by Anita Anand
The Reading Agency is an independent charity with a mission to inspire more people to read more. We aim to drive up participation in reading so that everyone has the intellectual freedom, life chances and sheer joy and inspiration that comes when life is full of books. We’re all lucky enough to be confident readers, but many people struggle with low literacy skills. We’re passionate about helping everyone have the chance to become a confident reader, and we specialise in working with libraries to spread reading, because libraries offer every single member of the community free and equal access.
It’s inspirational for us. Libraries have a radical, socially equalising role right across the UK, and we support that by developing practical tools and training to take their work further. The proceeds of this book will go to sustaining and developing our two reading challenge schemes – the Six Book Challenge for adults, and the Summer Reading Challenge for children. Libraries use these schemes to encourage people to enjoy reading, often for the first time.
Mary did the Six Book Challenge through the library in Shoreham after enquiring about adult education courses through her children’s school. Having experienced severe post-natal depression she was trying to get back on track – and back into work, too.
‘I had really lost confidence in myself and I hadn’t picked up a book since I was about twenty-five. I just didn’t think, what with being a mum to three children, that I’d be able to carve out the time to get started again. The idea of reading a whole book from start to finish seemed impossible, and I was worried that I would make a fool of myself.
‘Despite all my fears, I did give the Six Book Challenge a go and found myself hooked.
‘I’d thought I didn’t have the intelligence or the confidence or the concentration to be able to understand what a writer was trying to get across in a book, or be able to discuss that in a group, but I found I could. It was fantastic, after all those years of not having picked up a book.
‘I carried on with the Six Book Challenge … and went on to read twelve books! Now I am reading every day, when the kids are in bed, or when they are having a nap or even in the car. Completing the Six Book Challenge gave me the confidence to go on and get the qualifications I need: I am training to be a teaching assistant. And now we read every day as a family. My sense of achievement from doing the Six Book Challenge has done wonders for my confidence. It gave me the focus I needed to go on and do everything else.’
Every day, across the country, there are transformations like this. Libraries are the place where reading comes alive in the community. It’s both heartwarming and heartbreaking to see local communities fight to keep their library open, and a reminder of just what they mean to people. Authors, of all kinds of books, have been standing alongside readers of all ages, classes and backgrounds, championing libraries, and the contributions included here are full of that passion. What leaps out is how essential libraries are to the written word – and how they open up the world for everyone, writers and readers alike.
We believe it’s vital that in campaigning to save our irreplaceable public library network we look to the future as well as the past. Libraries must evolve to survive. The work of The Reading Agency is focused on helping libraries become the place where local people can go for rich, inspiring experiences that will help them become readers for life.
In these difficult times, I hold in my mind my recent visit to Rotherham’s new Riverside Library a few months before its opening – the vibrant colours of the carpets being laid, light flooding in, a state-of-the-art computer suite and playful children’s area. We need these reading places in our communities, from Rotherham to Ramsgate, Redcar to Reigate. Let it not be on our watch that we lose them.
(Miranda McKearney OBE is the Chief Executive of The Reading Agency.)
To support The Reading Agency, visit
www.readingagency.org.uk
CONTRIBUTORS
Anita Anand presents Double Take on BBC Radio 5 Live. Previously she presented the BBC’s Daily Politics, and 5 Live Drive. She has anchored The World Today and Outlook on BBC World Service, and Saturday Live and Midweek for BBC Radio 4. Anita has also been a columnist for India Today and The Asian Age as well as the Guardian. She lives in London.
Julian Barnes has written ten novels and three collections of short stories. In 2011 he won the Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending. He lives in London.
Bella Bathurst is a writer, journalist and photographer. Her first book, The Lighthouse Stevensons, won the Somerset Maugham Prize. Her most recent book is The Bicycle Book.
Alan Bennett is the author of Untold Stories, and numerous works of fiction including The Uncommon Reader. His play The History Boys was the National Theatre’s most successful production ever.
Michael Brooks is the author of the bestselling non-fiction title 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense. He holds a PhD in quantum physics, is a consultant at New Scientist and writes a weekly column for the New Statesman.
James Brown started his career at the NME and then created Loaded magazine. He was once voted more influential than Mrs Thatcher and the Pope by Channel 4 and the Observer (who were clearly on drugs at the time). He now publishes www.sabotagetimes.com
Ann Cleeves worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing full-time. In 2006 she was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black. ITV’s adaptation of her Vera Stanhope novels stars Brenda Blethyn. She lives in North Tyneside.
Stephen Fry is an award-winning actor, writer and presenter. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster, and was unforgettable as General Melchett in Blackadder. More recently he presented Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. His legions of fans tune in to watch him host the popular quiz show QI each week. His biography The Fry Chronicles, spanning the years 1979–1987, was the bestselling non-fiction hardback of 2010.
Seth Godin is the author of Tribes, The Dip, Purple Cow, Linchpin and other international bestsellers. He is the most influential business blogger in the world, and the founder and CEO of Squidoo.com. He lives in Westchester, New York.
Susan Hill is the author of the literary memoir Howards End is on the Landing and the ghost stories The Woman in Black, The Man in the Picture and The Small Hand. She also writes the successful Simon Serailler crime series.
Tom Holland is the author of three works of history: Rubicon, Persian Fire and Millennium. His new book, In the Shadow of the Sword – about late antiquity and the origins of Islam – is out in 2012.
Hardeep Singh Kohli is a comedian, journalist, broadcaster and author of Indian Takeaway. He appears regularly across BBC Radio 2 and 4.
Lucy Mangan is a feature writer for the Guardian and the author of Hopscotch and Handbags, The Reluctant Bride and My Family and Other Disasters.
Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community; she then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. She divides her time between Northumberland and Cheshire and has published twenty-five novels.
China Miéville lives and works in London. He is three-time winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and has also won the Hugo and World Fantasy Award. His most recent novel, Embassytown, was published in 2011.
Caitlin Moran is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. She has worked extensively on television as well as national press, in addition to writing How to Be a Woman. She currently writes a weekly column for The Times.
Kate Mosse is the author of three non-fiction books, two plays and five novels, including the bestseller, Labyrinth. The third novel in her Languedoc Trilogy, Citadel, will be published in 2012. The Co-Founder & Honorary Director of the Orange Prize for Fiction, she is also Co-Director of the Chichester Writing Festival and a board member of the National Theatre.
Julie Myerson is the author of eight novels, including Something Might Ha
ppen, and three works of non-fiction, including Home: The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived In Our House, and The Lost Child. She lives in London and Suffolk with her husband and teenage children.
Bali Rai was born in Leicester in 1971 and grew up in a multicultural, multi-racial community close to the city centre. He writes novels about young adults as well as the successful Soccer Squad series.
Lionel Shriver’s novels include We Need to Talk About Kevin, So Much for That and A Perfectly Good Family. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times and many other publications. She lives in London.
Karin Slaughter is an internationally bestselling author of several novels, including the Grant County series and the Will Trent series. She is the founder of the Save the Libraries project, which has raised nearly $100k for libraries worldwide.
Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975. She is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man and On Beauty, and the essay collection Changing My Mind, all of which are published by Penguin.
Robin Turner is one of the editors of the Caught by the River website and the recently published book, A Collection of Words on Water. He co-authored The Rough Pub Guide and is currently working on the follow-up.
Nicky Wire is the bass player and lyricist with the Manic Street Preachers. The group have released ten critically acclaimed albums over two decades, during which time they have won – amongst others – four Brits, an Ivor Novello, five Q awards, the Mojo Maverick award and the NME’s coveted Godlike Genius Award.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With thanks to Miranda McKearney, Peter Barker, Sandeep Mahal, Harpreet Purewal, Isobel Frankish and all at The Reading Agency; Benedicte Page at The Bookseller; Marigold Atkey, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, Sarah Ballard, John Bulloch, Pat Burgess, Mic Cheetham, Lottie Fyfe, Georgia Garrett, Jane Gregory, Victoria Hobbs, Victoria Sanders, Craig Tregurtha, Claire Weatherhead, Helen Wilson; all at Profile Books, and all the authors who gave their work.
With thanks to the following for the use of material:
Guardian for Bella Bathurst, Lionel Shriver, Nicky Wire
London Review of Books for Alan Bennett
Macmillan Publishers for China Miéville
The Times for Caitlin Moran
The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, A&C Black for Julie Myerson