The Case of Reading While Old: Information, Resistance and Pleasure

The third paper in a panel, Real World Consequences of Reading in Different Contexts and Stages of Life, begins with what readers have to say about their reading experiences and will present findings from case study data from in-depth qualitative interviews with readers between the ages of 75 and 90 years. While, there is rising interest in the effects that reading have on ageing (e.g., Bavishi, Slade and Levy, 2016), there is less research that seeks to understand the role of reading—especially leisure reading—from the perspectives of older people themselves. This paper provides an analysis that uses the metaphor of a lifeline to tease out the meanings represented in the accounts of everyday reading practices offered by the participants in this study. There are three intersecting dimensions of the lifeline metaphor: 1) reading as a way of charting one’s life, 2) reading as an escape, and 3) reading as way to preserve what is important about life and living. This paper concludes with a discussion of how the consequences of reading reflect Felski’s (2008) concepts of recognition and knowledge, and how these in turn, bridge with notions of resilience and resistance, and what Davis et al (n.d) have termed “contemplative space for feeling” for older adult readers