He also wrote "Conspirator: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Tyler Kent, Spy" with Ray Bearse. On his own he wrote "The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle" (2003) and "The World On Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism (2008) ". Read's solo non-fiction works followed a similar interest in World War II, but he occasionally wrote prose fiction. He was the main writer of a series of novels about "The Baker Street Boys", a television show for which he wrote in the early 1980s. Read was an active member of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, serving as chair between 1981 and 1982. He drew up an industry-wide code of practice on behalf of the young writers he was committed to nurturing, never taking pay or expenses for his work on the guild’s behalf. He was also a director of the associated Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society. He co-wrote a submission from the Writers’ Guild and the Directors and Producers Association to the Annan committee on the future of broadcasting that was subsequently used as part of the charter agreement for establishing Channel 4.