On Monday 2nd March, Professor Sarah Dillon will join presenter Tom Sutcliffe on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week to discuss “why we should read”. She joins alongside fellow guests, the publisher Margaret Busby and the writer Lottie Moggach.

BBC programme billing: “The UK government has declared 2026, the National Year of Reading. The numbers suggest that reading needs all the public relations it can get. Under a third of school children say they read for pleasure and the number going on to read English Literature at University has shrunk by over a third in the last fifteen years. Their parents are not doing much better, with some surveys suggesting that anywhere up to half of adults have not read a single book in the last year. So, how can the case for the value of reading and the simple pleasure of picking up a book cut through?”

This episode of Start the Week will be broadcast at 9am on Monday 2nd March and will then be available to listen to here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002s34y