Sunday Salon: #LoveToRead

The Sunday SalonI love the BBC. It’s not perfect, but it produces a lot of great stuff, especially for lovers of music and books. This weekend has been the BBC’s #LoveToRead weekend, with a deluge of book-related programmes, articles and partnerships with schools and libraries, to promote the importance of reading for pleasure. It’s a campaign I can get behind.

I first knew this was coming thanks to (best radio station in the world) 6 Music‘s new series of Paperback Writers, in which bestselling writers talk about the music that inspires them. Today’s writer was Zadie Smith, who I think is even more awesome now I know that her music of choice includes Lauryn Hill and Bob Dylan.

Being a modern lady, I of course never watch live TV, so I am relying on all the great #LoveToRead TV shows being on iPlayer or having recorded them on our magic box. I hope so, because I really want to see The Secret Life of Sue Townsend (Aged 68 3/4) and Books That Made Britain: Bristol Sin City, among others.

But it’s not just one weekend a year that the BBC does great book-related programming. The BBC Books website is packed with stuff all the time. And not only the fantastic dramas the BBC makes that are based on books, but also author readings, interesting articles and links to regular book-related programming such as the Books and Authors podcast (which combines Radio 4 shows Open Book with Mariella Frostrup and A Good Read with Harriet Gilbert).

I’m now off to read about whether books can make you laugh out loud, and then I’m going to see which literary hoaxes Simon Richardson has picked out (I’m partial to Thomas Chatterton myself, but then he was Bristolian).

Have you enjoyed any of the #LoveToRead programmes? Tell me which ones you recommend!