The fifth annual Get Reading! campaign kicks off this week, hoping to get people reading one or more of 50 books throughout the month of September. Get Reading! is a month-long, nationwide campaign - formerly known as Books Alive - to encourage more Australians to discover or rediscover the pleasure of reading books. There’s a free reading guide (50 Books You Can’t Put Down), book giveaways, author events and Get Reading Rooms in choice city locations across the country. Research suggests 25% of participants claim they will buy more books (and 20% claim they will borrow more books) as a result of their participation in the federal government-funded campaign.
The list of 50 books that form a part of the campaign is designed to offer something for everyone, from prize-winning Australian authors (like Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance and Gail Jones' Five Bells, also nominated for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards) to crime doyenne Lynda La Plante. There’s a memoir of Kasey Chambers, comedy by Fiona O'Loughlin, Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom and rescue, the new novel by Anita Shreve, who’s also appearing at the Wheeler Centre on 14 September.