A new poll by the Open University has revealed our favourite lockdown activity, and it is *drum roll*… reading. To all you bookworms out there this may come as no surprise, but why do books provide such wonderful therapy when everything else goes south?

Here are a few reasons why reading provides support and relief when things get difficult…

It acts as an escape

People tend to spend their leisure time differently depending on what’s going on around them. During the Second World War, for instance, music hall boomed and screwball comedies filled cinemas, but when the war ended, cathartic tragedies and family dramas returned during the ‘you’ve never had it so good’ era of the 1950s.

Escapism seems an extremely logical reaction to a deadly, world-paralysing pandemic. Transport yourself to a world where people slay dragons, catch criminals, and legally go out for dinner.

It’s pitch-perfect for the pandemic

Only the most domestic activities are coming through Covid unscathed. Cooking has made it, so too video games, but reading probably takes the prize as the most anti-social and indoor hobby of them all. Sitting down with a good book is identical in 2021 to what it was in 2018, and 1955 and 1913. It’s almost depressing how unusual that continuity is.

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It forces you to switch other things off

Reading and multitasking do not go hand in hand. Even listening to music can break a novel’s narrative spell, and a really good book can engross and distract you in ways the internet can only dream of. Our attention spans require more intrigue than ever, and books are a last preserve of genuine, concentrated leisure.

It’s often nostalgic

Almost everyone has at least one book they’re nostalgic for – whether it’s War And Peace or The Very Hungry Caterpillar – and during the pandemic, familiarity is a very hot commodity. Even the smell and feel of a proper, weighty tome – preferably with dog-eared corners and tattered spines – can bring back ages gone by. Books can conjure not only a world away from the pandemic, but also a time before it.

A sense of social interaction

We miss people. Even the most avowed introverts, the homebodies that wear lockdown like a glove, or a least a snug pair of slippers, are starting to struggle, and most books offer a vicarious glimpse of proper social living. We spend a lot of time with our protagonists, their stories are all the more vivid for being fictional. It’s not the same as seeing friends, but it’s probably still better than a group Zoom call.

It’s nice to be a passenger sometimes

Anxiety runs rife through a world in lockdown, and even pre-pandemic, every day features decisions and unforeseen circumstances. Reading is a perfect tonic – a structured experience with beginning, middle and end. It is also an abdication of responsibility – the knowledge that whatever narrative unfolds is on the author’s conscience, not yours. Life is messy. Reading, most of the time, is not.

The good guys usually win

In most books the story comes to a satisfying close – probably within a few hundred pages. We sincerely hope that, when it comes to the pandemic, life can imitate art.