Thread by @opinion

Theaters went dark in London’s West End last year, galleries closed and concert halls stood silent.

📚But there was one creative industry that flourished during lockdown: the reading and publishing of books
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Publishers, parents and educators are now hoping the reading habit will stick around post-Covid.

Here's why it just might:
📖@HarperCollins had a “historic” final quarter of 2020
📖Then it posted a 45% jump in profits in the quarter ending in March 2021 bloom.bg/3vlGUa4

HarperCollins CEO Charlie Redmayne points to profitable backlist sales from the likes of:

📚J. R. R. Tolkien
📚George R. R. Martin
📚Agatha Christie bloom.bg/3vlGUa4

Rising sales of teen fiction have cheered those worried that a long absence from the classroom might blunt children’s appetite for reading.

Harry Potter still works his magic, for example. Revenue from J.K. Rowling’s books rose by 7% over the last year bloom.bg/3vlGUa4

Reflecting the serious concerns of Black Lives Matter, titles such as “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race” by Reni Eddo-Lodge has been highly popular bloom.bg/3vlGUa4

Many adults who initially sought escapism in TV streaming found that its formatted pleasures soon palled.

After a few months of lockdown, we rediscovered the joys of reading bloom.bg/3vlGUa4

Television watching and serious reading aren’t necessarily incompatible pursuits though.

Bridgerton, a Regency-era bodice-ripper with a BLM slant, prompted many to revisit their dog-eared copies of Jane Austen’s contemporaneous novels of polite society
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Digital books have been selling well — but they have not dominated the market as once predicted.

In the U.K., sales of e-books peaked in 2014 and then started to decline — only to reverse during the first lockdown in 2020 bloom.bg/3vlGUa4

Although publishers are prospering, Amazon is the real winner from Covid-19.

The one-click purchase giant delivered books to millions of new customers’ doors bloom.bg/3vlGUa4

☁️Every silver lining has a cloud.

New writers have found it hard to attract attention.

Many titles set to be released in 2020 were shelved by publishers until the indie bookshops that know best how to promote them could reopen bloom.bg/3vlGUa4

We have yet to see the pandemic inspire any new literary classics.

“It is remarkable to see how, in a very short time, a series of clichés coalesced," said author @MWLaPointe.

So what writer will do justice to this strange, sad period of our history? bloom.bg/3vlGUa4