One morning, bookseller Bob Stone was on his way to open his bookshop, Write Blend in South Road, Waterloo, when an item on the radio news caught his attention. It said that one third of teachers believed the current downward trend in reading for pleasure was irreversible. The bookseller is determined to prove that wrong with a new anthology, Our Lives In Books.
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With this year being the National Year of Reading, this was a depressing statistic, but, as a bookseller, Bob was not convinced about the news he heard on the radio. “It may be true that reading for pleasure is at an all-time low,” he says, “but I don’t believe it is irreversible. There wouldn’t be much point in me getting up for work each day if it was. Sometimes people simply need to find the right book.”
In a bid to publicise the fact that, for many people, the love of reading is as alive as ever, he put out a call on social media. He invited everyone who wanted to write a short piece about their own love of reading and how books have influenced their lives to send in their stories and he would publish them in an anthology called Our Lives In Books.
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“There are some people I expected to contribute,” Bob explains, “but I didn’t anticipate just how many submissions I would receive.” Among the work that was submitted, there were pieces by award-winning horror author Ramsay Campbell, best-selling children’s author Cathy Cassidy, Emmerdale and Football Fantastics star Samantha Giles, and Paul Magrs, author of Doctor Who books and scripts for Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio drama range.
Bob was delighted with the response. “I got submissions from a number of traditionally or independently published authors who deserve to be better known. There were pieces by authors who love to write but don’t often submit their work for publication. But maybe best of all, there were a number of pieces from readers who love books, but have never written anything before, let alone had anything published.”
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While editing the submissions, Bob was delighted by the huge variety of books that the authors recommended but was also fascinated by how many they had in common. “We live in a horribly polarised world,” he says, “where people on all sides find it acceptable to subject each other to the most appalling abuse on social media. The love of books unites us, though. If I meet someone who enjoys the same books as me, I’ll happily talk to them for hours and we can put all other differences aside, even if it is just for a while.”
Bob’s mission with Our Lives In Books is to reignite the joy of reading for anyone who feels the spark has gone out and to add to the ‘To Be Read’ piles of book-lovers. Above all, he wants to prove that the joy of reading for pleasure is not dead but sometimes needs a little poke to wake it up. Illustrations courtesy of The Raggy Rat and Our Lives In Books is available on Amazon from July 23rd 2026.
