SOUTH WEST READING PASSPORT

SOUTH WESTREADING PASSPORT

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IIIII www.readingpassport.org

Welcome to the South West Reading Passport

2014, the third year of this exciting reading

adventure. For 2014 we have selected four

‘Worlds’ to relect diferent genres of literature.

The challenge is to read three or more novels

from these Worlds before the end of December.

Featured writers will be appearing at some libraries

in the South West. If you are unable to see them,

don’t worry – there are special features about the

writers on our website www.readingpassport.org

For this year’s competition, pick up the review

sheets with this Passport, or enter reviews online.

Your local library and the Reading Passport

website have even more reading suggestions to

inspire you, to wax lyrical, be passionate, look

to the future and delve into the dark with your

reading.

The Reading Passport is a partnership between

Arts Council England, Literature Works, Royal

Literary Fund and libraries across all sectors in the

South West.

SOUTH WESTREADING PASSPORT

Take a risk – explore new worlds and encounter

exciting writers.

Take this reading adventure and expand your

horizons.

World of DarknessMeet the world of horror

and evil, if you dare.

Lyrical WorldsDiscover the engaging

and brilliant world of poetry.

World of PassionInlame your imagination

with these passionate and

afecting novels.

Future WorldsWhat challenges may lie ahead for

Earth? See how diferent authors

envision the world of the future.

Adam NevillAdam Nevill was born in Birmingham, England, in

1969 and grew up in England and New Zealand.

He is the author of the supernatural horror novels

Banquet for the Damned, Apartment 16, The

Ritual, Last Days, House of Small Shadows, and

No One Gets Out Alive.

In 2012 The Ritual was the winner of The August

Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel, and in 2013

Last Days won the same award. The same two

novels won the RUSA Reading Lists Award in the

Horror Category.

Described in The Guardian as “Britain’s answer

to Stephen King”, Adam Nevill is now one of our

most important and admired horror writers.

Adam lives in Devon.

www.adamlgnevill.com

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Michel Faber has written the highly acclaimed

The Crimson Petal and the White, The Fahrenheit

Twins and the Whitbread shortlisted novel Under

the Skin. The Apple, based on characters in The

Crimson Petal and the White, was published in

2006. Born in Holland, brought up in Australia, he

now lives in the Scottish Highlands. For a scary

and disturbing read try Under the Skin.

Andrew Taylor is a British author best known

for his dark crime novels. These include the

Lydmouth series, the Roth Trilogy and historical

novels such as the best-selling The American

Boy. His accolades include the Diamond Dagger,

Britain’s top crime-writing award. Andrew and

his family have lived for many years in Coleford

in the Forest of Dean. His books make macabre

reading. Try The Anatomy of Ghosts or Bleeding

Heart Square.

Brian Lumley is an English horror-iction

writer. Born in County Durham, he joined the

British Army’s Royal Military Police and wrote

stories in his spare time before retiring and

becoming a professional writer. Lumley served as

president of the Horror Writers Association from

1996 to 1997. In March 2010 Lumley was awarded

the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror

Writers Association. He also received a World

Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2010.

He lives in Devon. His vampire series, Necroscope,

has been translated into ten languages and sold

over a million copies worldwide.

Enter the world of the macabre and unexplained

with these excellent writers. They will make you

want to sleep with the light on.

All libraries have further booklists. Please ask a

member of staf and enjoy your reading adventure.

Or look online at www.readingpassport.orgIIIII www.readingpassport.org

Patrick GalePatrick Gale was born on the Isle of Wight in 1962,

raised in Winchester, where he studied at the

Pilgrims choir school and Winchester College, and

went on to read English at New College Oxford.

He lives on his husband’s farm near Land’s End

and is a keen gardener and cellist.

He has written fourteen novels, including the

bestselling Rough Music and Notes from an

Exhibition. His fourteenth novel, A Perfectly Good

Man, won a Green Carnation award and was a

favourite recommendation among The Guardian

readers in the paper’s end of year round-up. His

two collections of short stories are Dangerous

Pleasures and Gentleman’s Relish. His next novel,

A Place Called Winter is published by Tinder Press

in March 2015 and he is currently writing a three

part original, gay-themed drama called Man in an

Orange Shirt for BBC2.

www.galewarning.org


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Sarah Challis has lived in Scotland and

California but is now happily settled in a Dorset

village with three rescued dogs and three chickens.

She is married with four sons. She has written 10

novels including Jumping to Conclusions and That

Summer Afair. Her latest is called The Lonely Desert.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë The Brontë sisters began to write at an early age.

They had a volume of poetry published in 1846,

and their novels began appearing the following

year. Try Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering

Heights or Anne’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

John FowlesFowles lived in Lyme Regis, the setting for his most

famous novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman,

for most of his life. His interest in the town’s local

history resulted in his appointment as curator of

the Lyme Regis Museum in 1979, a position he

illed for a decade. He was named by The Times

as one of the 50 greatest British writers since

1945. Other novels include The Collector and

The Magus.

Don’t think of yourself as the passionate type?

Think again and take up the challenge to read

some of literature’s most compelling books.

Further booklists are available on your library

website and on www.readingpassport.org 24/7.


Julia CopusJulia Copus is an award-winning poet and

children’s writer. Her debut collection, The

Shuttered Eye, appeared from Bloodaxe in 1995.

In 2012, Faber published her third collection, The

World’s Two Smallest Humans, which was short-

listed for both the Costa poetry award and the

T.S. Eliot Prize. Other awards include irst prize in

the National Poetry Competition and the Forward

Prize for best single poem (2010).

Julia’s radio work includes an afternoon play,

Eenie Meenie Macka Racka, which won the BBC’s

Alfred Bradley award, and Ghost Lines, a cycle

of poems and biographical interludes about the

experience of IVF, which was short-listed for the

2012 Ted Hughes award for new work in poetry.

She is currently working on a biography of the

poet Charlotte Mew.

Julia lives in Somerset.

www.faber.co.uk/catalog/author/julia-copus


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Benjamin Zephaniah is a Rastafarian writer

and dub poet. He is a well-known igure in

contemporary English literature and was included

in The Times list of Britain’s top 50 post-war writers

in 2008. Zephaniah has said his mission is to take

poetry everywhere and to popularise poetry by

reaching people who do not read books. Try We

are Britain.

Carol Ann Dufy, CBE, FRSL is the irst

female, Poet Laureate in the role’s 400 year history.

She has been praised for her combination of

tenderness and toughness, humour and lyricism,

unconventional attitudes and conventional forms.

These have won her a wide audience. Her work

as Poet Laureate includes poems on the MPs

expenses scandal and the deaths of the last two

British soldiers to ight in the First World War. Read

Rapture published in 2005.

Seamus Heaney is widely recognised as one

of the major poets of the twentieth century. A

native of Northern Ireland, he was raised in County

Derry and later for many years lived in Dublin. He

published over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism,

and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.

Works include Opened Ground: Selected Poems,

Electric Light and District and Circle.

Contemporary poetry is one of the most varied areas of literature today. Ask at your library about joining a local poetry group or start one of your own.

There is a dedicated website for the Reading Passport with more poetry suggestions produced by the Poet Laureate for Bournemouth, James Manlow. www.readingpassport.org


Gareth L PowellGareth L. Powell is an award-winning science

iction and fantasy author from Bristol. He is the

author of ive novels, including Ack-Ack Macaque,

which won the 2013 BSFA Award for Best Novel.

Gareth’s short stories have appeared in numerous

anthologies and magazines, including six in

Interzone, and he has received several ‘honourable

mentions’ in Gardner Dozois’s Best New SF

collections. In 2007, one of his short stories came

top of the Interzone annual readers’ poll for best

short story of the year.

He has also co-written a novelette with Aliette de

Bodard, and given guest lectures on creative writing

at Bath Spa University. He has written articles for

The Irish Times, SFX, SF Signal, Mass Movement

Magazine, and Acoustic Magazine, and, in 2012,

he achieved a boyhood ambition when he was

given the chance to pen a strip for Britain’s long-

running sci-i and fantasy comic, 2000 AD.

www.garethlpowell.com


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Margaret AtwoodAlthough Margaret Atwood’s acclaimed Oryx and

Crake and award-winning The Handmaid’s Tale

are often described as sci-i, the author herself

prefers to call them “speculative iction”, or even

“adventure romance”. However you classify them,

these dark visions of the near-future will certainly

give you plenty to think about.

Iain M BanksBest-selling novelist Iain Banks leapt from this

world to another whole ictional universe, the

Culture, simply by slipping an “M” into his name.

In the process, as The Guardian noted, he wrote

books which conirm him “as the standard by

which the rest of SF is judged”.

Alastair ReynoldsThe Welsh writer has studied physics and

astronomy and has worked in space research

too, using his background to write “hard” science

iction, based irmly on the realities of science as

we currently understand them. Scientiic realism

is no limit to the imagination though – Reynolds

writes epic and dramatic “space opera”.

If you thought Science Fiction was just about

spaceships and robots, think again! Travelling

through space and time opens up endless

reading possibilities – parallel universes,

dystopian futures and Brave New Worlds are just

waiting to be discovered. Spaceships and robots

too, of course...

Why not try:

There are loads of exciting sci-i titles on

the shelves of your local library, or see the

booklists at www.readingpassport.org for other

interesting suggestions.


Win Books!Review at least 3 books drawn from 3 diferent Worlds online at www.readingpassport.org or take the reviews to your local library to be entered into a prize draw for a £150 book gift card and other prizes.

Your reviews may be displayed in libraries and on the

website. Competition closing date 30th December 2014.

Terms and Conditions of the competition are at your

local library and online. Competition open to library

members. Join your local library for free.

The Reading Passport project is supported by the public

libraries of the 15 Local Authorities, Read South West, and

regional partners and SWRLS members in the South West.

www.swrls.org.uk

www.literatureworks.org.uk

SOUTH WEST READING PASSPORT

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