The Big Jubilee Read Book List

To commemorate the Queen’s Jubilee, The Reading Agency has launched The Big Jubilee Read campaign, which “celebrates the joy of reading and the power that it has to connect people across the country and among nations”.  

A list of 70 books, ten for each decade of the Queen’s reign, have been chosen by a panel of librarians, booksellers, and literary experts.  They include The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  To view the list of books, many of which are available to borrow from the EPHS Libraries, click here.

The majority of the books on this list were written for adults, and so for an alternative selection of great books spanning the decades of the Queen's reign, why not check out the previous winners of CILIP's Carnegie Medal? Look on OLIVER to see which ones area available to borrow from the EPHS Libraries.

World Book Night 2022

World Book Night takes place on Saturday 23rd April, and is a national celebration of reading organised by The Reading Agency with a focus on reaching people who don’t normally read for pleasure or with limited access to books.  This year 84,000 books will be given to organisations, including prisons, youth groups, hospitals and mental health groups to give away.

As well as the free book giveaway, everyone is invited to take part in the #ReadingHour from 7 to 8 pm tomorrow.  This is the perfect opportunity to take time out to read, either to yourself or others, listen to an audio book or chat about books with a friend.  You can share this experience on social media using #ReadingHour.

Among the books on this year's list are the brilliant Carnegie shortlisted verse novel Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi, Yusef Salaam and the unputdownable The Upper World by Femi Fadugba, which are available to borrow from the EPHS Libraries.

Click here to see the full list of this year’s titles. To find out more, visit the World Book Night website. 

Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize 2022 - shortlist announced!

The Jhalak Prize celebrates and supports books by British and British resident writers of colour.  Set up by writers Sunny Singh and Nikesh Shukla in 2017, a sister prize, the Jhalak Children's & YA Prize, celebrating children’s & YA novels was launched in 2020.

The shortlisted novels are:

• Ace of Spades, Faridah Àbíkí-Íyímídé 

• We're Going to Find the Monster, Malorie Blackman & Dapo Adeola 

• The Musical Truth: A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 Songs, Jeffrey Boakye, illustrated Ngadi Smart 

• Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, Maisie Chan 

• The Sound of Everything, Rebecca Henry 

• The Crossing, Manjeet Mann

The prize winner will be announced on 26th May 2022.  

We particularly recommend
The Musical Truth: A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 songs and the heart-breaking The Crossing by Manjeet Mann.  Both of these, together with Ace of Spades are available to borrow from our Upper Library.  The Crossing also appears on the shortlist of this year's CKG Awards.

Keep Calm and Carry on Reading at Easter

  Image by S. Hermann; F. Richter from Pixabay

This Easter is the perfect opportunity to take time to relax with a good book! For great reading recommendations check out the reading lists on OLIVER, the book review pages and ‘Reading Recommendation Websites’ on this blog and the Library’s Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Don't forget that you can borrow e-books and audio books from your local public library. Happy Reading and we look forward to hearing what you’ve read when we return later in the month!