[LV - Although this article is about cookery books, it employs a sustained comparison with romance novels, and given that romance novels often include detailed descriptions of food, I felt it was worth including this in the database.]
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Now, at first glance, a cookbook and a Harlequin or Silhouette romance might seem very different, appealing to almost opposite sides of the reader. But when you consider Radway’s definitions, the romance novel and the cookbook aren’t so far apart. (36)
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The fantasy or imaginative activity that occurs during the reading of a romance novel or cookbook may do nothing more than allow some moments of escapism, but in some cases, reading romances and cookbooks can have some genuinely transformative power. Radway reports that romance readers she spoke with claim their interactions with romance novels yield improved self-awareness, self-confidence, and, for some, greater power to act autonomously. Cookbook readers, too, can experience adjustments in attitudes and thought patterns that allow for changed views of people and places and history previously seen as unapproachably “Other.” (38)
[LV - Although this article is about cookery books, it employs a sustained comparison with romance novels, and given that romance novels often include detailed descriptions of food, I felt it was worth including this in the database.]
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