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It's a brand-new year and time for a brand-new Willoughby Book Club Reading Challenge! We've put together a series of prompts, sensible and silly, fun and serious, to help nudge you through a year of reading. Whether you're intending to read 10 books or 100,  if you read for pleasure, learning or escapism, there's no judgement here. Let us know how you get on!     WBC Reading Challenge 2024 - A seasonal book - A book from a debut author - A non-fiction book - Animal, vegetable or mineral on the cover - A book set in the 1990s - A backlist book by...

Have you heard of 'Jolabokaflod'? This is an Icelandic tradition, roughly translating as 'Christmas Book Flood', and it sounds heavenly to us! During the Second World War Iceland didn't suffer rationing on paper, and this, together with Iceland's long literary history, meant that books became a particularly popular present at Christmas while other gifts were scarce. Beginning in 1944 the Icelandic publishing trade issue a catalogue of newly published books which is distributed to all Icelandic households. This has come to signal the start of the festive season which culminates on Christmas Eve, the biggest gift-giving day of the year....

It's that time of year again, when all sorts of 'best of...' lists and round-ups of the year are contemplated and compiled. Here at Willoughby we always read a combination of new releases and backlist, and you'll see as you read on that our list of favourites reflects this quite well. We happened upon some really interesting, illuminating, and enticing reads in 2023, and we're always curious about everyone else's favourites too. Join us on our meander through our favourite reads and let us know if you've read anything outstanding over the last twelve months.   Chloe It’s really difficult...

Can you believe we're drawing to the end of the first Willoughby Book Club Reading Challenge already? We've really enjoyed getting stuck into books we might not have read otherwise, with our (rather daft) selection of prompts. How about you? Did you have a bumper year of books, or a rather slow and sluggish year? Were there any highlights or previously undiscovered gems? Here's how the WBC team found the Reading Challenge:   Chloe I managed to cover quite a lot in the WBC Reading Challenge and I have read a few things I wouldn’t normally have chosen, as well as books...