We learned about the Big City Reads project, which is giving away thousands of books to Nottingham’s youngsters

At LeftLion we’re medically unable to turn down a freebie. Free trials, samples, gifts - we’ve been roped in before and we will be again - sometimes we go out for curry just to get mints with the bill. So dedicated are we to being gratis that you won’t even be charged for the premium mag you have in your hands now, if you can believe such a thing. But the team behind the Big City Reads project have decided to take freeness to a whole new level. This summer they’re giving out 2000 books to Nottingham’s young people.

The Romans knew a thing or two about free books. Liber is the Latin word for ‘free’. From there we get to liberate the enslaved, to deliver the goods - to be a liberal libertine flying the flag of liberty. But the same word liber also meant ‘book’ - for the ancient Romans, freedom was reading and reading was freedom, and it was hard to have one without the other.

These days, though, reading can set you back. A glossy two kilo hardback at your bookshop of choice might leave your wallet thirty quid lighter. For now, thankfully, we still have libraries (another word which comes from liber) like Nottingham’s new Central Library, although some of the city’s smaller libraries like Aspley’s are threatened by poor financial straits, and nothing should be taken for granted.

Sometimes it’s nice to own your own book as well - to deface the margins with scribbles, to fold the corners of your favourite passages, to accidentally melt a Galaxy Ripple onto page 37, to bend the spine when the plot gets tense by gripping too hard. And having books at home isn’t just a luxury - a recent study across 31 countries found that teens who had grown up around books displayed the equivalent literacy level of university graduates who hadn’t. Every bookshelf is a plank of wisdom nailed to the drywall.

That’s where the idea for the Big City Reads project, run by Nottingham City of Literature, begins. From 1 July until mid August, they’ve got 2000 free copies of some of the best Young Adult books, which they’ll be giving out to teenagers and young people, particularly focussing on some of the areas of Nottingham which can have more difficulty accessing books. These aren’t just any old dusty tomes either - they’ve been carefully selected from a longlist of 56 by Nottingham City of Literature’s Youth Board and young ambassadors, to be as gripping and enlightening as they know books can be.

Those four free stories (colourful covers pictured) are Vern: Custodian of the Universe by Tyrell Waiters, an intergalactic romp starring a protagonist who sets off to clean up ‘black holes, space-time anomalies and galactic ooze’. Then there’s Stand Up Ferran Burke by Steven Camden, a slice-of-life tale about a lonely high schooler told in a unique way, dealing with friends, fights, family and food.

There’s Electric Life by Rachel Delahaye, too, which follows master gamer Alana as she’s sent deep down to the mysterious city of London Under. The set is completed with Seven Million Sunflowers by Malcolm Duffy, in which teenager Kateryno’s home in Ukraine is hit by a missile, prompting her and her family to set off with determination towards England. All four books can be taken home and enjoyed without paying a penny.

These four books, it seems to us, reflect the full scope of imagination and empathy that our young people have, and the theme for the project this year, says Nottingham City of Literature’s Executive Director Hannah Trevarthen, is ‘Belonging’.

“Books,” said Hannah, “can be a source of inspiration, comfort, and connection… We believe that by fostering a love of reading and exploring themes of acceptance and identity, we can help young people feel a stronger sense of belonging within their communities and the wider world.”

That’s the trick, isn’t it. To live somewhere is one thing, to belong quite another. To be a young person is often to feel in that precarious position - what’s my place, who are my people, where do I fit in? Part of the stress and joy of growing up is to work out where we’ll find our home, or whether we can make a home under our feet, in the place we’re from. At LeftLion we have a go at building up that sense of belonging in Nottingham, and so it’s a real pleasure to endorse Big City Reads this summer.

The four authors of the selected books have felt some of Notts’ magnetic pull too. The three British authors will be coming here to appear at local schools, while Tyrell Waiters, author of Vern: Custodian of the Universe is beavering away creating a bespoke piece of artwork to send across the Atlantic just for us. Perhaps they’ll all feel a bit of Nottingham belonging when the project concludes.

“This I would fight for,” said the Californian writer John Steinbeck, “the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes”. Freedom and books, libertà e libri, they complement each other nicely. Pick up a freebie, open a story and find you’ve belonged there all along.

You’ll be able to get hold of the four books at 150 locations around Nottingham. For details of these sites, and other events connected to the Big City Reads project this summer, visit nottinghamcityofliterature.com or follow @nottmcityoflit.