Uxbridge Waterstones claims male customers often refuse to buy books written by women

Uxbridge Waterstones sent Twitter into meltdown after it revealed its male customers often refuse to read books written by women.

The tweet posted on Thursday (May 24) claimed that while woman customers never say "I don't read books written by men" male customers will often say they will "not read a book by a female author".

The post, which went on to describe men as "ridiculous creatures" has been liked nearly 13,000 times and retweeted more than 3,000 times.

Twitter users reacted to the post with varying levels of outrage, mockery and of course memes.

@Popquiz daily wrote: "recommend me one."

While other Twitter users took to listing their favourite female authors and books.

@gatorbae wrote: "Mary Roach if you love learning weird interesting things about history science and death, Jhumpa Lahiri, Elena Ferrante if you like popular popcorn dramas, Maya Angelou if you want to cry, Megan Abbott is inspired by noir and writes some crazy-fun suspense stories."

@Skull_Beneath wrote: "I worked in a public library for nine months and the same thing happened. Several times. Men really do just volunteer this information."

But some Twitter users were incensed by the claims.

@KieraniteFM wrote: "I’m pissed off you just decided to generalise, when you knew bugger all about what you’re talking about. How many customers do you have a month? I would say it’s safe to say thousands. Two or three, likely recurring customers at some points, does not represent men."

Waterstones Uxbridge later apologised for branding men "ridiculous creatures."

It added: "Of course, I apologise - not ALL men are 'ridiculous creatures'. Hope that helps clear things up."