E-reading nostalgia: reading practices and the digitised backlist

The advent of the mass-market e-book at the turn of the millennium has disrupted the production and consumption of literature. One of the book publishing industry’s primary responses to this disruption has been to digitise and electronically re-release backlist titles. However, it is unclear whether this strategy adequately takes into account the material and imaginal complexity of books within nostalgic reading practices. This thesis explores this question through a multi-sited qualitative study of nostalgically imbued books and their production and consumption in the West. In doing so, it challenges current assumptions about digitisation and introduces novel theoretical and methodological concepts.