Editor Frances Macmillan discusses how the book came into being – as well as giving Jane a mention.  Michael Rosen, whose essay about his childhood experience of reading Great Expectations with his father is included in the book, and Mark Haddon also feature.

You can take a listen to the podcast on the Vintage website.

“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.”

 “She’s a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she has washed her hair since Coolidge’s second term, I’ll eat my spare tyre, rim and all.”

When trying to recommend Chandler it feels like your own words will never do him justice, you have no choice but to quote some of the slick, sublime descriptions. Evidently as a female character in the world of private detective Philip Marlowe you can go one of two ways, but women often end up being the key to the story – not in the typical damsel in distress way, more the conniving vixen out to destroy everyone around her.

I was drawn to this as the second Marlowe novel, and I had read the supremely cool The Big Sleep at A-Level, where I have to say, my teacher read it brilliantly. I was engrossed by the seedy, dark, corrupt, mysterious worlds Marlowe operated in, and the ending was captivating to the point that despite being regarded as a classic, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall could not do it justice in the film adaptation.

I’d argue Marlowe is the greatest literary detective, and yes, I’m including Sherlock Holmes in that one. Marlowe operates as a lone wolf, is a womaniser and in Farewell, My Lovely he takes on jobs for the sheer thrill of the ride.

The story of Farewell, My Lovely is thrown at the reader from the start; Marlowe observes Moose Malloy, a physically intriguing character, he has – oh what’s the point? I’ll quote Chandler again:

“He was a big man but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck…Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a piece of angel food.”

Malloy is out of prison after a stitch-up and is on the lookout for Velma, his former fiancée. Marlowe tries to find Velma, and uncover the framing of Malloy, but to say he gets more than he bargained for doesn’t really cut it. Marlowe witnesses robberies, murders and is on the receiving end of some tough treatment himself.

Marlowe as a detective is completely relentless, and there is a perpetual sense of peril that his intrigue will be his downfall, and that’s what makes this so exciting. There are so many threads of the plot, and you know that they will come together at the end, but the endless contemplation of how that will happen is a real treat.

If you’re a fan of The Great Gatsby read Farewell, My Lovely or The Big Sleep. In my opinion you will soon realise that when it comes down to it, the supposed literary king of American cool does not hold up to the descriptive delights of Raymond Chandler.

Oh, go on then, have another quote:

 “You can crab over the morning paper and kick the shins of the guy in the next seat at the movies and feel mean and discouraged and sneer at politicians, but there are a lot of nice people just the same. Take the guy that left that half bottle of whisky there. He had a heart as big as one of Mae West’s hips.”

Farewell, My Lovely, Raymond Chandler, Penguin (1940/2005)

Each week, Audrey the dog visits Redcar Community College to sit in on children’s read-aloud sessions. Teachers noticed that children often get nervous when they are asked to read aloud and so enlisted Audrey to help them relax and feel less self-conscious while reading. Needless to say, the sessions – and Audrey – have been a big success.

While of course Audrey should stay where she is, we’d quite like a ‘reading’ dog of our own to be a Reading Revolution mascot…

It’s especially important that children are given the opportunity to express themselves openly, as well as respect and listen to those around them – and we’ve found that literature and shared reading sessions provide a particularly effective outlet for these things to happen. Quite spectacularly as a result of engaging in shared reading 89% of children in schools across Liverpool said that they were more confident discussing their ideas and opinions as a part of being in a group.

Even more encouraging is the fact that 96% of children agreed that they were more understanding towards the ideas and opinions of other people as a result of shared reading. Absolutely wonderful findings, showing that reading isn’t just about academic education - but emotional development too.

When my friend passed this 624-page novel to me, starting it honestly felt like a bit of an epic endeavour: I am, admittedly, a very slow reader. It also didn’t help that it was set in, and describes, a period of political history in a country that I at that point had never visited and knew nothing about: 1970s India. However, I was also incredibly curious because the aforesaid friend had been reading the book for the past three weeks of our travels together, and I had been forced to sit next to her on trains, planes, buses and boats as she gasped with horror, laughed out loud and, eventually, finished the book with her hand clasped against her mouth with tears running down her face. Sworn to secrecy so as not to spoil it for me, she hadn’t breathed a word about the plot: but had thoroughly convinced me that this was a book I needed to read. Also, when she finally passed it to me, we were 2 hours into a 42-hour bus ride in Africa. So time was something I wasn’t short of…

I can honestly say that reading this novel was one of the most intense experiences I have had with a book. You are literally tossed between extremes of emotion, thrown back and forward through time, and transported into new worlds: both bewitching and unspeakably cruel. The story centres around four unlikely characters who are thrown together as a result of the tumultuous political and social circumstances in the present-day of the novel. However, as Mistry skilfully reveals the very different, and often very sad, back-stories that have led each of the characters to where they are now, the relationships formed between the four become all the more moving…

And yes, at the end, I cried. (It took me somewhat longer than the 42 hours of the bus journey…not least because the bus had no lights, and my head torch had packed-up). But the tears weren’t just because of the events that take place at the book’s conclusion. They were because suddenly, at that final moment, the whole of the book was brought crashing back into my head all at once: I remembered all of the terrible things that meant, it couldn’t have ended any other way; I remembered the parts that made me smile and laugh and forget about all the enormous, ugly, impossible things the characters are pitted against. It was overwhelming, to say the least…. my friend had to hold my hand.

If you have ever wanted to know anything about India, or contemporary history, or raw human survival and connection: READ THIS. I dare you.

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry, Faber and Faber (2010)

As part of their reading sessions, children in three Liverpool schools we’ve been working in have been discovering the connection between literature and life. In our recent evaluation, 76% of children said that they can relate their life to things they’ve read in books more readily as a result of taking part in sessions.

As if to answer our pleas, along comes Anobii. Established in 2006 but revamped and relaunched in December, Anobii is a social network and ‘book discovery platform’ for readers the whole world over. It works very much like an endless virtual bookshelf and a huge online reading group combined, allowing users to compile and keep track of what they’ve read in the past or are reading now with a few clicks.

A major feature of the site is its focus on allowing users to discover a new book and find reading inspiration from others; having books recommended by a personal seal of approval and word-of-mouth (or should that be: word-of-mouse) rather than by computer-generated suggestions. Users can follow readers who have similar literary tastes to their own, browse topic lists of books for their next read – amongst those currently featured are ‘Books for the commute’; ‘Books That Are Better Than The Film’ and - rather intriguingly - ’Guilty Pleasures’ – or create their own lists. It may feature technology that is the latest in-thing (you’re also able to access Anobii through iPhone and Android apps) but its methods are all about getting back to basics – connecting people with books and with one another on a really quite personal level, which is something we’re always keen to advocate.

By the way, if the name has left you scratching your head (as it did with me), then you should know that ‘anobii’ is Latin for ‘bookworm’ – another tip of the hat to something altogether traditional.

Over the Christmas break, I read William Trevor’s Two Lives. It was a Christmas gift from my mother, who told me as I opened it that it had been the mutual love of its first story, Reading Turgenev, that had cemented her friendship with her closest friend, Ian; ‘It’s just beautiful Soph’. I’d read ‘An Idyll in Winter’ in the short story collection recently given away by the Guardian and loved it, so Two Lives immediately went to the top of the pile.

It is beautiful. Trevor is deeply concerned by the disparity that can develop between the life that you’ve imagined for yourself and the reality that you find yourself in, a situation that many of us will certainly have known at some point in our lives. In Reading Turgenev, the gentle, young Mary Louise aspires to work in the local town and to become self-sufficient, which leads her to marry the local draper, Elmer Quarry. The marriage soon beings to deteriorate, with the constant presence of his overbearing sisters and Elmer’s developing alcoholism creating a distance within a relationship that had never been close to begin with. Mary Louise finds herself inhabiting an unbearable, lonely reality that only her secret, unspoken worlds can attempt to liberate, and she falls deeper and deeper into these fantasies as the years pass. It is a very powerful story, one that forced me to think deeply about how vital it is that you try to deal with your problems as they appear through sharing them with others.

It may sound rather bleak in its overview, but I found Trevor’s poignant account of Mary Louise’s love for her late cousin and its ability to redeem this ‘wasted’ life the most striking element of the story, restoring her despite his absence. It was a great read, and definitely a book that I shall return to.

 Two Lives, William Trevor, Penguin (2010)

From today until 7th February copies of six stories from former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo’s Mudpuddle Farm series will be handed out  free with Happy Meals. Finger puppets of characters from the series will accompany each book to encourage parents to read with and bring the stories to life with their children.

The promotion is being backed by Harper Collins, who publish the Mudpuddle Farm series, and The National Literacy Trust, whose recent research revealed that one in three children in Britain do not own a book. Director Jonathan Douglas said:

We are very supportive of McDonald’s decision to give families access to popular books, as its size and scale will be a huge leap towards encouraging more families to read together.

Having seen for ourselves how valuable just one book can be to children, and having reached so many with Our Read we think that such a promotion is a fantastic way to extend the reach of reading. Given that eight out of ten families with young children visit McDonalds at least once a year, it’s great to know that they’re contributing to getting more children reading.

Keen Readers should tune into Radio 4 next week, as Stop What You’re Doing and Read This! has been chosen as Book of the Week.

This new collection of essays from Vintage Books is a funny and inspiring mission statement about the transformative power of reading; the tangible impact it can have on our wellbeing and its importance as a fundamental part of our existence.

Five of the ten essays have been adapted for the radio, including those by Michael Rosen, Jeanette Winterson, and Mark Haddon. The book itself contains a contribution by The Reader Organisation’s Jane Davis, sharing her passionate belief in improving lives through literature and spreading the message of the Reading Revolution.

Don’t forget to join the conversation on the Stop blog where you can share reading recommendations, discuss the future of the book, and much more. Jane herself has just posted a piece: ‘To Go Forward, Go Back’.

Already Number 1 on the Guardian Bookshop’s bestseller list, you can read her full contribution by buying your own copy here.

Book of the Week: Stop What You’re Doing and Read This!

Radio 4, 9^th-13^th Jan, 9:45am and 00:30am.