Neil Gaiman (one of my enduring literary-crushes) had this to say about book genders:

“Books have sexes; or to be more precise, books have genders. They do in my head, anyway. Or at least, the ones that I write do. And these are genders that have something, but not everything, to do with the gender of the main character of the story.

When I wrote the ten volumes of Sandman, I tended to alternate between what I thought of as male storylines, such as the first story, collected under the title Preludes and Nocturnes, or the fourth book, Season of Mists; and more female stories, like Game of You, or Brief Lives.

The novels are a slightly different matter. Neverwhere is a Boy’s Own Adventure (Narnia on the Northern Line, as someone once described it), with an everyman hero, and the women in it tended to occupy equally stock roles, such as the Dreadful Fiancee, the Princess in Peril, the Kick-Ass Female Warrior, the Seductive Vamp. Each role is, I hope, taken and twisted 45% from skew, but they are stock characters nonetheless.

Stardust, on the other hand, is a girl’s book, even though it also has an everyman hero, young Tristran Thorne, not to mention seven Lords bent on assassinating each other. That may partly be because once Yvaine came on stage, she rapidly became the most interesting thing there, and it may also be because the relationships between the women – the Witch Queen, Yvaine, Victoria Forester, the Lady Una and even Ditchwater Sal, were so much more complex and shaded than the relationships (what there was of them) between the boys.”

1. Your task (after reading this post) is to comment with: whether you agree or disagree with Gaiman.
2. If you agree with Gaiman then you need to:
   1.  briefly describe a book that you have enjoyed
   2. state what you think is that book’s gender
   3.  tell the readers (us) why you think it is that gender (your reasons — see Gaiman’s writing above for hints, help)
   4. the best part of you realizing that all books just may, indeed, have gender!
3. If you disagree with Gaiman then you need to:
   1. briefly describe a book that you have enjoyed
   2. state why you think books do not have genders
   3. ideas from your chosen book (in 1) to back up your opinion that books do not have genders
   4. the best part of reading your book – what really stayed in your skin long after you read it.