Romance (as a category) is far from dead
“WOW, THIS is not what I was expecting at all,” says Allison, a nurse, remembering the first romance novel she ever read. Having shared the general literary snobbery that clings to romance novels, she is now evangelical about the genre. “It is wonderful to take somebody who is kind of sceptical and then tell them about it.”
Allison was browsing in The Ripped Bodice, a romance-novel shop that recently opened in Brooklyn. The day the shop opened, the queue to get in was more than an hour long. The shop, which is whimsical in its decor, is serious in its devotion to romance novels.
The popularity of The Ripped Bodice (the second location devoted to romance that sisters Leah and Bea Koch have opened) is part of a larger shift. During the pandemic, when many were stuck at home and looking for escapist reading, fictional romance blossomed. In the year to May romance print sales were up by 52%, according to Circana, a market-research firm. List-price sales grew by 74%. Annual growth in sales went from 6% in 2020 to more than 50% last year.
2023-08-31 08:03:12
Article from www.economist.com
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