CrimeFest Donates Books to Libraries Across Bristol

The Big Library Crime Book Giveaway, organised by Bristol’s long-standing crime fiction convention CrimeFest, takes place from 2 June.

Roughly 700 crime fiction books will be gifted via all of the city’s libraries.

The initiative helps celebrate National Crime Reading Month, which takes place each June, and is organised by the Crime Writers’ Association in partnership with the national charity, The Reading Agency.

National Crime Reading Month sees over a hundred author events and talks in bookshops, libraries, theatres up and down the country, alongside a series of free online events as readers are encouraged to #PickUpAPageTurner.

CrimeFest has ran the Big Library Crime Book Giveaway for three years.

The final CrimeFest in Bristol took place in May after 17 years since the first event launched.

CrimeFest has left a lasting literary legacy on the city. Over the years, it has donated thousands of pounds’ worth of books to inner city school libraries across Bristol, with support from the convention’s title sponsor, Specsavers.

Adrian Muller, Co-host of CrimeFest, said: “The library giveaway is a hugely important legacy for us. Libraries and librarians play a vital role in transforming lives by fostering a love for reading. Reading can be transformative not only emotionally, but on an educational, economic, and social level, and it’s clear that the crime genre offers a popular gateway into reading.”

Katharine Seymour, Reader Development Librarian for Bristol Libraries, said:
“Crime fiction is an incredibly popular genre with library readers, and we’re excited to be taking part in this book giveaway as it brings more people into their local libraries to discover new authors and titles. It helps us to promote the love of reading across Bristol.”

Crime novels dominate library lending, with Jack Reacher’s Lee Child regularly being the most borrowed author year-on-year.
Lee and his brother Andrew Child were featured guests at the final CrimeFest.

Karen Napier, CEO, The Reading Agency said: “Through our reading advocacy work, we know how important crime fiction is both for lifelong reading lovers and for those who are just starting out on their reading journey. Thanks to its structured plot-driven narratives, crime fiction often rights wrongs and solves mysteries so we experience a sense of justice and resolution in the pages of a novel, which we often can’t find in the real world. This is part of its huge appeal.”

Regular reading has far-reaching social impacts; improving health, wellbeing, life chances and social connections.

Research from The Reading Agency, who work across the UK to empower people of all ages to read, shows that adults who read for just 30 minutes a week are 20% more likely to report greater life satisfaction. However, only half (50%) of adults now read regularly, and 1 in 10 find reading difficult.