The Big Jubilee Read is a 2022 campaign to promote reading for pleasure and to celebrate thePlatinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. A list of 70 books byCommonwealth authors, 10 from each decade ofElizabeth II's reign, was selected by a panel of experts and announced by theBBC andThe Reading Agency on 18 April 2022.[1][2][3]
An initial long-list was compiled from readers' suggestions, and a panel of librarians, booksellers and "literature specialists" made the choice of 70 titles, aiming "to engage all readers in the discovery and celebration of great books". The project received funding from theArts Council and is supported byLibraries Connected[4] and theBooksellers Association.[3]
The organisers hope that the project will "celebrate the joy of reading and the power that it has to connect people across the country and among nations".[5] Nineteen of the books are winners of theBooker Prize.[6] Most of the books are novels written in English, but there are also poetry collections such asDeath of a Naturalist and short story collections includingThe Boat, whileOne Moonlit Night was published in Welsh asUn Nos Ola Leuad,Le Procès-Verbal andOur Lady of the Nile were originally in French, andShuggie Bain is in English but with dialogue inScots.[7][8][9][10]
The list was published by the BBC on 18 April 2022.[11]
Where an author is given two countries of origin in the above list, 0.5 is given to each country.
| Country | Books | Population (millions, 2022) |
|---|---|---|
 England | 11 | 68 |
 Australia | 7.5 | 26 |
 India | 7 | 1,417 |
 Canada | 5 | 39 |
 Scotland | 3.5 | 5.5 |
 Jamaica | 3 | 3.0 |
 New Zealand | 3 | 5.1 |
 Nigeria | 3 | 218 |
 Sri Lanka | 2.5 | 22 |
 Guyana | 2 | 0.8 |
 Trinidad and Tobago | 2 | 1.4 |
 Wales | 1.5 | 3.2 |
 Grenada | 1 | 0.1 |
 Saint Lucia | 1 | 0.2 |
 Barbados | 1 | 0.3 |
 Belize | 1 | 0.4 |
| Northern Ireland | 1 | 1.9 |
 Singapore | 1 | 5.6 |
 Rwanda | 1 | 14 |
 Cameroon | 1 | 28 |
 Malaysia | 1 | 33 |
 Kenya | 1 | 57 |
 Bangladesh | 1 | 169 |
 Pakistan | 1 | 231 |
 Dominica | 0.5 | 0.1 |
 Mauritius | 0.5 | 1.3 |
 Botswana | 0.5 | 2.3 |
 Sierra Leone | 0.5 | 8.4 |
 Ghana | 0.5 | 33 |
 Tanzania | 0.5 | 64 |
 France[a] | 0.5 | 66 |
Commentators discussed several omissions of potential titles:J. R. R. Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings (ranked number 1 in the 2003The Big Read);J. K. Rowling'sHarry Potter books;[12]Terry Pratchett'sDiscworld series;[13]Philip Pullman'sHis Dark Materials trilogy,[14]Doris Lessing'sThe Golden Notebook;[12] and the work ofDick Francis, reportedly one of the Queen's favourite authors.[14] The inclusion of Northern Irish writerSeamus Heaney was explained by the fact that when he wroteDeath of a Naturalist he was living in the UK and published by an English publisher; Heaney identified as anIrish nationalist and had previously objected to his inclusion inThe Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry.[15][16]
InThe Telegraph,Allison Pearson called it a"'You'll take your medicine and like it' kind of list compiled by people who were scared stiff of not being diverse enough."[17] Similarly, inThe Article, David Herman complained: "If you likeHornblower orJames Bond, witches and hobbits, great children's literature, popular poetry or drama, The Big Jubilee Read doesn't care. What it does care about ispost-colonial, ideally non-white, literature."[18]
Libraries Connected is proud to support The Reading Agency and BBC Arts' Big Jubilee Read
