Posted by CTW_Team on 12/10/07 @ 12:01 PM | 377 views
Doris Lessing, the Persian-born, London-residing novelist, won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, aged 87.

Lessing’s achievement is all the more remarkable in light of its tardiness. Her best known work, “The Golden Notebook”, established her as a feminist icon back in 1962, leading US author Joyce Carol Oates to tell The Guardian; “It is good of the committee to recognise Lessing's unique achievement though it has come perhaps two or even three decades late.”

The New York Times reports the writer of dozens of books of fiction, as well as plays, nonfiction and two volumes of an autobiography “never finished high school and largely educated herself through voracious reading.”

So today we urge you to dedicate at least half an hour to reading and give you a few ideas to get started.

Read for Free

There’s so much to be said for the good old library system. It’s a great place to get books, obviously, but also somewhere quiet to work and a great information resource (librarians love a question). Casanova, J. Edgar Hoover and Mao Tse-Tung were all librarians, so think twice before ignoring their advice.

Action: Spend your half hour joining your local library.

Google It

As part of Google’s ongoing attempt to take everything, from anywhere, ever, and put it online, it has digitised many books from library collections, including hundreds of books related to Old English literature. Spend your halfer there and download something that will keep you off Facebook for half an hour.

Action: Download a book from Google Books

Cross Someone’s Path

Bookcrossing is the world’s biggest free book club. The idea is really simple: register a book you have read online, then leave it somewhere. You can then track its journey around the world as it gets picked up and passed on. You could even send us a picture of where you’ve left it.

Action: Register a book with Bookcrossing and leave it somewhere.

Tell us the last great thing you read below.

Action: Leave us a comment.