The Reading Agency is an independent charity with a mission to inspire more people to read more. It specializes in helping libraries make more social impact through reading. It is funded by the Arts Council.
www.readingagency.org.ukSusan Hill is the winner of numerous literary prizes including the Somerset Maugham award. She was awarded CBE for her services to literature earlier this year. Author of the Simon Serrailler crime series and numerous other novels, her literary memoir,
Howards End Is On The Landing and the ghost stories
The Man In The Picture,
The Small Hand,
Dolly and
Printers Devil Court are all published by Profile.
The Woman in Black, which was has been running in the West End for over twenty years, and was a huge film in 2012 is published by Profile in hardback.
Lucy Mangan is a journalist and columnist. She spent two years training as a solicitor, but left as soon as she qualified and went to work much more happily in a bookshop instead. She got a work experience placement at the Guardian in 2003 and hung around until they gave her a job. She has a weekly column in Stylist magazine. Lucy's memoir Bookworm, a personal history and celebration of children's literature, was published by Square Peg in March 2018.
Val McDermid has published twenty-eight crime novels, which have sold millions of copies worldwide, been translated into sixteen languages and won multiple awards. Her series featuring criminal profiler Tony Hill was the basis for the TV series The Wire in the Blood for ITV.
Forensics will be published in partnership with the Wellcome Collection. Wellcome Collection is a free visitor destination that explores the connections between medicine, life and art. In 2012, its critically acclaimed programme of events and exhibitions welcomed over 490,000 visitors.
Kate Mosse is an international bestselling novelist, playwright and nonfiction author with sales of more than eight million copies in 38 languages. Renowned for bringing unheard and under-heard histories to life, she is a champion of women's creativity. Kate is the Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Fiction, sits on the Executive Committee of Women of the World and is a Visiting Professor of Contemporary Fiction and Creative Writing at the University of Chichester. Kate lives in West Sussex with her husband and mother-in-law.
Lionel Shriver's books include Orange Prize-winner
We Need to Talk About Kevin [9781846688065], So Much for That,
The Post-Birthday World,
A Perfectly Good Family and
Ordinary Decent Criminals. She is widely published as a journalist, writing features, columns, op-eds, and book reviews for many publications. She is frequently interviewed on television, radio, and in print media. She lives in London and Brooklyn, NY.
Bella Bathurst is a writer and photojournalist. Her books include
The Lighthouse Stevensons which won the 1999 Somerset Maugham Award,
The Wreckers, which became a BBC Timewatch documentary, and
The Bicycle Book, which was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2011.
Michael Brooks is the author of the bestselling non-fiction title
13 Things That Don't Make Sense [9781861976475]. He holds a PhD in quantum physics, is a consultant at
New Scientist and writes a weekly column for the
New Statesman.
