Noughties reading

Reading seems the most demure of leisure activities. While writers around leisure have turned in recent times to ‘the dark side’ of leisure (Rojek, 1999: 126), the privacy and silence we associate with much modern reading would seem to be at odds with the kinds of activities Chris Rojek describes as ‘wild’ leisure - imbued with the passion of the disorderly crowd. Reading has often been associated with virtue, progress and reason and viewed as a key route to learning and wisdom. Historically, public libraries, for example, have been viewed as places to promote the social good through educative reading, dis tracting working-class readers from vices like the ‘demon’ drink (Brophy, 2007: 34). Libraries, one recent author comments, ‘are one of the marks of civilization’ (Brophy, 2007: ix). Even in newly popular social spaces for reading and discussing books, such as the book clubs popularised by Oprah Winfrey and the UK’s Richard and Judy, have been framed as therapeutic communities organised around ethical principles (Driscoll, 2008; Fuller, 2008).