Book Review

Norrick-Rühl, Corinna

Abstract

This intriguing and unconventional monograph is the central output of a recent research project led by literary scholars Ben Davies and Christina Lupton, which considered the habits of Danish and UK readers during the early phase (2020–21) of the Covid-19 pandemic. The book is unconventional in a number of ways: First, the project leaders achieved an extremely quick turnaround from conception of the study and securing funding from the Denmark-based Carlsberg Foundation to conducting the research, including 860 surveys and about 75 in-depth interviews, and publication of a co-written monograph. This quick turnaround (and, unfortunately, the ongoing pandemic mutations) contributes to the book’s atypical timeliness. Second, the methods are unconventional for literary scholarship in general and for Davies and Lupton in particular. ...