Drawing on sociological perspectives on literacy in which reading is viewed upon as a social and cultural practice, situated in the specifics of time and place (Barton & Hamilton, 2012) this symposium will address the significance of volitional reading in peoples’ lives across life stages and diverse national contexts. It attends to an expanded definition of the concept of reading which acknowledges the social, affective and relational dimensions of reading alongside cognitive dimensions (Cremin & Scholes, 2024). The first paper, Informally Talking about Books and Reading (Teresa Cremin & Helen Hendry), will share insights from two studies of UK classrooms that explored children’s book conversations and the social connections among  communities of engaged readers. The second paper, Lived Experiences of Young and Working Adults’ Print and Digital Recreational Reading (Chin Ee Loh), examines Singapore adults’ reading preferences to understand when, why and how they read for leisure, and the platforms through which reading is done. The third paper, Practical performative reading practices in rural woodlands (Stig-Börje Asplund, Birgitta Ljung Egeland, Gabriel Bladh & Martin Stolare) will present results from a three-generational study on rural working-class males in Sweden and their local, place-based reading practices. The symposium constitutes a theoretical, methodological and empirical contribution to contemporary reading research by facilitating nuanced and in depth descriptions of peoples’ volitional reading practices in relation to local and global changes in schools and society.