Paul Cuddihy’s Guest Post

When Saints and Sinners came out, I gave him and my daughters, Louise, who is 24, and Rebecca, who is 19, a copy, each with a personal message. Rebecca is the book lover among them, so she read it right away. Louise reads occasionally, but she did make an effort to read my book. About two weeks after Andrew got his copy, he came downstairs and declared, ‘Dad, I’m not going to read your book. Books aren’t for me. I’ll just wait until the film comes out!’

He’s been as true as his word, and the copy sits in pristine condition at the side of his bed, along with a copy of my next novel, The Hunted, which I gave him last year. It’s not that he doesn’t read – he reads newspapers and football magazines all the time, but it does appear, as he says, that books are not for him.

I often wonder why that is. All three of them have been brought up in a house where there are loads of books – thousands of them. When they were younger, my wife and I would read them stories every night, we took them regularly to the library, and we always encouraged them to read. Yet, they all have different attitudes to, and relationships with books.

That is due, in no small part, to their personalities. I believe that some of us just love books and reading more than others. For me, a life without TV or computers or the Internet would be fine – at times, I think it would be like heaven! – but a world without books. That’s unthinkable.

Of course, the fact that it’s my son who doesn’t read books means I’ve thought often about gender and reading. It’s accepted that teenage boys don’t read as much as teenage girls, and even the ones who do are less likely to talk about it with their friends. It’s not seen as a ‘cool’ thing to do, and how to get boys reading more is a problem which has vexed parents and teachers for many years – probably more so now than ever, with so many other things competing for their attention.

Writers targeting that readership will have chosen their subject matter accordingly and teachers will have chosen what they think is a relevant book; it might be a book with a sports theme, or some sort of action-adventure story. However, it might also be worth them bearing in mind that teenage boys love The Inbetweeners, which tells you everything you need to know about their interests; in the words of the legendary TV character, Father Jack Hackett … ‘Feck! Girls! Drink!’ (Not necessarily in that order!)

To an extent, however, we have to accept the reality of boys’ teenage apathy to reading – for me, it’s a bit like trying to encourage my son to play Subbuteo when he’s got FIFA 2012 on his Xbox.

But having grown up in a house full of books, where other members of the family read, and where his dad writes books, I know that there is a reading seed growing there which one day will hopefully blossom (All very poetic, I know. It’s more likely that he’ll end up with a girlfriend who likes books and he’ll start reading just to impress her!) Either way, the end result is a good one!

And you don’t have to worry… I don’t have a favourite child. They each make me proud in different ways. It could be seeing a copy of The Grapes of Wrath lying at the side of Rebecca’s bed. It might be Louise letting me know she was telling people in work that she was reading her dad’s book, or it could be standing on the touchline of a public park on a freezing cold Sunday morning watching Andrew playing football.