One of the things that Sophie's Desk wants to encourage is wider reading. We have reading lists on a range of topics, some linked to a particular syllabus, others designed to improve your general knowledge or just for sheer pleasure. Wherever possible we would encourage you to source books from your local library: libraries are a wonderful asset to a community and, in some areas, they can be vastly underused.

However, if you can't get to the library or you would simply like to purchase the book, we would like to encourage you to buy through this site. If you click on the Amazon links on Sophie's Desk, we will receive a small percentage (about 5%, which works out as about 20p for an average priced paperback) of the cost of the book. This commission comes from Amazon's affiliate programme and in no way increases the price of the book for you. Where the texts have more than one edition, Sophie's Desk will always recommend the cheapest version unless there are good reasons for doing otherwise (for instance, when recommending a Shakespeare play, we will select an edition that includes a glossary, summaries and good critical material).