The materials that support these promotions are available through our shop. Some of them will be free and some will be available for sale.

Here are the promotions to support adult reading that are available now. For more information about the promotions available at other points in the year see our "promotions calendar"

Richard and Judy Summer Reads 2009

The Richard and Judy Summer Read 2008 booklist has been announced. The titles with the dates they appear on the show are:

13th May Past Imperfect - Julian Fellowes ORION
20th May Guernica - Dave Boling PICADOR
27th May Palace Council - Stephen L. Carter VINTAGE
3rd June Mr. Toppit - Charles Elton PENGUIN
10th June The Great Lover - Jilll Dawson SCEPTRE
17th June Mystery Man - Bateman HEADLINE
24th June The Senator's Wife - Sue Miller BLOOMSBURY
1st July The Piano Teacher - Janice Y.K. Lee HARPER PERENNIAL

You have now missed the deadline to order the official Richard and Judy Summer Read 2009 point of sale with featured titles (banners and voting leaflets). However, you may still order the generic point of sale materials (posters, postcards and stickers) using the straplines 'Summer Reads at your library' and 'What are you reading this summer?' which you can use to enhance and extend your summer reading promotion.

After the success of last year's strand, we hope this year's campaign will be equally well supported in libraries over the 10-week run. As with the book club, the HEART Radio Network, which now reaches over 7 million listeners nationwide are media partners and will run excerpts from the TV book strand on air every week.

This year there is a selection of eight titles for Richard and Judy Summer Reads. The titles will be fiction that appeal to the widest possible market and ones that you would want to take away to enjoy on your holidays. The programmes will begin on the 13 May and run through to the 3 July when the winner of the public vote will be announced on air. The other programme dates are 20 May, 27 May, 3 June, 10 June, 17 June 24 June and 1 July.

Galaxy British Book Awards 2009

For 2009, the Galaxy British Book Awards will be promoted through extensive TV advertising as well as dedicated TV programming on Watch.

The shortlists will be promoted from 10 March to the 3 April and the award winners from 4 April to the 25 April. During March, readers will be able to vote for their favourite books using the official voting cards in the preview magazine. The Galaxy British Book Awards ceremony takes place on 3 April and will be televised on Watch on Monday, 6 April and repeated over the following three weeks.

The Galaxy British Book Awards 2009 categories are:

• Galaxy Book of the Year
• Richard and Judy Best Read Award
• Borders' Author of the Year Award
• Tesco Biography of the Year
• Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year
• Sainsbury's Popular Fiction Award
• Play.com Popular Non-Fiction Award
• Waterstone's New Writer of the Year
• WH Smiths Children's Book of the Year

World Book Day

World Book Day took place in the UK and Ireland on 5 March 2009 and we offered promotional materials to support all three World Book Day campaigns:

• Spread the Word
• Quick Reads
• Children's campaign

Spread the Word and Quick Reads are aimed at adult readers.

Spread the Word

The Spread the Word campaign returned in 2009 with Books to Talk About. These are publishers' 'hidden gems' that haven't been bestsellers but that deserve to be talked about - and are good to be talked about.

See this year's longlist of 50 titles, which included non-fiction, at Spread the Word.

WINNER ANNOUNCED
The winning title announced on World Book Day, 5 March 2009, was Natasha Mostert for The Season of the Witch

Quick Reads

Quick Reads is the initiative for adults who have never got the reading bug or who have lost the habit, or indeed avid readers want a quick read.

Ten new bite-sized, fast-paced books by leading bestselling writers and celebrities are published on World Book Day 2009 at £1.99 each so everyone can afford them.

• Cool Head by Ian Rankin
• The Cave by Kate Mosse
• Black-Eyed Devils by Catrin Collier
• The Dare by John Boyne
• Doctor Who: The Sontaran Games by Jacqueline Rayner
• The Tannery by Sherrie Hewson
• All These Lonely People by Gervase Phinn
• 101 Ways to get your Child to Read by Patience Thomson, with an introduction by Michael Morpurgo and celebrity tips
• Reaching for the Stars: How you can make your dreams come true by Lola Jaye

We also provide a range of resources for people working with adult literacy learners using Quick Reads through our The Vital Link website.

Follow the links for information about our promotions for The World Book Day Children's campaign.

We are very aware that parents are any child's first and most enduring educators. There's plenty of research which shows how important parents are for their children's learning and development. Where parents are involved in their children's learning, children do better at school.1

For all children, the quality of the home learning is more important for intellectual and social development than parental occupation, education or income, according to a report from the Department for Education and Skills2

One of the best things parents can do to support their children is to read together at home. This starts with babies. Parents who introduce their babies to books give them a head start in school.3 It continues as children grow, with reading aloud, sharing books and much loved bedtime stories. Research shows that parental involvement continues to be important well into the teenage years and even into adulthood.4

Librarians, teachers, early years workers, family learning tutors and others concerned with education and child development know what a difference reading makes. So to support everyone working with families, we have developed a range of offers to help libraries to engage families in reading.

Our programmes for families:

• The Big Book Share - using reading to bring together families separated by imprisonment.
• The Six Book Challenge - helping adults with literacy needs to gain confidence with reading, and being used successfully in a growing number of family settings, as a focus for children and adults to grow their reading together.
• The Summer Reading Challenge - the biggest national promotion of children's reading through libraries. An ideal way to engage families to support their children and expand their reading too.
• Chatterbooks - reading groups for four to 12 year-olds, which offer a great way to involve parents too.
• Family Reading groups - where adults and their children can come together to share and build their reading experiences.
• Training opportunities - we offer a range of training courses which support libraries and their partners in working with families - see our training page for current offers.

"Libraries are just totally different for my children than for when I was a child - you weren't allowed to speak! If you go to our library over the summer, adult customers can barely move for children rushing around looking at books, cutting and sticking and making things. I think that's really good." Debbie Jarrett, Yaxley library, Cambridgeshire

1. (Fan & Chen, 2001); (Feinstein & Symons, 1999), (Melhuish, Sylva, Sammons et al., 2001).
2. Sylva,K., Melhuish,E., Sammons,P., Siraj-Blatchford,I. & Taggart, B. (2004). Effective provision of pre-school education (EPPE) project: Final Report. London: DfES.
3. (Wade & Moore, 2000).
4. (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003).

NEW! Download Getting Reading to Workbooklet

NEW Read the latest article on the Six Book Challenge written by project manager Genevieve Clarke on The Reading Agency blog and let us know if you agree and what your experiences have been.

NEW! Join the Six Book Challenge blog to have your say and share your ideas and questions.

We want to make the process as easy as possible for you so we will be using this page to provide you with lots of guidance and templates. As a start, please see the list of downloadable files on the right and choose those which suit you. We've also provided several templates in Word which you can adapt for your own purposes. These are mentioned where relevant in the guidance pdfs.

Two that you are definitely going to need are the Registration form and the Participation record. Both of these are designed to help you keep accurate records before and during the Six Book Challenge.

We've also produced a Key dates planner, to indicate how you might want to run the Six Book Challenge from January to June - but please feel free to adapt this for your own local planning.

The Six Book Challenge 2009 partnership powerpoint contains key findings from the first year of the national Six Book Challenge in 2008 but again you can adapt this to include your local highlights and contacts.

Regular updates

We are sending out regular email updates to alert you to new items on this page and to other information you need to know. Here are the ones we've sent so far:

Update No 6 - April 2009

Update No 5 - March 2009

Six Book Challenge 2009 National Prize Draw Entry Form.doc

Prisons and YOIs Six Book Challenge 2009 National Prize Draw Entry Form.doc

Update No 4 - 9 February 2009

Update No 3 - 9 January 2009

Update No 2 - 9 December 2008

Update No 1 - 4 November 2008

Finally, keep an eye on Six Book Challenge 2009 where we are showcasing people's experience of taking part in and running the Challenge. And don't forget to join the Six Book Challenge blog to have your say and share your ideas and questions with others that are running the Challenge.

Andrea Levy (25.3MB)

George MacDonald Fraser (25.0MB)

Hanif Kureishi (25.0MB)

Le Grand Meaulnes (25.1MB)

Lionel Shriver (25.2MB)

Malorie Blackman (25.0MB)

Michael Dibdin (25.0MB)

Muriel Spark (24.9MB)

Oliver Sacks (24.7MB)

Pat Barker (24.9MB)

Paul Auster (25.2MB)

P J ORourke (24.9MB)

Link to the Listening Posts Podcasts

Do you work with adults who want to improve their reading and writing skills? The Vital Link is the national programme which aims to reach out to adult literacy learners and emergent readers (the term for those who can read but have yet to build their reading stamina and experience). We run The Vital Link in partnership with the National Literacy Trust.

We're doing this by supporting libraries and adult literacy practitioners to work together to create an exciting offer to new readers - a welcoming space with friendly staff, support to learn, the right books and lots of creative ways of promoting them.

From the work and libraries and adult literacy practitioners have done, we know that this can motivate adults to improve their reading skills so that they can read more - and enjoy it.

The Vital Link website includes lots of support for librarians and adult literacy professionals who want to work together. It includes toolkits, case studies of successful collaborations, training information and a unique database of books suitable for adults who aren't confident readers - First Choice Books.

Many projects for adults with lower literacy levels (BBC RaW, Six Book Challenge and Quick Reads) under the umbrella of The Vital Link.

The Vital Link has been endorsed by the Society of Chief Librarians and is part of the government's ten-year vision for public libraries, Framework for the Future. We are also partly funded by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills to get their reading for pleasure message out to those that work with adults who aren't confident readers.

Materials for the Six Book Challenge 2009 are available now. Visit the Shop.

If you are new to reading and want to take part in the Six Book Challenge, please contact Six Book Challenge for more information.

In 2008 librians, employers, adult literacy practitioners and readers rose to the Six Book Challenge in ways that were really impressive. To run through some of the statistics - an estimated 7000 people took part in the Six Book Challenge 2008 through libraries, colleges, community education centre, prisons and workplaces. On average 43 per cent of people who started the Challenge read six books. Eighty-eight per cent of those surveyed said they had gained something from the Challenge and 60 per cent felt that their literacy skills had improved.

Ninety-three per cent of the organisations from 2008 say they will be running the Six Book Challenge again in 2009 and we are fortunate to have continuing support from our sponsors Costa and from best-selling author Mike Gayle as patron.

"I never thought I could read one book, never mind six! I feel so proud. I've never felt so good about myself. I feel like I can do anything now." Noleen Vine, 2008 Challenge completer, Warrington.

"We will be running the Six Book Challenge again in 2009 by popular demand from adult tutors and learners." Andrew Fisher, Reading and Learning Librarian, Dorset Libraries

Download the Reading Partners' report 2008, which includes new information, statistics and other key achievements for libraries and the book trade.

Reader meets writer programme

A huge Reader Meets Writer programme including some of the UK's best-known authors and covering all of the 149 library authorities in England has been running since April. The programme has been created by Reading Partners and is part of the National Year of Reading.

• 50 high profile author events have been taking place in library venues across the country. Kate Mosse was in Lambeth, Derbyshire and Sutton; Hanif Kureishi appears in Leicester; Iain Banks in Gateshead, Alexander McCall Smith in Warwickshire, Mavis Cheek in Kent and Cumbria and Clare Francis in Brighton. To find out which big name authors were going to be where, and when, you can download the big name author event details.

Reaching Readers

Reaching Readers is an exciting initiative for Black and Minority Ethnic readers.

Our Reading Partners publishers have teamed up with public libraries on six projects in Birmingham, Leeds, Lewisham, Manchester, Newham and Norfolk. Together they will work on innovative projects to promote books and the joys of reading to a culturally diverse audience. Activities include work with reading groups, exciting book promotions to introduce more readers to books by British Black and Asian writers, and engaging author events. The projects will help publishers and libraries learn more about each other's work and to find out more about all aspects of BME reading and writing.

You can find information and sign-up to the Reading Partners e-letters. Latest edition now available.

Libraries and publishers working together

Libraries and publishers running joint events can use the libraries and publishers' planning form devised by Nicola Thomas and developed with several West Midlands libraries and Helen Johnstone of HarperCollins.

Reading Partners publishers

Reading Partners has been running for three years and ten publishers have joined us to help realise our vision. They are:

• Bloomsbury
• Faber
• Hachette Livre
• HarperCollins
• Harlequin Mills & Boon
• Independent Publishers Guild
• Pan Macmillan
• Penguin
• Random House
• Time Warner

"The word transformative is blunt with overuse these days but this is a partnership about which it can be used with some justification." Gary McKeone, formerly of Arts Council of England

We created the database with Learn Direct, MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) and the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL).

Libraries can add details of reading groups by using this form.

To amend the details of any of the groups already on the database please email resources.

NEW Orange Prize for Fiction Readers' Day podcast featuring interviews with authors including Catherine O'Flynn and Sadie Jones.

NEW Orange Prize for Fiction Readers' Day vodcasts taken by young people from our new groupthing social reading website.

Orange Prize 2009

Libraries can promote the Orange Prize for Fiction longlist from mid-March 2009 and the shortlist from April 2009.

The following novels are on the Orange Prize 2009 longlist:

• Debra Adelaide, The Household Guide to Dying
• Gaynor Arnold, Girl in a Blue Dress
• Lissa Evans, Their Finest Hour and a Half
• Bernadine Evaristo, Blonde Roots
• Ellen Feldman, Scottsboro
• Laura Fish, Strange Music
• V.V. Ganeshananthan, Love Marriage
• Allegra Goodman, Intuition
• Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness
• Samantha Hunt, The Invention of Everything Else
• Michelle de Kretser, The Lost Dog
• Deirdre Madden, Molly Fox's Birthday
• Toni Morrison, A Mercy
• Gina Ochsner, The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
• Marilynne Robinson, Home
• Preeta Samarasan, Evening is the Whole Day
• Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows
• Curtis Sittenfeld, American Wife
• Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans
• Ann Weisgarber, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

The shortlist is announced on Tuesday 21 April and the winner on Wednesday 3 June. The Orange Award for New Writers shortlist is announced on Tuesday 7 April.

Orange Prize Readers' Day

The Reading Agency is organising the third annual Orange Readers' Day - this year in Birmingham on 9 May. Four hundred readers will have the opportunity to spend time with writers and literary figures connected with the Prize, and all the writers' books will be available for sale at the event at Birmingham's Conservatoire.

More information and booking details in the Readers' Day Leaflet available to download from Resources.

Running the Orange Prize

If you sign up to the Orange Prize for Fiction you'll receive the free longlist and shortlist promotional materials and a resources pack full of great ideas about how to run the promotion. You'll also get the support of a Reading Agency project manager and the chance to win one of three pairs of tickets for the awards ceremony. What more could you ask for?

If you still need persuading then we can also tell you that the Orange Prize for Fiction is an extremely flexible promotion. You can get involved at a basic level by running displays at either the shortlist or longlist stage or you can use it to broaden your work with local readers. Many libraries choose to promote the Prize from the longlist of 20 books as this gives them a wider range of titles. The choice is yours.

Orange Prize 2008 winners

The Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008 winner was The Road Home by Rose Tremain. The winner of the New Writers Award 2008 is Inglorious by Joanna Kavenna.

To see video of the award ceremony visit the Orange Prize website.

You can download the longlist and shortlist from Resources and also find out who was on the 2008 judging panel for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and Orange Broadband Award for New Writers.

Many exciting activities introduced the benefits of reading groups to readers who haven't previously got involved and to support the reading groups that are already established. These included:

• Storytelling for people who don't have many social opportunities, such as older people, asylum seekers, refugees and adults with mental health problems.
• Activities developed with the RNIB for reading groups for readers with visual impairments.
• A creative interactive writing project for reading groups across the region.

Library staff are working in partnership with care homes, hospitals, mental health support organisations and other voluntary groups. They are also establishing links with other regions through visits, conferences and information sharing.

Our partners in this project are the East Midlands Reader and Library Development group (EMRALD) with support from East Midlands Museums Libraries and Archives Council (EMMLAC) and the Museums, Libraries and Archive Council (MLA).

To find about more about this project and download information about the work we have done so far see Resources.

So we’ve developed a scheme where children’s librarians help prisoners to choose a book, to make a recording of themselves reading it and to give it to their children.

The Big Book Share is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and we are now developing a training programme to strengthen links between libraries and prisons and between prisoners and their families so that prisoners and their families know about libraries and are confident about using them.

Our partners for the current phase of The Big Book Share are Association of Senior Children's and Education Librarians (ASCEL); CILIP Prison Libraries Group; NOMS (National Offender Management Service); the DfES Offenders Learning & Skills Unit; the Writers in Prison Network; HMP Blundeston and Suffolk Libraries; HMP Nottingham and Nottingham City Libraries. We are very pleased to be working with them.

If you are interested in finding out more or want to take part in a training session, please Contact us. You can also order a copy of The Big Book Share 2 Handbook for public librarians and prison librarians who want to develop family reading programmes for prisoners from our Shop.

Nearly 4000 libraries in the UK are involved with RaW under the strategic partnership agreed between libraries and BBC Learning. And The Reading Agency is responsible for coordinating the libraries' involvement with RaW.

The evaluation from early 2007 shows that libraries are getting a great deal out of this partnership. Literally thousands of RaW events have been run up and down the county with the most popular being those for children and parents - attended by 17,500 people. And over 30 per cent of libraries that took part in the survey said that visitor numbers increased because of RaW.

There's more information about how we are supporting RaW on The Vital Link website and a chance for libraries to publish their RaW activities on the BBC RaW website. For website address and other downloads see Resources.

At the moment we feel the jewel in this particular crown is the Radio Listening Posts. Every library taking part in the Listening Posts programme receives a free digital radio with archives of interviews with authors from BBC Radio 4 and BBC7. They use the legato system for adults and the bug system for children. Guides to these, and Listening Posts in general, are available to download from resources.

Digital radios are also used to listen to Radio 4 book programmes and children's book programmes on BBC7. Increasingly we are adding BBC Radio Network partners and BBC Audio Books to the network.

As part of our BBC partnership we also publish the schedules for programmes broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC7 so that libraries can use these programmes to support the activities of library reading groups.

The possibilities for this partnership are very exciting. It could be that there is a radio listening post in all public libraries. It could be that library reading groups are able to broadcast on the internet. We are trying out some of these activities with our Children's Radio Reading Clubs.

Our funders for this project are the Arts Council of England and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. It is part of the government's strategy Framework for the Future that aims to modernise public libraries.

We all like stories and most of us like to read. We found that adults in Britain read books for 4.6 hours every week - that's 39 minutes a day. And we are influenced by what our friends and colleagues are reading. One in five adults read books recommended to them, one in six recommend books to others and one in seven discuss the books they are reading.* No surprise then that the number of reading groups has exploded.

At The Reading Agency we welcome these trends. We want more people to read more. We want more readers to come together to talk about books. And we support other people, such as librarians and broadcasters, who are encouraging more people to read more through reading groups, campaigns, events and projects.

But we also know that not all adults find reading easy or enjoy it. Did you know that there are 12 million people in the UK that find reading a struggle? We also run projects for adults who aren't confident readers and the libraries and professionals that support them.

This section has information about the reading programmes that we run for adult and the materials that are available through our shop that promote other people's reading activities.

*Source: The Reading Agency and BML survey Book Reading and Library use, 2005