‘Together and alone’: how reading is helping to unite a world under coronavirus lockdown
Book sales have increased by up to 400 per cent with dystopian fiction and heavyweight classics proving particularly popular for a populace that has sought solace in the written word.
Maybe that’s because my day job largely consists of reviewing books and interviewing authors, but it’s also because, as a father to a young daughter, I spend not inconsiderable time either reading to or being read to by her.
Whether it was out of habit or the desire to cling to normality, it wasn’t long after we closed our front door to begin two weeks of self-isolation that I started to ask myself: what do you read during a pandemic?
It seemed trivial given the scale of the crisis outside, but it turned out I wasn’t alone. If recent reports are to be believed, the entire population of the quarantined world is (a) launching a podcast, (b) taking online exercise classes, (c) hosting dinner parties on Zoom, or (d) spending their waking hours with their noses buried in a gargantuan novel.
“Reading matter” was one of six post-pandemic boom areas identified by the BBC: “Another pursuit that’s popular with people who have time on their hands right now is settling down with a good book.” “Looking for a respite from the news?” asked The New York Times. “You might find solace in reading.”
Arts pages were quickly saturated with recommendations, celebrity reading lists and even advice on how to read in self-isolation. Speaking to Britain’s Independent newspaper, self-proclaimed bibliophile Andy Miller suggested reading no more than 50 pages a day, especially if you are “tackling a big book”. “You don’t want to make reading synonymous with your incarceration,” he said.