Gemma Cairney opens the BBC’s #LovetoRead weekend - The Reading Agency Lectur 2016

In conversation with Reading Agency Chief Executive Sue Wilkinson, Gemma discusses what reading means to her, the barriers faced by people who struggle to read and her activism around young people’s mental health. Her guide to life for young adults, Open: A Toolkit for How Magic and Messed Up Life Can Be will be published by Pan Macmillan in March 2017.

This is the fifth in a series of annual events organised by national charityThe Reading Agency, designed to be a platform for leading writers and public figures to share original, challenging ideas about the future of reading in the UK. Gemma Cairney follows in the footsteps of Jeanette Winterson, Neil Gaiman, Russell Brand and Shami Chakrabarti.

#LovetoRead is a BBC campaign to encourage reading for pleasure and to create a national conversation about books.