Why Women Read Fiction

Written by a leading academic and broadcaster and drawing on interviews with readers, writers, reading groups, bookshop owners, librarians, and figures from literary publishing, reviewing, and festivals, this accessible volume offers an overview of the contemporary scene of women's novel-reading.

Preface: 'A Friend, a Bible, a Perfume'; Part One: How, Where, and Why Women Read Fiction; Introduction; 1 'Cheap Sweet Vacations': Reading as a Woman; Rosie Jackson: 'What Their Books Yield or, Why I am Not Buying a Kindle'; Part Two: What Women Read; 2 Reading as a Girl; U A Fanthorpe: The Poet on her childhood reading; 3 Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, the Novels Women Love Best; 4 Romance and Erotica: Fiction by Women for Women; 5 Women, Crime, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy; dovegreyreader: The Literary Blogger; Part Three: Writers and Readers; 6 Women Writers on their Reading and Readers; 7 Book Clubs in Women's Life Stories; 8 Festivals, Literary Tourism, and Pilgrimage; Fiction in Lives, Lives in Fiction; 9 The Stories of Our Lives; Appendix: Questionnaire about women's fiction reading