1994 The Bookworm BBC 1

The Bookworm took a radical new approach to the traditional television book programme, previously confined to late nights on BBC2. Broadcast on Sunday teatimes, it aimed for a family audience and covered a wide range of books with a consciously popular and accessible approach. It was produced by Daisy Goodwin, who went on to edit the first reader-centred poetry anthologies (101 Poems to Save Your Life etc) and to champion poetry on television, and presented by Griff Rhys Jones.

Opening pages from The Bookworm
magazine based on the reader
questionnaire used in library workshops


The Bookworm was the brainchild of BBC Education, who appointed Rachel Van Riel as a consultant to help them make the link to readers and especially to public libraries.  The Bookworm was the first broadcast project to take

on board the reader development approach.  It commissioned a MORI poll on reading habits and included interviews and comments from real readers in every programme alongside those of writers and experts.  The Bookworm Ideas Pack for Librarians was the first formal publication of many of the ideas which had been developed in training workshops with library staff.

The Bookworm was a breakthrough television programme.  Its only weakness was its title – 'bookworm' carries a lot of the negative overtones about reading - dusty, out-of-touch, over-studious, in retreat from life, living in the dark – which Opening the Book was trying to overturn.