Keeping It Simple

Ian Rankin (Exit Music) and Kate Mosse (Sepulchre) are the latest in a long line of well-known authors who’ve been pressed into service for Quick Reads, a four-year-old UK initiative to create terse but exciting books by best-selling authors and celebrities. As The Guardian reports, these works are aimed at adults who are new readers, are out of the habit of reading for pleasure, or simply prefer a quicker, less challenging read.

“It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but it’s been very, very interesting,” Mosse told The Guardian. She explained that writing the book in line with the Quick Reads guidelines, which demand very short sentences and no words longer than two syllables, was an “enormous challenge ... it might be called a Quick Read but it’s been far from a quick write for me.”

Crime author Ian Rankin has also written a new book for Quick Reads: his A Cool Head is the story of a young man, Gravy, who finds himself caught in the middle of a robbery gone wrong. Other contributors include John Boyne with The Dare, told from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy whose mother hits a child with her car, and a book from the Dragons’ Den entrepreneurs about finding success. Jacqueline Wilson has written an introduction for a title about getting your child to read, while Murder Most Famous winner and Coronation Street actress Sherrie Hewson has contributed her debut thriller, The Tannery.

The new titles will be available on World Book Day, which takes place every March. While you wait, you can check out the already available titles at the Quick Reads Web site. The full Guardian piece is here.