For a genre read by men that is often disparaged, there's always Westerns, written by authors with psuedonyms such as Jake Lonestar (I'm pretty sure I didn't make that one up). WEstern novels are very different from the average contemporary Western film. The latter are often possessed of a degree of artistic merit. The former are universally not.
They are, however, massively borrowed from public libraries, formulaic, full of flowery description, with pictures of rugged open-shirted men on the cover, have massively angsting heroes not showing their pain, and are often homoerotic. They are also en mass the worst-written genre I have ever come across. The average Mills and Boon is Joycean in the sophistication of its prose compared to the average cowboy novel.
Re: Odd definition of Chick-Lit
They are, however, massively borrowed from public libraries, formulaic, full of flowery description, with pictures of rugged open-shirted men on the cover, have massively angsting heroes not showing their pain, and are often homoerotic. They are also en mass the worst-written genre I have ever come across. The average Mills and Boon is Joycean in the sophistication of its prose compared to the average cowboy novel.
/via