How Reading Has Changed in 2020, Guest post from Malia Zaidi

I’m delighted to have author Malia Zaidi on the blog today. Malia is the author of the Lady Evelyn historical mystery series, set in the 1920s. Today, she’s sharing how reading has changed this year.

How Reading Has Changed this Year

by Malia Zaidi

2020 has been a bit of a year to say the least, and I have to acknowledge it feels a little strange to be promoting a new book with so much else going on in  the world. At the same time and as a reader I think I can safely say, books are critical in trying times. We need escapism, we need distraction or we need them as sources of information and to anchor us in some small but significant way. I hope The Quality of Mercy can do a little of that for readers, and offer a few hours of vicarious adventure.

Shifting reading habits

That all being so, as a bookworm, I have noticed how my reading habits have shifted since lockdown began (now shockingly five months ago!) and I have heard others say the same. Our concentration is shaky, the urge to check the news, the temptation of other distraction ever present. Even so, when I have found myself immersed in a book, it does still offer much needed respite and distraction, it just takes more effort on my part to get to the point at which I do feel immersed.

Finding purpose in reading again

For the first couple of months, reading somehow didn’t feel so important, I didn’t feel very connected to the experience, which was strange and unsettling in itself. I wanted the comfort I usually found in books, but the stories I started felt predictable or didn’t hold my attention. I worried that this was how it would be, that I would lose my enthusiasm for something I truly loved, but these times are strange and, (yes, I’ll say it) unprecedented. I couldn’t guess how they would change me and my outlook. I suspect many readers may feel or have felt similarly. Perhaps it is strange to say this, but when civil unrest erupted in this country, I began to find more purpose in it again, reading books like Chokehold by Paul Butler or The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. It suddenly felt urgent and important to read again, and I was learning and am still learning. I tend to read fiction, mysteries or historical fiction are my favorite, being the genre in which I choose to write as well. Yet lately I have been bouncing around from one genre to the next more than ever before. Does anyone else share this feeling?

“The comfort in being told a story”

I usually love to go to the library (still have four books checked out pre-lockdown sitting on my bedside table – unread!), but that isn’t possible. My library allows you to borrow eBooks and audiobooks, though, which has been great. In fact, audiobooks have become my preferred form of “reading” at the moment. Maybe it’s because it seems as though someone is telling me a story that makes the experience feel soothing, almost communal, if that makes sense. Maybe that is what I crave right now, though I am lucky not to be alone during this time. Perhaps, on some level, it goes back to childhood, the comfort in being told a story. I wonder how other readers are experiencing this strange time?            

Finding escapism where we can

However you are faring in your reading life, I hope you can still find some comfort and distraction in a good story. I hope you’re not too hard on yourself if, like me, you struggle to concentrate, or you just aren’t loving the books you used to love. We are facing enough uncertainties and pressures, it’s ok to find our escapism where we can. This post hasn’t really been about my new book, The Quality of Mercy, but what I aim to offer in it and in the whole series is a little escapism from the here and now, which I think we could all use from time to time.

About The Quality of Mercy

After years spent away, Lady Evelyn is at long last back in her home city of London and she has returned with a rather controversial plan. The Carlisle Detective Agency is born, and it does not take long for the bodies… ahem, cases, to start piling up. With her friend and assistant Hugh, Evelyn embarks on the quest to solve the crimes. Yet the London she encounters is not the London of her coddled youth, and she is forced to learn that there is more to discover than the identity of a murderer. It isn’t only her city which reveals it is not what she always believed it to be, but the people she encounters as well. Secrets are revealed that have her thinking twice about everything she thought she knew about the society in which she grew up.

Evelyn’s love for her hard-won independence confronts her with yet another mystery, whether she is ready or willing to give up any of it for marriage. And then there is the arrival of rather a familiar face in London, one Daniel is none to pleased to see. Evelyn must find not one but two murderers, as well as make a decision that could determine her future. From the mansions of Mayfair to the dark alleys of Whitechapel, can Evelyn catch the killers before another life is taken?

Buy it here!

Published in paperback and digital formats by BookBaby on 25^th August 2020

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3iGhzli

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3iDHDh8

Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/2Fvi5ED

Book Depository: https://bit.ly/3iPf9RJ

About Malia Zaidi