This research was conducted by Alexander Laffer at the University of Birmingham
This paper describes a study of five different book groups as they discussed the actions of characters from the novel The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. Participants tended to talk about the characters as if they were real …
This research was conducted by Kristine Lynn Haertl and Adrienne Maiers Ero-Phillips at St. Catherine University and Abbott Northwestern Hospital, USA
This study set out to explore the healing properties of “personal writing” (i.e. that which does not take place in a formal or structured setting). Specifically, it looked at …
This research was conducted by Paul Crosby at Macquarie University, Australia
A survey of Australian adults revealed three types of book readers. The largest group, “Technological Adopters”, tend to be younger and are equally happy with traditional printed book formats as newer digital ones. They often ‘rely on critical review …
This research was conducted by Laurie Hanquinet, Dave O’Brien and Mark Taylor at the University of York, University of Edinburgh and University of Sheffield
This paper compared survey data with ticket sales data to better understand who attends literary events and dance performances in England. It found that people from …
This research was conducted by Sara Suarez‐Fernandez and David Boto‐García at the University of Oviedo, Spain
This paper describes the reading habits of adults in Spain, with a focus on the way in which reading for work or study affects how people read for pleasure. The results suggested that …
This research was conducted by Anna Kukla‐Gryz, Joanna Tyrowicz and Michał Krawczyk at the University of Warsaw, Poland
This paper is based on an experiment inside a large Polish e-book store. It tested the hypothesis that people are more willing to illegally download cultural content when they perceive that it …
This research was conducted by Nadezhda Sokolova and Mikhail Sokolov at European University at Saint Petersburg, Russia
This paper challenges the assumption that popular culture (rather than highbrow elite culture) is the ‘shared ground’ on which strangers like likely to meet and converse. The researchers analysed data from the St …
This research was conducted by Joachim Vlieghe, Kris Rutten and Jaël Muls at Ghent University and the University of Brussels, Belgium
This paper looks at how readers participate in literary culture through social media. Researchers looked at the website and Facebook group of the Flemish reading initiative Iedereenleest.be (EverybodyReads.be), and …
This research was conducted by Jessica E. Black and Jennifer L. Barnes at the University of Oklahoma, USA
This study aimed to replicate previous findings that have shown reading literary fiction to enhance people’s Theory of Mind (the ability to infer and reason about our own and others’ beliefs, desires …
This research was conducted by Marie-Pierre Pouly at the University of Limoges, France
Using Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000) as a case study, the author explores what makes for a ‘literary bestseller’: a seemingly contradictory cultural phenomenon which enjoys both serious scholarly attention and a mass market success. Based on …