The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books that Inspired Them

By Antonia Fraser and Victoria Gray

The inspiration for the annual Pleasure of Reading Prize

A charming and revealing collection of essays from some of our best-loved writers about the pleasures of reading, with royalties donated to the Give a Book charity

In this delightful collection forty-three acclaimed writers explain what first made them interested in literature, what inspired them to read and what makes them continue to do so. Original contributors include Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard, Melvyn Bragg, A. S. Byatt, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Gray, Germaine Greer, Alan Hollinghurst, Doris Lessing, Candia McWilliam, Edna O'Brien, Ruth Rendell, Tom Stoppard, Sue Townsend and Jeanette Winterson, while this new edition includes essays from five new writers, Emily Berry, Kamila Shamsie, Rory Stewart, Katie Waldegrave and Tom Wells.

Royalties generated from this project will go to Give a Book, www.giveabook.org.uk, a charity set up in 2011 that seeks to get books to places where they will be of particular benefit. Give a Book works in conjunction with Age UK, Prison Reading Groups, Maggie's Centres, which help people affected by cancer, and various schools and literacy projects, such as Beanstalk, where many pupils have never had a book of their own in their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: May 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781408859636

Antonia Fraser

Antonia Fraser is the author of many widely acclaimed historical works which have been international bestsellers. She was awarded the Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000 and was made a DBE in 2011 for services to literature. Her previous books include Mary Queen of Scots; King Charles II; The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England, which won the Wolfson History Prize; Marie Antoinette: The Journey; Perilous Question; The King and the Catholics; and The Wives of Henry VIII.  Must You Go?, a memoir of her life with Harold Pinter, was published in 2010, and My History: A Memoir of Growing Up  in 2015. Fraser's The Case of the Married Woman is available from Pegasus Books. She lives in London. 

Reviews for The Pleasure of Reading

[geoffsc-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed finding out what pleasure this collection of authors got out of reading, why they read, what their first books were and what they recomended. Excellent.

[mahallett · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

this book has made me think about my first books. we had no money to buy books, my parents had no books, and i had never heard of a public library until i was 6 and lived in ottawa. the years that my mother(never my father) read to me, we lived in england after the war on an airbase and life was hard. i remember noddy and rupert, both left behind when we came to canada and a big red compilation which came to canada and had augustus was a chubby lad, fat ruddy cheeks augustus had. that's all i can remember.when we lived in ottawa we had more money, so i was bought thorton w. wilder-chatty the red squirrel-, the bobbsey twins, and my grandmother sent me girl every week. i loved girl until she died in 1963. i never lived near a library but my father used to drive me twice a week in the holidays in 62,63,64.where did these authors get all these books?????

[elliepotten · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took me a long time to finish this, but it's a really nice book to dip into in between reading other things. It is a collection of short pieces by famous writers - maybe four or five pages each - reminiscing about their childhood reading, musing on the place books have in their lives, and discussing what they read nowadays. Some of the writers have added a 'top ten' list of their favourite books to the end of their pieces, and each author has been allocated an illustrator, giving a varied and colourful flavour to the pages. With the exception of a couple of duds - including, to my surprise, Alan Hollinghurst - it's a lovely ensemble piece, bringing back memories of my own childhood reading: how I read, what I read and how different books floated into my life. I had to read it with a piece of paper and a pen next to me because there were so many books I wanted to chase up, old favourites and as yet unread masterpieces, having heard them praised so highly. Although the book is quite old - the youngest author is Jeanette Winterson - I might get myself a copy (I read it from the library) because the themes and many of the books are so timeless and universal that they'll always ring true.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For the bicentenary of the publishing house W. H. Smith, forty writers of the English language talk about their early experiences reading, what reading they do now, and (if possible - not everyone did) their ten favorite books. Many authors -- such as Catherine Cookson, Doris Lessing, A.S. Byatt, and Margaret Atwood -- were names I recognized, though the only author I have read to date is Ruth Rendell. Even so, I loved reading the variety of experiences each had with reading and books. In particular, I loved seeing the same books mentioned, but with very different responses. Also, the various approaches to "top ten" (in order, alphabetically, with a few more titles thrown in) were fun. An absolute pleasure to read.