Unlock more of what you love with the National Year of Reading

In a world that rarely stops for a breath, it’s easy to overlook the impact of a few simple lines. But for those who live and breathe stories, a single page is often where the magic begins.

We joined up with the social enterprise agency Pictures for the People to explore a simple question:

What can a single page do for you?

This is the new novel from the Booker Prize-winning Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain, an essential working class voice for the queer experience and one of our greatest living writers. It's the heartbreaking story of a young man’s return home, of fathers and sons, and how the bonds of family life are torn by the weight of expectation.

Great for those who love: Literary fiction, books with a strong sense of place, LGBQTIA+ themes, lyrical writing. This is a book for anyone looking for stories about living with difficult families but loving them anyway, finding the courage to live authentically, and slow-burning, life-defining love.

The ultimate all-access pass to the beautiful game, delivered by one of football’s greatest inspirations, Marcus Rashford MBE. Go all in with top player stats, fun facts about your favourite clubs, and the rules of the game. Marcus will also teach you some handy tips and tricks on improving your own skills, as well as showing you all the different ways that you can get into football.

Great for those who love: The Ultimate Football Heroes series, EA Sports FC (FIFA) and Football Manager, Match magazine, high-stakes World Cup documentaries, weekend kickabouts, collecting trading cards, cheering from the stands. 

The ultimate family jam session that swaps 'Once Upon a Time' for a beatbox rhyme! Using the well-known beatboxing starting point pattern of boots and cats, this book takes you on a fantastical, magical ride, down to a deep-sea diner, a nightclub where ducks dance and an exhilarating rollercoaster ride. Bold, wacky and brilliantly funny, Boots and Cats tickles the imagination, reminding us all to find the fun in reading aloud – and to do it together!

Great for those who love: High–energy toe-tapping fun, linguistic gymnastics, a book that gets everyone involved and demands to be performed at full volume, singing in the shower, getting into the groove.

We ask the Booker Prize winner about taking the reader to the Outer Hebrides, whether we can expect more heartbreak in his new novel, and what changed his relationship with books as a teenager. 

Investigate patterns, find rhymes and have a go at animal alliteration