Everybody say 'nyr'!

The National Year of Reading! Look out for activities, book recommendations and interesting ways to get more reading into your life.... all at your local library. www.leics.gov.uk/nyr has all the details, and ways for you to join in. There are new books to discover and a quiz to enter - and there'll be more as the year goes on.

One of the great things about the monthly themes for NYR is that they recognise all forms of reading, and are not limited to novels. As the year goes on, we'll be celebrating reading newspapers, reading in strange places, reading about sport, reading online..... I think it's great that the whole year will not be dedicated to one form (although I think there could be more obscure contemporary French poetry in the mix - Jessica Soror, anyone?). So if your literary love is the jam-jar label, other people's car reg. plates, football fans' banners.... then there'll be an opportunity for you to say so.

As for me, I'm looking forward to May, when a group of young writers from Leicestershire will be performing their poetry at Loughborough's 'Street's Alive' festival. If you're coming to the festival (of course you are) and fancy some literary culture (of course you do) then you know it's out there. You heard it here first (of course you did). More details soon.

Keep reading - there's a lot of words out there!
Kerry.