Reading for You

Reading for pleasure, reading for leisure, reading for You!

*New* Ebooks to read for pleasure whilst you are working and studying from home, you can view these by clicking here.

The Library is developing a collection of general interest (fiction and non-fiction) books called Reading for You. You can view the collection in OneSearch by clicking here.

The purpose of Reading for You is to encourage reading just for the pure enjoyment of it.

Look out for displays in your campus library and on our Twitter feed and if you have any suggestions for books to add to our Reading for You collection please use the Get More Books form to let us know.

Health and Wellbeing

Reading in your own time can help to enhance your life in many ways, and studies have shown a relationship between reading and improved academic performance, mental health and wellbeing.

Here is a Readings for Health and Wellbeing reading list, that is being developed by one of our Psychology lecturers, alongside the University's Psychological ＆ Wellbeing Manager.

Inclusion and Diversity

The Reading Agency say that reading for pleasure can "increase our understanding of our identity and gives us an insight into the world views of others".

Here is a list of diversity related reading lists to show the range of resources already available in the library collections- please feel free to use the discussion feature to contribute:

Words of Wisdom and Sources of Solace

“Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the beautiful stillness that surrounds you when you hear an author's words reverberating in your head.” Paul Auster.

Students and staff, please let us know about the books you have read that have made a positive difference to your life and we can add them to our Words of Wisdom and Sources of Solace reading list. Please email: library@cumbria.ac.uk

Here is just a small selection of the titles we have purchased for the Reading for You collection:

An indispensable resource for white people who want to challenge white supremacy but don't know where to begin.

"Layla is an extremely powerful communicator. From the first page, you will be glued to this book. It should be mandatory reading. The message is urgent and the book is actionable and practical. Buy this book for yourself, do the work, and then push more copies it into the hands of everyone you know." Emma Gannon, Sunday Times bestselling author.

	What would you change if you could go back in time? "In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time."
	Voted the UK’s Favourite Nature Book "Every minute was magical, every single thing it did was fascinating and everything it didn't do was equally wondrous, and to be sat there, with a Kestrel, a real live Kestrel, my own real live Kestrel on my wrist! I felt like I'd climbed through a hole in heaven's fence."
	A BBC Top 100 Novels that Shaped Our World "Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader's wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel - the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself."
	Shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize "The experience of being in nature alone is here set within the context of a series of walks that Neil Ansell takes into the most remote parts of Britain, the rough bounds in the Scottish Highlands. He illustrates the impact of being alone as part of nature, rather than outside it."
	What really goes on in the long grass? "Meadowland gives an unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography."
	Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019 "When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away."
	"I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light." "Masterfully conceived and executed, this haunting vision of the future places Margaret Atwood at the forefront of dystopian fiction."
	WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE CHRISTOPHER BLAND PRIZE & SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD & WAINWRIGHT GOLDEN BEER BOOK PRIZE 2018 "The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways."
	The Wolf Border investigates the fundamental nature of wilderness and wildness, both animal and human. "For almost a decade Rachel Caine has turned her back on home, kept distant by family disputes and her work monitoring wolves on an Idaho reservation. But now, summoned by the eccentric Earl of Annerdale and his controversial scheme to reintroduce the Grey Wolf to the English countryside, she is back in the peat and wet light of the Lake District."
	The natural history of the Western Front during the First World War "Where Poppies Blow is the unique story of how nature gave the British soldiers of the Great War a reason to fight, and the will to go on."