The Big Jubilee Read

As part of this year's Jubilee celebrations I was really interested to hear about the Big Jubilee Read. It's a reading for pleasure campaign celebrating seventy great reads. Ten books have been chosen from each of the seven decades, with authors from across a range of Commonwealth countries. As well as recognising great books, the campaign is also intended to highlight lesser-known books and authors that deserve to be recognised.

You can find the full list here, sorted by decade, along with a short summary of each - The Big Jubilee Read booklist.

I've encountered many suggested reading lists over the years, and I always enjoy browsing through them. Firstly to see which books I've read, secondly to remind me of books that I've heard of and want to read, and thirdly to find some new books to add to my reading list. 

Of course I'm always happy to find lots of books that I've read on a 'best books' list - it's always enjoyable to think that you are well read - but this list certainly gives me plenty to look for when it comes to finding future reading! 

From the list I have read just twelve of the books:

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Small Island by Andrea Levy

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Girl, Woman Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

I loved reading every single one of these books and in fact two of them are in my personal top three books - The Remains of the Day and The Handmaid's Tale (my third is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier). So despite the fact that the list also includes two books that I started but didn't get along with (Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel) it looks as though there are plenty of books here that would really appeal to me.

I've been through the list and picked three which I liked the sound of. I decided on them because they are fairly recently published, one was a Booker prize winner and one was shortlisted and I find I always enjoy Booker prize winning books, and finally I found them all second hand on my favourite second hand book website Wob, with a 15% discount code when you buy three books in the promotion!

I've ordered The Secret River by Kate Grenville, The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields and The Bone People by Keri Hulme. I'll let you know how I get on with them!

Photo credit Clay Banks via Unsplash