A few years back I read this interesting academic book by Janice Radway, called Reading the Romance (published in 1984). The romance in question is the romance novel. The readers are a small community of women. Radway’s book has its issues, to be certain. Her sample of romance readers is small, and you can really feel that she looks down on the whole matter. This would be a deal breaker for me, but Radway went through with her study in a professional manner, asking questions rather than making assumptions, and drawing conclusions based on evidence rather than prejudice.