Take 10: Plymouth joins the National Year of Reading this October
Could ten minutes with a story make a difference to your day?
This October, What’s On Plymouth Culture is joining the National Year of Reading to celebrate the connection between reading and wellbeing and to discover some of the many ways people across Plymouth are already using words, stories and shared reading to find a little calm, creativity and connection.
Throughout the month we'll be meeting Plymouth's readers, writers and reading communities, discovering the places where people come together through books and words, and hopefully challenging a few ideas about what being a "reader" actually looks like.
Because reading doesn't have to mean sitting down with a 500-page novel.
It could be listening to an audiobook while walking along Plymouth's waterfront. A graphic novel or manga. A football biography. Poetry. A magazine. Song lyrics. A cookbook. Local history. A long-read about something you're fascinated by.
Whatever you're into, take 10 to read into it.
Plymouth Reads
This is all part of our wider Plymouth Reads content, celebrating reading in all its forms during a particularly special year for the city.
Not only is 2026 the National Year of Reading, Plymouth Libraries are celebrating their 150th anniversary, giving us a brilliant excuse to explore the people, places and communities that make up Plymouth's reading culture.
We've already created a comprehensive guide to where to read, write, browse and fall in love with books in Plymouth, covering everything from free library membership and audiobooks to independent bookshops, comics, writing groups, book clubs and places to simply sit down and read.
Explore our guide to reading in Plymouth:
https://www.plymouthculture.co.uk/whats-on/news/where-to-read-write-browse-and-fall-in-love-with-books-in-plymouth
And throughout October, we're going to delve a little deeper.
Why Take 10?
The National Year of Reading's October campaign is focusing on reading and wellbeing, encouraging people to Take 10 to Read.
The idea is refreshingly simple. Find something you're genuinely interested in and give yourself ten minutes to read it.
Reading can offer a chance to switch off from everything else for a few minutes, but it can also help us connect – with ideas, interests, other people's experiences and with each other.
That's why this month isn't only about what we read. It's also about where, how and with whom we read.
In Plymouth, that might mean borrowing an audiobook from your local library, joining a book club, sitting quietly alongside other readers, discovering a new independent bookshop, sharing your own writing or simply finding ten minutes in your day to disappear into something you enjoy.
Plymouth – you can help make reading history on 8th October
There's a rather big way to start.
On Thursday 8 October, the National Literacy Trust and British Council are attempting to set a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the most people reading online in 12 hours.
From 9am until 9pm, readers around the world will come together online for a huge shared reading moment as part of Take 10 to Read.
There will be online sessions for different age groups featuring authors and influencers, including Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Rashmi Sirdeshpande, Nakul P. and Nathanael Lessore – and people in Plymouth can be part of it too.
Schools, workplaces, community groups, families and individuals can all join in.
Choose something to read, take ten minutes and help make history.
Find out more and sign up for the world record attempt:
https://literacytrust.org.uk/events/take-10-record-attempt
Take 10 for World Mental Health Day
Two days later, Saturday 10 October is World Mental Health Day, and we'll be encouraging Plymouth to Take 10 again.
It doesn't need to involve going anywhere special or buying anything.
Take a book to Plymouth Hoe. Listen to an audiobook while walking the dog. Read over a coffee. Spend ten minutes with a magazine during your lunch break. Read a story with your child before bed. Find a poem. Pick up a graphic novel. Put your phone down and read a few pages of something you've been meaning to get back to.
There isn't a correct way to be a reader.
Plymouth Libraries are a particularly good place to start. Joining is free if you live, work or study in Plymouth, and alongside physical books you can access ebooks, audiobooks, magazines and newspapers.
There are 11 libraries across the city, with activities ranging from children's Rhymetimes and Storytimes to adult book groups, craft activities and shared reading.
Discover Plymouth Libraries:
https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/libraries
Reading for wellbeing
Plymouth Libraries also offer Reading Well collections, with specially selected books providing information and support around health and wellbeing, including mental health, dementia and young people's mental health.
Books from the collections can be reserved free and delivered to your local Plymouth library.
The library service also runs Feel Better with a Book, bringing people together to enjoy stories and poetry through shared reading.
It's a reminder that reading can be many things. Sometimes we want a story that lets us escape what's happening around us. Sometimes we want words that help us understand what we're experiencing. And sometimes it's simply good to sit with other people for a while.
Find out about health, wellbeing and Reading Well through Plymouth Libraries:
https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/health-and-reading-well
Find your people through reading
Connection is another big theme of this year's Take 10 campaign, and during October we'll be looking at some of the different reading communities that have sprung up across Plymouth.
We're hoping to spend some time with Plymouth Silent Book Club, where people can come together to read whatever they like – without an assigned book, homework or the pressure to contribute to a discussion.
We'll also be looking at other ways people are finding friendships and community through books, including Plymouth's Chapter 25 Book Club, which meets monthly at Royal William Yard.
Find out about Chapter 25 in Plymouth:
https://www.chapter25bookclub.com/the-book-club-plymouth
We'll be talking to people involved in these communities about something we're particularly interested in: what happens when reading stops being a solitary activity and becomes a way to belong?
Celebrate Plymouth's bookshops
World Mental Health Day on 10 October also happens to be Bookshop Day, so there's another very good reason to spend some time browsing.
Independent bookshops can be much more than somewhere to buy a book. They can introduce us to writers we've never encountered, recommend something we'd never have chosen ourselves and create spaces for people with shared interests to find each other.
Plymouth's The Old Queeriosity Shop on Bretonside, for example, is a queer-run independent bookshop specialising in LGBTQIA+ fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children's books, while also working as a community hub.
Visit The Old Queeriosity Shop online:
https://toqs.co.uk/
You'll find more Plymouth bookshops – including places to discover comics and graphic novels – in our full Plymouth Reads guide:
What if you don't think you're a reader?
Then you're exactly the person we want to hear from.
One of the ideas at the heart of the National Year of Reading is to start with something you already love.
Love gaming? There are whole worlds of graphic novels, manga, gaming magazines, guides and fiction to explore.
Football? Read about the game, its players, clubs and history.
Music? Try a musician's memoir, lyrics, journalism or poetry.
Love the sea? Art? Fashion? Gardening? Food? Film? True crime? Plymouth history?
Start there.
Reading doesn't have to begin with somebody telling you which book you should read.
Whatever you're into, take 10 to read into it.
Plymouth's words and stories
We're also interested in the other side of the page – the people putting the words there in the first place.
Throughout our Plymouth Reads coverage we'll be working with Literature Works and people from Plymouth's writing community to explore how reading and writing can bring people together.
We'll be looking at opportunities such as A Very Wordy Afternoon, created by Plymouth Laureate of Words R.C. Thomas, where writers can share poetry, fiction, non-fiction, playwriting and more.
Keep an eye on What’s On Plymouth Culture throughout October as those stories begin to appear.
Take 10 with us this October
So this month, we're setting Plymouth a very simple challenge.
Find ten minutes.
Find something you're interested in.
And read.
Do it alone. Do it with somebody else. Listen instead. Join a group. Visit a library. Browse a bookshop. Pick up a comic. Read to your child. Send somebody a poem. Rediscover something you used to love.
And if ten minutes turns into twenty, even better.
We'll be sharing more Plymouth Reads stories, recommendations, conversations and opportunities throughout October, so follow What’s On Plymouth Culture and tell us what you're reading, where you like to read and the Plymouth reading communities we should know about.
Whatever you're into, take 10 to read into it.
Explore our complete guide to reading in Plymouth:
https://www.plymouthculture.co.uk/whats-on/news/where-to-read-write-browse-and-fall-in-love-with-books-in-plymouth
Find out more about the National Year of Reading:
https://www.goallin.org.uk/
Join the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ attempt on 8 October:
https://literacytrust.org.uk/events/take-10-record-attempt
Find Plymouth Libraries:
https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/libraries
#Take10ToRead #GoAllIn2026 #NationalYearOfReading2026
