What are you reading today?

It's an endlessly interesting conversation-starter, and we'd like to record your answers on a Flickr gallery

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2012/jan/27/what-are-you-reading-today

What are you reading? is often the start of a great conversation. We swap book recommendations and write about the books we've just readon the site, but now we'd like to invite you to answer the question in pictures – don't tell us, show us.
To do this we have started a Flickr group called What are you reading today? where we invite you to upload your photos and share with us what you are reading. You can post up to seven photos a week in the group, so if you like, you can share what you are reading every day and use it a bit like a visual book diary. This is an experiment so it's up to you which way it goes and what it turns into, but it might be a great way of getting a moving picture of what books are proving the most popular with readers.

The photo can be a picture of you reading your book or just a snap of the cover. As long as we can see the title, we don't mind. And, as library goers across the UK mark Libraries Day on 4 February, this seems the be the perfect moment to show your support for your library by posting a picture of the book you've just borrowed.

If you have any questions, or any problems uploading your photos to the group, please let me know in the thread below. If you're on Twitter you are also welcome to tweet us your photos @guardianbooks.

Readers on the London tube. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian 

Wanted: young readers

Wanted: young readers

The Guardian launches a new adult-free books website for children

• Claire Armitstead
• The Guardian, Tuesday 1 March 2011
• Article history

The new Children's Books website will feature contributions from young people all over the world. Photograph: The Guardian

How far can you trust children to choose their own reading? And, if left to their own devices, will they read at all? These perennially vexing questions have taken on a whole new complexity with the growth of the internet, and its reputation for increasing chatter and diminishing attention span. But research carried out for World Book Day suggests that a growing number of teenagers are using the new technologies not just to chat to friends but for serious reading. From a sample of 505 teens aged between 13 and 18, 40.8% had read a book on a computer, nearly one in five (17.2%) had read one on a mobile phone, and 13.3% on a Tablet or iPad.

Samantha Shipman, who manages the young persons branch of Liverpool's The Reader Organisation (a charity that aims to get people of all ages engaged with reading), says the internet can be a fantastic tool for young readers. "There is a great online resource of poetry, short stories and novels that children and young adults can access easily, cheaply, and enjoy. Anything that encourages young people to read is excellent in my eyes."

The full results of the World Book Day survey will be released on Thursday – the same day that the Guardian launches the first national newspaper books website devoted entirely to young readers.

The Children's Books website will be an adult-free zone, with contributions from an editorial panel of young people (known as curators) from all over the world. So far, 100 have signed up from as far afield as Peru and Egypt, and have been busily at work deciding which books they want to discuss and how to do it.

Our ad hoc research among these 100 pioneers, who we asked to name books they would like to see discussed on the site, paints an impressive picture of the range of their enthusiasms. Cairo, aged 10, who is Scottish but lives in Egypt, said: "My favourite author is Anthony Horowitz. I also like reading Biggles, Asterix, Tintin, the Broons and lots of Star Wars books." Luke, 13, from Nottingham, said: "My favourite modern authors are people like Stephen King, Bill Bryson, Chris Ryan, Andy McNab, Ian Rankin and John Grisham, although I do love classics by people such as Verne, Hugo, Dickens, Maupassant and Dumas. I won't even attempt to name my favourite book, it's impossible!"

The site will be divided into three reading "zones": seven and under, eight to 12 and 13-plus. The question of what to do about the under-sevens, many of whom can't be expected to write their own reviews, posed no problem to 13-year-old Kieran, from Norwich. As the oldest of six, he is used to reading to his younger brothers and sister and is looking forward to reporting their views.

Shipman sounds one note of caution: "If left to their own devices, many children wouldn't read, and that isn't because they dislike reading, it is because they don't recognise it as a worthwhile and enjoyable activity. Once we have got them reading for pleasure, we should trust young people to choose for themselves. It's when they are forced to read books they don't enjoy that they stop reading."

The children's website will be at guardian.co.uk/childrensbooks from Thursday. To get involved, or tell us what you think, email us on childrens.books@guardian.co.uk