“I never loved to read, one does not love breathing” “There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into” “Closed doors meant illness and cold weather only” “Inside the house lives a malevolent phantom” Nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb” “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy, and no money to buy it with. The six new Quick Reads titles are Agatha Christie’s The Double Clue: Poirot Short Stories, edited by Sophie Hannah and John Curran, Ann Cleeves’ Too Good to be True, Lucy Diamond’s A Baby at the Beach Café, The Anniversary: Ten Tempting Stories From Ten Bestselling Authors edited by Veronica Henry, McNab’s On the Rock, and an abridged version of Yousafzai’s I Am Malala.“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I knew it” The results of the research arrive as Quick Reads releases a new collection of short books – selling for £1 – by authors including Malala Yousafzai and Andy McNab, aimed at busy people and less confident readers. Thirty-eight per cent of respondents said that reading was their “ultimate stress remedy”, 41% of regular readers said a book was a better antidote to stress than meeting up with friends, and 31% said reading had “made them realise they are happy with what they have”, said the survey. Half of respondents said that reading made them more sympathetic to the beliefs of others, while 17% said that books had “inspired them to remain calm during a disagreement”. The Quick Reads research also found that 27% of respondents had been inspired to “make a positive change in their lives” as a result of reading, such as looking for a new job or ending a bad relationship, while 36% had been inspired to go travelling by a book. Pointing to research last summer that “explored the idea that reading exposes people to the widest and most inclusive human range” and argued the case for a literature-based health intervention, the survey said that “it is unsurprising therefore that when asked about the characters from bestselling novels that most people enjoy reading about, it is those that make mistakes who topped the list, above characters that are loyal or brave”. “The realisation that others share similar feelings of imperfection or inadequacy creates a shift from being ‘alone’ to being ‘one of many,’ enabling readers to challenge previous ideas of being different or non-normal, and become more accepting of their true selves.” Bridget Jones tops the list as the character that most women identify with, but interestingly she is also in the top five of most inspiring characters, too,” the researchers write. “It is clear that readers are not looking for flawless characters, but instead they are looking for real characters that show us that it is OK to make mistakes. The survey found that readers prefer to read about a character who makes mistakes (23%) and is funny (20%), than one who is brave (19%), loyal (17%) or kind (11%). Respondents were given a list of characters to select from, with characters ranging from EL James’s Christian Grey to Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander failing to make the final ranking. Christian Grey, in the film adaptation of EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey. Men, meanwhile, singled out Yann Martel’s Pi Patel, the boy who travels an ocean in a boat with a tiger in Life of Pi, as a fictional creation they identified with. Women also cited Stephenie Meyer’s teenage character Bella Swan, who is torn between vampire and werewolf love interests in the Twilight Saga, as one of the characters they could most identify with, along with Jodi Picoult’s creation Anna Fitzgerald from My Sister’s Keeper, the sister born to be a genetic match for her sibling who has cancer. The research, produced in partnership with Dr Josie Billington, deputy director of the Centre for Research into Reading at the University of Liverpool, also asked respondents which fictional character they most identified with, with Bridget Jones topping the list for women, and Frodo Baggins for men. Fourth place was taken by Helen Fielding’s weight-watching diarist Bridget Jones for women, and by Dan Brown’s code-cracking “symbologist” Robert Langdon – he of the “charcoal turtleneck, Harris Tweed jacket, khakis, and collegiate cordovan loafers” – for men. Harry Potter was the third most inspiring character in literature for both men and women. JRR Tolkien’s ring-bearing hobbit Frodo Baggins was in second place for men. For women, Finch was followed as most inspirational character by the bow-and-arrow wielding heroine Katniss Everdeen, from Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games series.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |