and promise that The Postman Always Rings Twice will teach men what they need to know about the opposite sex. 

Come on, Esquire. You can't think of a single other book by a woman that men should read? This is sloppy, sexist work and your readers deserve better.

 Tell Esquire To Do Better.

Suggested tweet/share text:
 80 Books Every Man Should Read--only 1 written by a woman. Really, @Esquire?! Do better: http://www.genderavenger.com/blog/hallofshame-esquires-80-best-books-every-man-should-read #genderavenger #hallofshame