Beth Driscoll
Beth Driscoll is Lecturer in Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of The New Literary Middlebrow: Tastemakers and Reading in the Twenty-First Century (2014), and has written essays for Meanjin, Heat and The Australian. Her current research looks at online and offline reading practices, literary festivals, and popular fiction.
All essays by Beth Driscoll
The Aesthetic Conduct of Sally Rooney’s Readers
What are the aesthetic possibilities offered by Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney’s blockbuster 2021 novel? To answer this question, we might look at the novel’s plot, characters, themes, style, narrative form. But we might also, inspired by a pragmatic view of art, look at how readers have made use of the novel.
‘Could Not Put It Down’
‘When publishers have a big new novel to promote, one with buzz and the potential for significant sales, they will often market it to women readers. To attract these readers, a novel might be given a cover featuring images of women or children, it might come with a reading group guide, and it might be emblazoned with a sticker from another female-oriented media organisation. What effects might such packaging have on a novel’s critical reception?’ Beth Driscoll on three new novels