Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives

by Helen Taylor

Overview

Ian McEwan once said, 'When women stop reading, the novel will be dead.' This book explains how precious fiction is to contemporary British women readers, and how they draw on it to tell the stories of their lives.

Female readers are key to the future of fiction and—as parents, teachers, and librarians—the glue for a literate society. Women treasure the chance to read alone, but have also gregariously shared reading experiences and memories with mothers, daughters, grandchildren, and female friends. For so many, reading novels and short stories enables them to escape and to spread their wings intellectually and emotionally.

This book, written by an experienced teacher, scholar of women's writing, and literature festival director, draws on over 500 interviews with and questionnaires from women readers and writers. It describes how, where, and when British women read fiction, and examines why stories and writers influence the way female readers understand and shape their own life stories. Taylor explores why women are the main buyers and readers of fiction, members of book clubs, attendees at literary festivals, and organisers of days out to fictional sites and writers' homes. The book analyses the special appeal and changing readership of the genres of romance, erotica, and crime. It also illuminates the reasons for British women's abiding love of two favourite novels, Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. Taylor offers a cornucopia of witty and wise women's voices, of both readers themselves and also writers such as Hilary Mantel, Helen Dunmore, Katie Fforde, and Sarah Dunant. The book helps us understand why—in Jackie Kay's words—'our lives are mapped by books.'

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198827689
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/05/2020
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Helen Taylor, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Exeter

bHelen Taylor/b is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Exeter, Honorary Fellow of the British Association of American Studies, and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow 2016-18. She has taught English and American literature at the universities of the West of England, Bristol, Warwick, and Exeter, where she was Head of the School of English. A specialist in literature and culture of the American South and women's writing, she has published widely in both areas. Her books include Scarlett's Women: Gone With the Wind and its Female Fans (1989, reprinted 2014), Circling Dixie: Contemporary Southern Culture through a Transatlantic Lens (2001), and The Daphne du Maurier Companion (2007), as well as a BFI Film Classic on Gone With the Wind (2015). Curator, Chair, and participant in many literature festivals, she was the first Director of the Liverpool Literary Festival, 2016 and 2018.

Table of Contents

Preface: 'A Friend, a Bible, a Perfume'Part One: How, Where, and Why Women Read FictionIntroduction1. 'Cheap Sweet Vacations': Reading as a Woman'What Their Books Yield or, Why I am Not Buying a Kindle', Rosie JacksonPart Two: What Women Read2. Reading as a GirlThe Poet on her childhood reading, U A Fanthorpe3. Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, the Novels Women Love Best4. Romance and Erotica: Fiction by Women for Women5. Women, Crime, Sci-Fi, and FantasyThe Literary Blogger, dovegreyreaderPart Three: Writers and Readers6. Women Writers on their Reading and Readers7. Book Clubs in Women's Life Stories8. Festivals, Literary Tourism, and PilgrimageFiction in Lives, Lives in Fiction9. The Stories of Our LivesAppendix: Questionnaire about women's fiction reading

Editorial Reviews

"... fascinating celebration of books... A readable and engaging book for anyone with an interest in literature." — , WI Life

From the Publisher

02/01/2020

To understand why a significantly large portion (63 percent) of fiction sales go to women, Taylor (emerita, English, Univ. of Exeter; Scarlett's Women) conducted interviews and sent questionnaires related to women's reading habits to British writers such as Bidisha, Jasper Fforde, and Hilary Mantel. This research informs this three-part book, which reveals, not unsurprisingly, that women read different types of genre fiction (romance, crime fiction, and some sf) for various reasons. Taylor notes that through fiction women find escape and deepen their empathy. She explores what many women read as young girls (Little Women, The Secret Garden) and thoroughly analyzes two novels (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre) most cited by her survey/interview respondents. Taylor also discusses the important role book clubs, literary bloggers, book festivals, and literary tourism can have in boosting fiction sales. Her discussion of the gendering of literature and how "too feminine" book covers can influence a works' success is particularly fascinating. VERDICT Though long overdue, this satisfying offering comes at a time when women are working harder than ever to secure their rightful place in the literary canon. Recommended enthusiasts of lit crit, feminist studies, and publishing.—Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Media, PA

Library Journal

2019-09-15
More than 500 women share their connection to stories.

Intrigued by women's enduring love of fiction, Taylor (Emerita, English/University of Exeter; BFI Film Classic on Gone With the Wind, 2015, etc.), who twice directed the Liverpool Literary Festival, sent a detailed questionnaire to women she knew, worked with, or met at literary or bookshop festivals and events and conducted lengthy interviews with women writers and publishing professionals, all to answer her overarching question: "What does fiction reading mean to women?" Drawing on their responses, the author offers intimate revelations of how, where, and why women read fiction; what they read; and how women writers see themselves as "gendered (or not)." Although some findings are predictable—e.g., women read "not just for entertainment and escape, but to help us get through life's daily trials and major challenges"—many readers convey, with clarity and sincerity, their deep emotional response to novels, characters, and authors. Reading, one woman said, "has taken me to places I longed to go and some I did not want to go." Women's most loved books also were unsurprising, with Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre high on the list and Jane Austen as most women's favorite writer. Some readers from diverse ethnic, class, and racial backgrounds, a minority of Taylor's respondents, sought out books they believed could improve "their life chances and social mobility." Noting the popularity of romance novels, erotica, and mysteries, Taylor has found that evolving attitudes about sexual relations have made romance fiction "a dynamic form" that questions archetypes such as the young naïve heroine seduced by an experienced older man, and publishers of romance increasingly realize the commercial potential of attracting LGBTQ writers and readers. Women writers offer candid insights about the particular challenges they face. Some, for example, have been frustrated by publishers' and critics' assumptions. "There is still a disposition," Hilary Mantel complained, "to think that when a woman writes books, she must be commenting on The Woman Question, or on ‘What do women want?', as if she cannot pull away from personal preoccupations."

A warm celebration of the power of fiction.

Kirkus Reviews