Reading for fun transforms lives, but we’re losing the habit. Six months ago The Sunday Times decided it was time to act, starting a campaign to Get Britain Reading. The statistics confirm there is indeed a crisis in reading: only one in three children say they read in their spare time, and one in eight do not own a book. So it felt like a good time to trawl through our vast archives and see how the nation read throughout the decades. These photographs bridge decades, generations and professions, from babies and the elderly to pop stars and pilots.

Source: The Times April 04, 2026 17:32 UTC