The Reader Bookshelf 2024-25

What is The Reader Bookshelf?

The Reader Bookshelf is a carefully curated collection of literature for adults and children, exploring a different theme each year. The Bookshelf includes a diverse range of stories, plays and poems.

This year’s theme ‘Wonder’ is about being bold, being curious, being open, not least in our reading choices.

Why 'Wonder'?

This energising, hopeful theme goes to the heart of Shared Reading. ‘Wonder’ is about surprise and encountering other points of view. ‘Wonder’ will remind us to notice the changing seasons and the natural world, as we open the door to new experiences and connections at Calderstones Park. ‘Wonder’ is walking into the Storybarn and seeing a giant robot and a hot-air balloon; it’s about roaming the park with the Storyhunters, spotting clues and having adventures. We’ll also be thinking about what happens when wonder runs to excess, or when it runs out. ‘Wonder’ can be about the very big, or the infinitesimally small; the extraordinary and the unknown.

We hope you’ll join us as we read though our Wonder Bookshelf this year, and discover what ‘wonder’ means to you.

Throughout the year, The Reader will be offering events and resources to guide you through an enriching reading experience with our new Bookshelf. You can buy some of the books from this year’s Bookshelf in our online store or in our Calderstones Bookshop.

Adult's Bookshelf

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Foster by Claire Keegan
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
The Fat Lady Sings by Jacqueline Roy
A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology edited by Czeslaw Milosz
She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo
The Conference of the Birds by Farid Ud-Din Attar
Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie
The Tempest by William Shakespeare

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

'Lucia Berlin can’t help but be interested in everything, whether its horrifying or very ordinary. Her life was hardly mundane, and in the stories it’s impossible to tell biography from fiction. She also writes about quieter moments – riding buses, doing her laundry, driving, going to the grocery store – telling us about these experiences with the same intensity and unpredictability. She pays attention, and it's the capacity of the stories and their writer to not just to endure times of suffering but to marvel at them that becomes a source of energy, a kind of creative life force. They give a clue to a way of being and enduring in turn.' Frances, Head of Literary Content

Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift

'I immediately felt a kinship with Gulliver's stories, perhaps linked to my much earlier love of fairytales. The novel explores wonder as a force which compels us to search, discover and question, and it opens up reflections on our relationship to the environment, nature and animals as much as to our fellow human beings. I feel sure it will open up discussions about some of the darker sides of wonder too - what it means, for example, to be seen as an object of curiosity by others and whether some people and cultures have been subjected to this gaze of wonder more than others.' Clare, Head of Shared Reading Practise

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

'I always find that Ray Bradbury stories have a way of bringing out some of humanity’s deepest concerns about living in a world that is always moving forward, whilst simultaneously reminding us of the brilliance and wonder that exists right here and now. Every story feels like a new adventure to embark on, and whether its exploring time travel, new technologies or set on Mars, our conversations in the group always end up feeling a lot closer to home, because ultimately, these are human stories that reflect our thoughts, fears and ambitions of daily life.' Jamie, Bookshop and Literary Activity Manager

The Fat Lady Sings by Jacqueline Roy

'The author Jacqueline Roy visited The Reader for our Gravity Festival in 2022, and her novel has stayed with me ever since. When we were thinking about how impossible wonder as a state of mind might be for some people, I thought about the characters of Gloria and Merle, trapped in a London psychiatric ward by their struggles with mental health and a system that doesn't understand them. The novel goes to some dark places - it deals with intense fear and loneliness head-on - but it also encompasses friendship, humour, tenderness and moments of great joy.' Katie, Director of Literature

The Conference of the Birds by Farid Ud-Din Attar

'What do you do when you feel a lack of or need for something in life? I am someone who can sit and get lost in questioning thoughts for hours, but this is not the way the birds in Conference of the Birds approach their problem. They have a seemingly clear, although daunting, line of action; they quickly form a plan and then they set of in search of their goal: a king. Conference of the Birds offers us journeys, both internal and external, fuelled by the desire for someone to provide ‘the answers’. This journey transforms into a desperate search through spaces unknown.' Lizzie, Shared Reading Practise Lead

Children's Bookshelf

Alive Again by Ahmadreza Ahmadi
Twenty Questions by Mac Barnett
The Something by Rebecca Cobb
This Is Not A Book by Jean Jullien
Last Stop on Market Street by Matt De La Pena
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Skellig by David Almond
The Final Year by Matt Goodfellow
Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
A Whale of a Time ed. by Lou Peacock
Wonder: The Natural History Museum Poetry Book ed. by Ana Sampson

Summer Wellbeing Workshop: A Book of Luminous Things

16 June, 1pm
An uplifting afternoon of wellbeing and light inspired by poetry anthology, A Book of Luminous Things. Edited by Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz, the collection features some of the greatest poems written throughout the ages on themes such as travel and nature.

Book here

Summer Wellbeing Workshop: Katherine Jamie

10 August, 1pm
An uplifting afternoon of wellbeing and light inspired by Scottish essayist and poet Kathleen Jamie. Published in 2019, Jamie’s new essay collection Surfacing details visits to archaeological sites where she mined her own memories – of her grandparents and youthful travels – to explore what surfaced and what reconnects us to our past.

Book here

The Reader Bookshelf 2024-25

What is The Reader Bookshelf?

Why 'Wonder'?

Adult's Bookshelf

Scroll to discover more about the selection

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

Surfacing by Katherine Jamie

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Foster by Claire Keegan

Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski

The Fat Lady Sings by Jacqueline Roy

The Conference of the Birds by Farid Ud-Din Attar

Children's Bookshelf

Programmes & Events

Summer Wellbeing Workshop: A Book of Luminous Things

Summer Wellbeing Workshop: Katherine Jamie

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