Quick Reads 2007

"I haven't read a book since I was at school and I'm in my 30s now. I couldn't put it down. It took me 3 hours to read and it was brilliant. I'm going to get another!"

An adult learner in Evesham on a Quick Reads title.

The brand-new set of Quick Reads, written by some of Britain`s most popular personalities, are published on World Book Day, 1 March 2007. The books are priced at just £1.99 each and readers will also get the chance to win a fabulous week-long beach holiday in Barbados along with a range of other fantastic prizes.

Amongst a great mix of fiction and non-fiction, Kerry Katona shows how she has used some of the worst experiences of her sometimes turbulent life to learn positive lessons; the world`s leading quit-smoking expert Allen Carr writes about his own struggle to give up the habit for the first time since being diagnosed with lung cancer; and the BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson shares some of the most high-octane moments of his career.

Fiction comes from favourite TV actor Ricky Tomlinson in his wickedly witty Reading My Arse!, Adele Geras turns her hand to a modern ghost story, celebrated novelist Maureen Lee offers a story of hope and self-discovery in A Dream Come True and there is a brand new Doctor Who Cybermen adventure called Made of Steel.

The Sun Book of Short Stories is a collection of short stories written by Sun readers with an introduction from the paper's columnist Jane Moore. The stories have been selected from the paper's short story competition, which was launched on World Book Day 2006.

• Reading My Arse! Ricky Tomlinson (Sphere)
• Survive the Worst and Aim for the Best Kerry Katona (Ebury Press)
• Burning Ambition Allen Carr (Penguin)
• Twenty Tales from the War Zone by John Simpson (Pan)
• Lily Adele Geras (Orion)
• A Dream Come True Maureen Lee (Orion)
• Made of Steel a Doctor Who title by Terrance Dicks (BBC Books)
• The Sun Book of Short Stories with a forward by Jane Moore (Bantam)
  

A number of the 2006 Quick Reads titles, including Andy McNab`s The Grey Man, John Bird`s Seven Steps to Change Your Life, Star Sullivan by Maeve Binchy, Chickenfeed by Minette Walters, are also being specially reissued for World Book Day 2007. Stock, priced at £1.99, will also be available of other earlier Quick Reads titles.

Quick Reads was launched on World Book Day, 2 March 2006, with the aim of reaching out to the millions of adults in the UK with reading difficulties and the one third of the British population that never picks up a book. They are specially written, many of them by best-selling authors and popular personalities, for both reluctant readers and for avid readers wanting a short, fast-paced read.

Twenty four titles were published in 2006 and responses from practitioners and readers have been overwhelmingly positive. An adult learner remarked that, 'being able to sit and read a book all the way through without help was like the chocolate on the cake.'

Juliet, a mother from Surrey, explains, 'My daughter is twenty, very dyslexic and has never been able to read through a book in her life so far - she gets in about five pages and gets so lost she gives up. Last weekend she read her first Quick Reads book, Blackwater by Conn Iggulden, from one end to the other, oblivious to the rest of us and it was wonderful to see. She has now rushed out and bought two more. She has always wanted to read and has shelves of books that have been attempted and not finished. We have bought other books that were meant to be designed for those with difficulty in reading but they have never been right. Please make sure that all the authors involved know that it is a great thing that they have done.'

Issued by Colman Getty