Sponsored by Galaxy and run by The Reading Agency, which is funded by the Arts Council, the annual Quick Reads campaign is a wonderful initiative designed to inspire more people to read more often. Each year since 2006 at least six books have been released so there are now well over 100 available in total, often written by well-known authors, spanning a variety of genres and designed to pique the interest of as many people as possible.
This year the six titles are A Very Distant Shore (a romantic novel by Jenny Colgan), The Other Side of You (a modern re-telling of the Beauty and the Beast by Amanda Craig), Feel the Fear & Do It Anyway ( a self help book adapted from the work of the late Susan Jeffers) Dead Simple ( a collection of 8 short stories from well-known crime writers), Looking for Captain Poldark ( a heartwarming tale of four people united by their shared love of Poldark by Rowan Coleman) and One False Move (a tense novel set on the Devil’s Estate in London by Dreda Say Mitchell).
My personal favourite is A Very Distant Shore, but there is something for everyone here. Aimed at adults who are less confident in their reading skills, all six are shorter, in a larger font and with a less complicated vocabulary than many books. But they are all still good reads with interesting and gripping plots. I’m sure they will appeal to a variety of readers for a variety of reasons. My 90 year old mother-in-law (an avid reader all her life) who can no longer manage books which are heavy to hold, or which require a long attention span, is going to love them – though I might just reserve the right to select for her those which contain material suitable for a 90 year old!
These latest Quick Reads are available from bookshops from 2nd February 2017 priced at £1 each (and what a bargain that is) and will also be stocked by many libraries.