There’s not much happening on the New Zealand book scene today, so here’s a snippet from overseas: a low-brow marketing gimmick from Penguin UK.

Penguin’s London subsidiary is marketing selected new titles in men’s magazine style, with a tongue-in-cheek website. The bloke-ish books being pushed include Nick Hornby’s 31 Songs, Dave Eggers’ You Shall Know Our Velocity and Melvin Burgess’ Doing It.

Penguin’s new approach follows alarming results in a recent National Opinion Poll survey. This found that men under the age of 25 read less than any other group, spending an average of only two hours a week reading for pleasure. And over 40 per cent of British men say that they never read books.

The survey also found that:

• More than one in three women would be more attracted to a man who is reading a book. Nearly half (44 per cent) of the women surveyed found a man reading a book more attractive than a man reading a tabloid newspaper.

• Women find men who read books more attractive – 78 per cent think that people who read are likely to be much better in bed. One in three women think that book-reading men are likely to be more romantic.

• 62 per cent of single women think that reading a book makes a man look more interesting and 67 per cent think that a book makes a man look intelligent. One in three women think that a man reading a book is likely to be more successful.

So Penguin’s angle is to tell guys about this stuff - and hope that guys will slip between the covers of a book, as a prelude to slipping between the covers in a bedroom. It’s a rather transparent tactic, and according to a report on the Poets & Writers website:

at least one British bookseller is not a fan of the Good Booking campaign. “I don’t think it’s a particularly classy way of going about selling books,” says Ian McGarry, manager of a Waterstone’s bookstore in London. McGarry said the promotion has been little more than a curiosity among store employees and customers. “It’s a bit tacky. I think we all thought that when it first came out,” he says.

Some members of the British press are also skeptical. Boyd Tonkin, in an article for the London-based Independent newspaper, wrote, “I will forgive this rather tragic sales pitch if it stirs a few book-averse men to pick up a tome or two. Yet such stunts leave crucial questions unasked. The hardest concerns background and schooling. Boys who come from supportive homes (not merely ‘middle-class,’ although that often makes things easier) will have been encouraged to read from early childhood. Those who don’t, won’t. Can a few lewd ads compensate for years of neglect?”

We’re inclined to agree. But for the benefit of our readers who are male and single, these are the genres that women think you should be reading:

1. Crime and Mystery
2. Autobiography
3. The Classics
4. Thrillers
5. Romance
6. Sport
7. Science Fiction
8. Horror
9. Erotica

Fellas, looks like it’s time to put away Jonah and track down a biography of Janet Frame.

Update: Penguin does not have a single book on the recently announced Man Booker longlist, not even from its Viking and Hamish Hamilton literary imprints. But Simon & Schuster's Scribner imprint has three contenders - its authors include Neil Cross, Louise Dean and Sam North.