The Pleasure of Reading : 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books That Inspired Them

The Pleasure of Reading : 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books That Inspired Them
ISBN: 9781408859629
Publication Date: 1 July 2015

A charming and revealing collection of essays from some of our best-loved writers about the pleasures of reading

In this delightful collection forty acclaimed writers explain what first made them interested in literature, what inspired them to read and what makes them continue to do so. First published in 1992 in hardback only, original contributors include Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard, Melvyn Bragg, A. S. Byatt, Catherine Cookson, Carol Ann Duffy, Germaine Greer, Alan Hollinghurst, Doris Lessing, Candia McWilliam, Edna O'Brien, Ruth Rendell, Tom Stoppard, Sue Townsend and Jeanette Winterson. The new edition will include essays from ten new writers.

Royalties generated from this project will go to Give a Book, , a charity set up in 2011 that seeks to get books to places where they will be of particular benefit. Give a Book works in conjunction with Age UK, Prison Reading Groups, Maggie's Centres, which help people affected by cancer, and various schools and literacy projects, such as Beanstalk, where many pupils have never had a book of their own in their lives.

About the Author

Antonia Fraser is well known as a historical biographer whose books include Cromwell: Our Chief of Men, Mary, Queen of Scots, The Gunpowder Plot and The Six Wives of Henry VIII. She also writes the Jemima Shore crime novels and in 2010 published an acclaimed memoir of her life with her husband Harold Pinter, Must You Go? She has been President of English PEN and Chairman of both the Society of Authors and the Crimewriters' Association. She lives in Holland Park, London.

Victoria Gray is a trustee of Give a Book, a charity founded in honour of her...