Today is World Book Day, a day dedicated to the love of books and shared reading. Its mission is to promote reading for pleasure, offering every child and young person the opportunity to have a book of their own. The UK has been recognising this day since 1997 and in recent years, children have been encouraged to come to school dressed as their favourite book character.
At Haggie Partners, everything we do revolves around words, which is why we love to celebrate this day. We recognise that the ability to use language creatively – a skill so vital in the public relations industry – goes well beyond simply speaking it. Wordsmanship is a craft, one that simply cannot develop without reading.
Funnily enough, and this is something I do not often like to admit, I am not a big fan of reading. Now, I know what you are thinking, “a PR who doesn’t like to read? How ironic.” And it is, especially given that is what I do all day. Growing up I never truly enjoyed reading. In fact, I remember my mother having to bribe me to read my assigned schoolbooks. This may have something to do with my attention span or perhaps I simply enjoy films and TV more. Either way, I still, to this very day, don’t often read for pleasure.
This doesn’t mean I’ve never finished a book in my life. There are books out there I have really loved, but I need them to be easy reads and I need them to draw me in immediately. So, in light of World Book Day, I thought I’d share a few book recommendations for people like me.
Fiction:
- The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
- Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
- The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple
- The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
- Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney
- I Hate the Internet, Jarrett Kobek
Non-fiction: