New Delhi: The Booker Prize Foundation is releasing a collection of short stories to expand the reach of Booker Prize-winners to readers. It’s titled All Around the World.
This launch is part of the Quick Reads initiative aimed at improving adult literacy over the last 20 years. All Around the World will be available to readers for just £1. Additionally, the Booker Prize Foundation is also donating 12,000 copies to people who do not have better access to books. UK prisons will also receive these donated copies as part of the Books Unlocked programme. The collection will also be released in this week’s Big Issue—a street paper and social enterprise company in the UK—so readers can download for free. These stories have been written by Booker Prize winners such as Anne Enright and David Szalay and nominee Nadifa Mohamed, according to The Guardian.
The curator of the collection is a former prize winner, Roddy Doyle. The Irish novelist and dramatist won in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
“Quick Reads is like dipping your toe in the water of literature, with some of the barriers that might put people off removed. A lot of people might feel there is nothing about their world in books. The stories in All Around the World have access points, and I hope they alert readers to the fact that, actually, their life might be in here somewhere,” Doyle told Big Issue.
Also read: How young South Koreans are dealing with burnout, loneliness, anxiety
Reading in the reel age
The Booker Prize Foundation’s initiative is important in an era where most people are going through a reading slump. Data proves that few people spend time with books in the age of the internet. “Research finds that more than a third of UK adults find it hard to read books through to the end,” the Guardian report said.
The teaser of the State of the Nation’s Adult Reading report has revealed that the majority of adults (55 per cent) read less than they want to. Think of a human buying books, keeping them by the bedside table, sometimes even flipping through pages, reading the blurbs and then maybe 10 pages before sleeping. Most books on this journey are placed back on the bedside table to never be picked again. The survey participants between the ages of 16 and 24 shared that they don’t read much because they don’t see themselves or their culture in books. It’s a basic thing that keeps them hooked.
Of course, many cited lack of concentration as a reason behind their reading slump. A lot of readers abandon books before reaching the end. If we just consider the survey, it’s four in 10 people who relate to this. They “lose interest”. And one in every five respondents (22 per cent) said they don’t have time to read; another 21 per cent said they can’t afford books.
In India, the state of reading is no better, or maybe worse if data points are considered. There’s a big chunk of the population that has grown up reading but now finds it an impossible task. Reading for pleasure is rare now. Reportedly, between 2019 and 2024, only 4 per cent of Indians said they read in free time. This number used to be 5.4 per cent before 2019.
In another survey, focused on children between the ages of 8 and 18, only 34.6 per cent said they enjoy reading.
Those who cannot quit reading for the pleasure of it, and those who have access to books, have been making a case for it, convincing people to put their phones aside and dive into the magic of the written word. Like we have done for centuries and centuries. “Reading is almost like mindfulness. It takes you into a different place while keeping you in the here and now,” George Anderson, who works in central London and is a Big Issue vendor, told the Guardian.