What Readers Do

Beth Driscoll is Associate Professor of Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her publications to date have engaged closely with contemporary book culture, including The New Literary Middlebrow: Tastemakers and Reading in the Twenty-First Century (2014) and over 20 book chapters and journal articles in venues including Post45, Textual Practice, Qualitative Inquiry and Angelaki. She has worked on multiple collaborative research projects, the outcomes of which include The Frankfurt Book Fair and Bestseller Business (with Claire Squires, 2020), Genre Worlds: Popular Fiction and Twenty-First Century Book Culture (with Kim Wilkins and Lisa Fletcher, 2022), and The Frankfurt Kabuff Critical Edition (with Claire Squires, 2023).

• Introduction: The Multi-Dimensional ReaderChapter 1: A Methodology for Contemporary Reading StudiesChapter 2: Locating ReadersChapter 3: Reading as Aesthetic Conduct Chapter 4: Reading as a Moral ForceChapter 5: Reading as Self-CareConclusionBibliographyIndex

Reading about reading has rarely been so enjoyable. At a time of gloom and anxiety about the book’s future, Beth Driscoll reminds us how much there is to celebrate about twenty-first century readers.