Plotting the Reading Experience: Theory/Practice/Politics ed. by Paulette M. Rothbauer et al. (review)

The editors position these articles as contributions to a burgeoning field of "reader studies" and, as such, as a kind of microcosmic library. The volume is inter- and multidisciplinary, with researchers from backgrounds as diverse as library and information sciences, sociology, ethnography, cultural studies, media and communication studies, education, and psychology – and all were presenters at the 2013 "Researching the Reading Experience" symposium in Oslo, Norway (which helps account for the high number of Scandinavian researchers, though five of the twenty-three contributors are still from, or studied in, Canada). With such a wide disciplinary range, it is admirable that all of the articles are accessible to most audiences in their clarity and avoidance of jargon.

The editors have helpfully allocated the twenty-three chapters into one of three interconnected categories: theory, practice, or politics (that said, the title's forward slashes are meant to indicate the disciplinary slipperiness among the themes). In the "theory" section, notable articles include Magnus Persson's comparison of bell hooks's and Frederic Jameson's critical writings, a "metacritical" exercise that finds in hooks's selfreflexive-based criticism grounds for "breaking up the hegemony of critical reading" – a point still often missed (or omitted) in much research even in the humanities. Gabrielle Cliff Hodges's qualitative study about early teen readers' experiences considers the social, cultural, spatial, and historical contexts (including conversations with their parents and grandparents about reading as representing a kind of lineage of cultural capital). Interesting, though perhaps of limited use to a wide audience, is the chapter by Jenny Bergenmar and Maria Karlsson analysing reader letters sent to Selma Lagerlof, a key figure in Swedish literary history. As the authors note, these letters are more nuanced than meets the eye, revealing their possible contribution to the construction of Lagerlof as a cultural "mother" figure as well as potentially self-interested motives running deeper than a simple admiration for Lagerlof's writing.

In the "Practice" section, two articles stand out for their divergent takes on a similar subject – that of "bibliotherapy": Liz Brewster's analysis of voluntary participants in reading groups, which bases her assessments on four categories (emotive, escapist, social, and informational bibliotherapy), lays useful groundwork in analysing the benefits of reading in the context of mental health issues. Mette Steenberg's contribution takes a slightly harder-edged qualitative approach, with participant observer notes and interviews conducted in mental health hospitals and other clinical and community settings. Analysing participants' responses to "setting and place" and "voluntary engagement," Steenberg concludes that aesthetics is of greater importance than therapeutic potential to the majority of participants. Of dubious value is the study by Pamela McKenzie and Elisabeth Davies, which examines how the experience of rereading to-do lists and calendar entries enables readers to "ongoingly produce both the texts and themselves." This may be true, but some hint as to the practical application of this exercise (this is the practice section, after all) – for example, in a therapeutic context with people and families affected by Alzheimer's disease – would lend some much-needed weight to research that seems as ephemeral as the to-do lists. Lucia Cedeira Serantes's article on the reasons for young people's preference for comics will perhaps aid teachers in upper-level secondary and in post-secondary education. She points to youths' perception of time in today's digital-based social realm as well as the comics' representation of time as key factors in this preference.

Finally, in the "Politics" section, Tonje Vold's analysis of two blogs written by witnesses of the terror attacks in Norway in 2009 offers insight into how such texts, straddling the line between private and public, can contribute to readers' concepts of themselves as individuals and as global citizens. It also speaks to Eva Maria (Emy) Koopman's article in the "Practice" section, which deals with cathartic responses to...