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Reading Well

Reading Well

What is Reading Well?

Reading Well supports you to understand and manage your health and wellbeing using helpful reading.

Reading Well books are all recommended by health experts, as well as people with lived experience of the conditions and topics covered and their relatives and carers.

You can be recommended a title by a health professional, or you can visit your local library and take a book out yourself.

Find out more about Reading Well in Wales.

“I’ve become very involved in the world of dementia awareness after caring for my late mother who had the disease. I’m delighted The Reading Agency has developed this book collection to encourage people to read about dementia. When my mother developed dementia 20 years ago, I knew very little about it. I needed a great deal of help to learn how to cope and to help my mother live well with the disease. I believe Reading Well for dementia will be a step forward. The books are going to be the catalyst that will bring people together, inform them and educate them to become much more aware and most importantly, less frightened of what a future with dementia holds.”

Angela Rippon CBE, journalist and broadcaster and Reading Well for dementia champion
Photo of a stack of some Reading Well books on a table.

Partners

Reading Well is delivered by The Reading Agency in partnership with Libraries Connected as a core delivery partner for their Universal Public Library Health and Wellbeing Offer.

It is funded by Arts Council England, The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and Welsh Government.

An icon depicting two people with their arms on each others shoulder.

97% of young people would recommend their Reading Well book to a friend

A line illustration of a head with a scribble inside.

90% of health professionals surveyed said Reading Well books helped support people outside of consultation time


Get involved

Reading Well is part of the Universal Public Library Health and Wellbeing Offer. Download our delivery model for a guide to running Reading Well in your library.

You can also download specialist guides for other settings interested in getting involved with Reading Well: Schools, Parents and carers, Link workers and the health sector.

Other print materials supporting Reading Well, including user leaflets and posters, can be ordered from our online shop.

For more information, please get in touch.


We have lots of free downloadable resources to support you with promoting and embedding Reading Well.

Uplifting books by GPs for GPs

As part of a webinar on 19 November 2024, delivered in partnership with RCGP titled ‘Books on Prescription – how reading can support better patient…

National Self-Care Week 2024 - library toolkit

A toolkit to support libraries to engage with National Self-Care Week 2024 (18 - 24 November). The toolkit includes useful information, resources, display and activity…

Tell us what you think

Have you used a Reading Well book? We’d love you to fill in a short survey to tell us how you found it.

There are surveys for:

Adults
Young People
Children

The Reading Agency

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