Reading, especially of the classics, is booming
The old stories are the best
A NORTH LONDON book club, which includes a top civil servant, a senior Bank of England official and one of the country’s best-known publishers, normally picks the latest novels to dissect. But when lockdown began in late March its six members decided to take on “Madame Bovary”, Gustave Flaubert’s masterwork about the danger of getting carried away by social and romantic ambition. The shift in the book club’s tastes was a reaction to the anxious zeitgeist, says one of its members. “We wanted a book that had stood the test of time. Something rock solid.”
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The old stories”
Britain August 29th 2020
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From the August 29th 2020 edition
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