Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic

This brilliantly written and meticulously researched book makes a major new contribution to literary studies. It demonstrates the value and importance of sociological approaches to reading in expanding the methods of the discipline and enabling new evidence-based insights into how lay readers read. It combines this with a sensitivity to text and temporality, narrative and nuance, that surely cannot but be approved of by even the most stalwart defenders of traditional literary critical methods. * Sarah Dillon, Professor of Literature and the Public Humanities, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge *
How did the pandemic change our relationship to books? This eagerly awaited study does a deep dive into the role of literature in a time of crisis, looking closely at what and how people read in 2020 and 2021 as well as the times and places in which they picked up a book. The results are fascinating, revealing, and often unexpected * Rita Felski, University of Virginia *
Did anyone actually spend the pandemic reading Proust? Find out in this intimate and revealing account of all the ways books kept us company during a time of almost unbearable isolation * Matthew Rubery, Queen Mary University of London *
This is an extremely important book, mixing literary theory with qualitative and quantitive data in an innovative way in order to understand how and what we read during the pandemic, and what this means. It provides a vital insight into the life of literature during a crisis * Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway University of London *
Overall, the book is a very timely contribution to discussions surrounding the seismic cultural and societal shifts triggered-or merely made visible-by the pandemic. The authors are well aware that their sample can shed light only on a slice of the reading public, but through their in-depth interviews and careful curation of the responses, we are treated to fascinating insights about readers and reading during the pandemic. Readers of the monograph will certainly think back to their own pandemic reading practices (and perhaps glance at their pandemic reading diaries?) as they peruse the pages of this tome. * Corinna Norrick-Rühl, University of Münster, Germany *
Reading Novels During the Covid-19 Pandemic is an expansive, theoretically suggestive, and very engaging exploration of literature during an unprecedented global crisis. It presents multifaceted perspectives on the complexity of finding time for reading amid a global crisis. Above all, the volume contributes significantly to the fields of literary sociology and ethnography as well as criticism. * Claire Chambers, C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings *