What’s happened to reading during the COVID-19 pandemic? Some people are too busy or stressed to read, while others are reading more than ever but in different ways. Leah Price is interested in historical precedents for what we’re experiencing now, from anxieties about catching diseases from library books to the fantasy of reading as refuge from the world. History shows that reading is affected by people’s working lives – some can’t read because they have to work, others read because they can’t work. COVID-19 is transforming the way we work, so reading too will change – but not necessarily for the worse.
Tag: femininity
Some academics think that reading a book just to identify with a character is self-centred and shallow. When you’re only reading for characters you can identify with, you’re projecting yourself onto the book. But Merve Emre thinks that’s unfair. Far from being shallow, who readers do and don’t identify with is a complex and nuanced question. Using examples from Freud to Fifty Shades of Grey, Merve shows how identifying with characters can reshape our sense of self and help us better understand the society we live in.