JK Rowling and Happy Days star Henry Winkler are among those who have been named as the nation's "Literacy Heroes".
Eight others, including schoolchildren, a librarian, teachers, a Romany gypsy storyteller and a prisoner have also earned the accolade.
The first winners of the National Literacy Trust's campaign to find Britain's top 10 Literacy Heroes were unveiled by the Duchess of Cornwall during a reception at Clarence House in London.
Each was picked because of the impact they have had on a community's reading and writing skills, or because they have overcome literacy problems of their own.
Camilla, who is a patron of the National Literacy Trust, launched the campaign in early October after research suggested children were increasingly embarrassed to be seen reading.
Over a two-month period, members of the public nominated hundreds of individuals for the award.
The winners were then chosen by a panel that included best-selling authors Joanna Trollope, Cressida Cowell and Dorothy Koomson, entrepreneur Levi Roots, actor, comedian and writer Miles Jupp, and columnist Lucy Mangan.
JK Rowling was chosen for turning a generation of children into readers.
National Literacy Trust director Jonathan Douglas said: "Our research shows that children's reading performance is declining, children are reading less and are holding more negative attitudes towards reading.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article