What is The Reader Bookshelf?

The Reader Bookshelf is an annual programme of carefully curated literature to support all of our reading-based work and the wider Reading Revolution.

We’ve created it to help our supporters, volunteers, staff and readers have a shared constellation of things to read and structure projects around.

The bookshelf includes a diverse range of fiction, plays, non-fictional prose, anthologies, poems, and short stories, for readers young and old. You’ll find classics from Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Homer, as well as contemporary texts from authors including Derek Owusu and Nadifa Mohamed.  

Walking The Earth

The theme for 2021 – 2022 is Walking The Earth, which will come to life in our reading choices, events online and at Calderstones, in The Reader magazine and podcast, and in our reading communities in the UK and beyond.

Walking The Earth is an idea inspired by great literature that’s about humans surviving life on earth, or our experiences of living alongside our fellow humans on the planet, getting through life – or more literally, walking.

It is about the human journeys – physical and metaphorical – we take to become who we are, about living on and with planet earth.

Programmes & Events

The Reader Bookshelf will come to life in a special programme of events, including outdoor music and theatre performances, heritage and wellbeing events, and of course, Shared Reading groups. 

Find out what’s happening here.