Describing itself as a “pioneering crowd-funding portal for book publishing”, the website launched at the Hay festival in May and has already successfully published a number of books from well-known authors such as Terry Jones and Kate Mosse, as well as newcomers like Jennifer Pickup.

The authors post an extract from their book and a video pitch of their idea on the site in a bid to get financial support from enthusiastic readers. So instead of waiting for their work to be published, users get to listen to writers’ ideas before they’ve even started.  If you like the idea, you can pledge a certain amount of money to support it, and once a target number of supporters has been reached, the writer can start writing (if this isn’t met, pledges can be refunded or switched to another project).

The higher you pledge, the greater recognition you receive in the finished project – from your name in the back of the book, to lunch with the author. Another incentive to pledge is the resulting access to the author’s ‘shed’, with exclusive interviews, progress updates, draft chapters and much more.

Finally, the book is written, designed, edited, printed, and sent to you either in e-book form, or as a beautifully bound limited edition hardback. The founders of Unbound claim they are ‘bringing authors and readers together’, allowing an interactive dialogue to help shape the writing and reading process.

Current projects include academic psychologist and writer Charles Fernyhough’s A Box of Birds, a pacy thriller set in a near-future world of experimental brain research. Fernyhough uses neuroscientific ideas in his work and will be hosting discussions with neuroscientists and fellow writers about some of the themes that emerge from the story as he completes it, which he hopes his Unbound pledgers will join in with.

He has 89 days to get 533 supporters, so why not read an excerpt and watch the video pitch here, and decide if you want to help bring a book to life…

Give A Book donates the gift of books to other charities, giving books where they are most needed – at present, they give books to people helped by Maggie’s Centres, Age Concern, First Story and also work with Volunteer Reading Help to help children who are struggling with literacy. People who wish to donate a book can select from a list of books on the Give A Book website, which will be sent to the chosen charities for a fraction of the retail price.

The list contains such wonderful classics as Great Expectations, Cranford, Anna Karenina and Middlemarch and is added to every month with a new book recommended by a range of very interesting people – books of the month have previously been chosen by friend of The Reader Organisation Howard Jacobson, Dominic West and winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize Julian Barnes. Children’s books of the month are also selected, with the first choice coming with a royal seal of approval from HRH The Duchess of Cornwall.

Give A Book was set up in honour of writer and playwright Simon Gray, who loved to read and share his reading with others.

…I could escape for as long as I was reading… (Coda, Simon Gray)

To find out more about Give A Book or to donate a book, visit their website and take a look at the Give A Book blog.

Though the storytelling ritual of the season has never really disappeared, of late there has been heralded a resurgence of Hallowe’en reading events. In many respects, it’s the perfect time for sharing stories; not only is it more affecting to have a scare that’s shared but you’re also afforded the comfort of a collective experience – keeping things fun as well as the right side of frightening. Observing the trend, over the weekend the first Stories Before Bedtime was held with a distinctly disturbing flavour (hopefully the thrills and chills didn’t keep everyone up all night) and over the past week, legions of blood-curdling books have been exchanged thanks to a novel Hallowe’en practise called All Hallows Read. The idea was conjured up by author Neil Gaiman, a spooky solution to the relative lack of recognisable traditions involving literature and specifically the giving of books. So while on a plane near the end of last October, the spectacularly simple thought to get everyone giving each other scary reads – brand new, borrowed or second-hand – in the run-up to Hallowe’en popped into his head. And thus, All Hallows Read was born. It goes without saying that we wholeheartedly support any story-sharing initiative, especially one so inclusive; it takes into account all books and all people, from adults to children, so long as the story’s scare factor is suitable for kids – indeed, academic experts have recently advocated a spot of shocking storytelling in helping children to safely deal with fears and anxieties.

So in keeping with the spine-chilling theme, it’s only right we should feature a poem this Hallowe’en from a man many would call term the master of mystery, horror and suspense – none other than Edgar Allan Poe. His poems – perhaps most famously, The Raven – and short stories have been a central aspect of Hallowe’en congregations for years, and fittingly, Poe was also an early literary influence on Neil Gaiman. Rather than providing heart-stopping shocks, Poe’s tales of the macabre evoke a dark romanticism, petrifying but also poignant. There is perhaps no finer example of this mix than Ulalume; full of ominous atmosphere with its ‘ghoul-haunted woodland’ but haunting in an entirely different way, too. What’s more, it was originally intended to be an elocution piece so it is oozing with echoing sounds and rhythms. Perfect to read aloud and set the mood prior to any Hallowe’en get-together.

Ulalume

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispèd and sere —
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir —
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul —
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
There were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll —
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole —
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere —
Our memories were treacherous and sere —
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year —
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber —
(Though once we had journeyed down here) —
We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn —
As the star-dials hinted of morn —
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn —
Astarte’s bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said — “She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs —
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies —
To the Lethean peace of the skies —
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes —
Come up through the lair of the Lion
With Love in her luminous eyes.”

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said — “Sadly this star I mistrust —
Her pallor I strangely mistrust: —
Oh, hasten! — oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly! — let us fly! — for we must.”
In terror she spoke; letting sink her
Wings till they trailed in the dust —
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust —
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied — “This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night: —
See! — it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright —
We safely may trust to a gleaming
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.”

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom —
And conquered her scruples and gloom:
And we passed to the end of the vista,
And were stopped by the door of a tomb;
By the door of a legended tomb: —
And I said — “What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?”
She replied — “Ulalume — Ulalume —
’Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!”

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crispèd and sere —
As the leaves that were withering and sere,
And I cried — “It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed — I journeyed down here —
That I brought a dread burden down here —
On this night of all nights in the year,
Oh, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber —
This misty mid region of Weir —
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”

Said we, then — the two, then — “Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls —
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls —
To bar up our way and to ban it
From the secret that lies in these wolds —
From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds —
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls —
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls?”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Our Read went down to the Just So Festival in Staffordshire last Friday to share the magic of The Unforgotten Coat.  The Just So Festival kindly invited the project to come along and run shared read aloud sessions throughout the day, and they even gave us some free tickets so we could bring two of the young people we work with to the festival. Jessica and Tina had a lovely day exploring the festival site and all it had to offer - they made clay faces, origami penguins, played in the Just So Festival beach, watched live music, and helped us spread the reading revolution by taking part in our group reading sessions and giving out copies of The Unforgotten Coat to people around the site.

The Yurt that we were going to run the reading sessions in was unfortunately out of action…

However it didn’t dampen our spirits, and the glorious sunshine and woodlands made a perfect setting to read in. 

We were hoping that we would see some exciting wildlife in the woods, and we did see a rabbit during one of our walks around the site, but our main wildlife experience was an unusual amount of wasps which enjoyed dive-bombing me… I think my reaction of running away as fast as my legs would carry me kept lots of people entertained.

We all had a really lovely day, and met lots of people who enjoyed sharing the book with us and hearing more about the project - hopefully Our Read will be invited back again next year!

Now new research has indicated that a growing number of boys are ‘reluctant readers’, rapidly losing passion for reading, being put off by the classics of English literature and finding that the longer a book is, the more unappealing it becomes. The publishers Pearson carried out a study in secondary schools across the UK which has found that on a national level, 60% of all reluctant readers are boys. Out of 500 teachers surveyed, 57% expressed concern about the high number of boys who were reluctant to read in classes.

An especially important finding in the research was pinpointing exactly where it is in reading a book that boys begin to lose interest; overall, 70% of teachers have noticed that the attention span of boys had diminished drasticallyon average by the 100th page of a book. However, nearly a quarter of teachers report that engagement with a book can be lost for boys as soon as within the first few pages – and such dramatic disengagement amongst boys is felt most accurately in the North West. It was also pointed out that longer books – over 200 pages in length – are a particular stumbling block; three in ten teachers noted that boys switched off before even starting a book of such length, whereas only 3% stated that this was the case with girls, reinforcing the notion of a gender reading gap.

Further to research amongst teachers, over 260 boys aged between 11-13 also took part in the study. One in five said they thought that reading was primarily ‘for girls’, with the same number saying they prefer to read shorter books – of fewer than 100 pages. Yet, there are glimmers of hope amongst the worrying figures. Despite a signifcant erosion of engagement in reading, more than four in ten boys questioned said their ideal book would be longer than 200 pages – contradicting what their teachers said – and nearly half said they preferred reading books in full rather than just reading extracts. Such findings show that the spark of interest for reading is still there for boys, encouragingly; it is just a question of kindling that spark to grow larger.

In the hope of doing so, a series of completely new and original books designed especially for boys of the age range surveyed has been launched. HEROES has been put together with the assistance of Our Read author Frank Cottrell Boyce and the books in the series have been created with the aim of switching boys back on to reading, increasing their engagement with books as well as building their confidence around reading and improving their literacy skills. In order to help combat the issue of reluctant reading, the books incorporate things that boys identified as those that would make them more interested in reading – action, adventure, crime, horror and thrilling narrative -  as well as being shorter to capture boys’ attention.

Frank hopes that by reading the HEROES books, boys will renew their interest in reading away from school and will gradually begin to read longer stories, saying that boys must be started on shorter books intially if they are to become lifelong readers: “Nobody wants to run a marathon if they can’t run.” As with all readers, the key aspect in switching on boys’ attention is pleasure – and, as Frank says, pleasure can’t be taught: it can only be shared. But the classroom is a good place to start to encourage boys – and girls – to continue their reading adventures elsewhere. “According to Unesco, the biggest single indicator of whether a child is going to thrive at school and in work is whether or not they read for pleasure. Our hope is that the stories in Heroes will be shared and enjoyed in the classroom by pupil and teacher alike because pleasure is the most powerful motivation.”

Hear more from Frank about the HEROES series (and a little bit about his reworking of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) in this video, broadcast on BBC Breakfast, 17th May 2011:

More information on the study about ‘reluctant readers’ in secondary schools can be read here.

Jemma Foster‘s collection of twelve short story books are not available on Kindle or iPad, nor do they appear in hardback or paperback, but are instead handmade from recycled cardboard, bought from Buenos Aires’ cardboard pickers who make a living collecting it from the streets and are painted by hand, making each one entirely unique.

Inspired by these cardboard books, Jemma put together a collection of stories, with the theme of the human senses not only binding the tales together as a body of work, but also acting as an umbrella over the ideas and philosophical concepts that have niggled, fascinated and haunted Jemma for some time.

For every book sold in the UK, a book is donated to Abuelas Cuentacuentos – Storytelling Grandmothers - charity that invites elderly volunteers to read to children in the poorest parts of Argentina. All other profits will go towards providing them with a ‘grannymobil’ library bus.

The project is a collaborative effort and a number of artists and designers, all close friends of the author, have donated their talents to illustrate the stories.

The books are available to buy online and from independent bookshops such as Notting Hill’s Travel Bookshop, Brick Lane’s Eastside Books and Hackney’s Broadway Bookshop.

DONATE YOUR UNWANTED BOOKS AT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING DROP OFF POINTS:

• THE BASE, LIVERPOOL GUILD OF STUDENTS – University of Liverpool

• LJMU UNION (THE HAIGH BUILDING)

• SYDNEY JONES LIBRARY (Tues 20th Oct – Sun 25th Oct) – University of Liverpool

• HAROLD COHEN LIBRARY (Mon 26th Oct – Sun 31st Oct) – University of Liverpool

• THE LAW BUILDING – University of Liverpool

• ELEANOR RATHBONE BUILDING – University of Liverpool

• CYPRESS BUILDING – University of Liverpool

CDs, DVDs etc. also welcome!

You can also donate at our weekly meetings – every Monday at 5pm in the International Lounge, in the Guild (and if you want to become a volunteer, please feel free to come along!).

Do you already know about READ’s great work?

Find us on Facebook: ‘Read International Book Project Liverpool 2009/10’. Check us out at: www.readinternational.org.uk

— — —

Here is some information about our project and other ways you can help:

Profit driven book companies in the UK produce 6th, 7th and 8th editions of textbooks every year, which schools are forced to buy in order to maintain an image of being up to date. This results in an abundance of disused, high-quality textbooks gathering dust in UK secondary school cupboards. The aim of Read International Book Projects is to collect these books and send them to secondary schools in Tanzania, where the syllabus is almost identical and is taught in English.

In Tanzania, the government gives each child 30p per year to spend on textbooks, which, if they buy new, will cost them £11 per textbook. We can ship the books to Tanzania for no more than 50p each. Of course, we only take the most useful and up to date books, and any books that are not appropriate, such as politics or religion, are sold online or recycled to generate funding.

We have some huge targets to meet and this is why we need your help! So far, READ has shipped over half a million textbooks to Tanzanian schools. This year, out Liverpool Book Project aims to send another 25,000 books, and will need to raise £7500 by June 2010 in order to fund this target. Whether you want to get involved in contacting schools, picking up books and sorting through them, raising awareness and funds or simply supporting by coming to our weekly meetings, READ is open to everyone and is a great opportunity.

Some of the benefits the READ offers YOU include training in delivering Think Global workshops to Key Stage 3 students focusing on active global citizenship, the opportunity to earn your V50 certificate if you volunteer more than 50 hours of your time, which looks great on your C.V., the chance to actually go to Tanzania yourself in the summer of 2010 and redistribute the books we collect this year, and, of course, a lot of fun!

This is one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty in Africa.

Hon Margaret Sitta MP, Minister for Education (Tz)

Any questions do not hesitate to contact us at liverpool@bookproject.org.uk

DONATE YOUR UNWANTED BOOKS AT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING DROP OFF POINTS:

• THE BASE, LIVERPOOL GUILD OF STUDENTS – University of Liverpool

• LJMU UNION (THE HAIGH BUILDING)

• SYDNEY JONES LIBRARY (Tues 20th Oct – Sun 25th Oct) – University of Liverpool

• HAROLD COHEN LIBRARY (Mon 26th Oct – Sun 31st Oct) – University of Liverpool

• THE LAW BUILDING – University of Liverpool

• ELEANOR RATHBONE BUILDING – University of Liverpool

• CYPRESS BUILDING – University of Liverpool

CDs, DVDs etc. also welcome!

You can also donate at our weekly meetings – every Monday at 5pm in the International Lounge, in the Guild (and if you want to become a volunteer, please feel free to come along!).

Do you already know about READ’s great work?

Find us on Facebook: ‘Read International Book Project Liverpool 2009/10’. Check us out at: www.readinternational.org.uk

— — —

Here is some information about our project and other ways you can help:

Profit driven book companies in the UK produce 6th, 7th and 8th editions of textbooks every year, which schools are forced to buy in order to maintain an image of being up to date. This results in an abundance of disused, high-quality textbooks gathering dust in UK secondary school cupboards. The aim of Read International Book Projects is to collect these books and send them to secondary schools in Tanzania, where the syllabus is almost identical and is taught in English.

In Tanzania, the government gives each child 30p per year to spend on textbooks, which, if they buy new, will cost them £11 per textbook. We can ship the books to Tanzania for no more than 50p each. Of course, we only take the most useful and up to date books, and any books that are not appropriate, such as politics or religion, are sold online or recycled to generate funding.

We have some huge targets to meet and this is why we need your help! So far, READ has shipped over half a million textbooks to Tanzanian schools. This year, out Liverpool Book Project aims to send another 25,000 books, and will need to raise £7500 by June 2010 in order to fund this target. Whether you want to get involved in contacting schools, picking up books and sorting through them, raising awareness and funds or simply supporting by coming to our weekly meetings, READ is open to everyone and is a great opportunity.

Some of the benefits the READ offers YOU include training in delivering Think Global workshops to Key Stage 3 students focusing on active global citizenship, the opportunity to earn your V50 certificate if you volunteer more than 50 hours of your time, which looks great on your C.V., the chance to actually go to Tanzania yourself in the summer of 2010 and redistribute the books we collect this year, and, of course, a lot of fun!

This is one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty in Africa.

Hon Margaret Sitta MP, Minister for Education (Tz)

Any questions do not hesitate to contact us at liverpool@bookproject.org.uk

Jane Mathieson, Regional Reader Development Co-ordinator for North West Libraries, has drawn our attention to a completely unedited piece supplied by a user of Halton Lea Library, giving his initial impressions of the newly refurbished library.

It’s very refreshing to read something so positive, which has been written spontaneously and generously. You can read the piece by clicking here.

‘Seriously addictive’. ‘Once you’ve started it’s hard to stop’.

The above are slogans that are to be used in the latest campaign for the promotion of reading, though you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The initiative, which to begin with will target existing book buyers, has been deemed ‘edgy [...] clever, fun, flexible, memorable’ and ‘a PR catapult’. Such praise of the campaign is hardly surprising, when you consider that it comes from Damian Horner, the man responsible for creating the concept: “Bookaholism”. The project was first initiated by Publisher’s Association CEO Simon Juden and carried through at the Book Industry Conference in order to kick-start the PR stunt and encourage people to buy more books.

Though the campaign will firstly be aimed at those who already purchase books, its creator believes it will also be effective if targeted at those less enthusiastic readers who ‘Quick Reads’ are currently aimed at, with the long term objective being to ‘build (the campaign) into a holistic concept’. Though the overall purpose is obviously to promote books, we’re wondering if it can be right to promote them with the negative associations that inevitably come with addiction. Horner’s slogans of ‘Class A Reading Material’ and ‘Get Hooked on a Book’ certainly make an impact, but is it in the right way? Is this idea of Bookaholism and addiction the only way to inspire and encourage people to pick up a book? Or, as Damian Horner says, will people be just as open to professing themselves ‘Bookaholics’ as they will ‘shopaholics and chocaholics’?

We can only wait and see as to what Horner will be promoting as his ‘Class A Reading Material’…