London, Nov 28 (IANS): A British survey involving 40,000 people has revealed that most men prefer to read books written by male authors and tend to read fewer penned by the opposite sex.

The survey, carried out by Goodreads, an Amazon company and social cataloging website, found that male authors accounted for 90 percent of men's 50 most-read titles this year while the reverse was true for the women's titles, Daily Mail reported.

For some men, male authors tend to write in the genres they like to read.

"It is all about the book, but when they look at their lists, some of them are now realising that maybe they might want to explore different authors," Elizabeth Khuri Chandler, co-founder of Goodreads, said.

The findings also showed that although men and women read similar number of books, women preferred to read more latest books than men.

One of the books on the women's most read titles list this year was a book by J.K. Rowling, who had published under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith.

Female readers also rated books by female writers more highly.

On average, women rated books by women 4 out of 5 and books by men 3.8 out of 5.