Essential Guide for Reading Groups

Citation

Will, C. (2005), "Essential Guide for Reading Groups", Library Review, Vol. 54 No. 3, pp. 201-202. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530510588962

The major part of this book is devoted to a list of 50 books for reading groups. The list is preceded by a short section on setting up and running reading groups. The list – 40 novels and 10 non‐fiction books (mainly autobiographies) – is a very good one. The range of novels selected is impressive, if almost all modern, and is likely to be of interest to many reading groups. The authors include Kate Atkinson, Margaret Atwood, Iain Banks, Angela Carter, Jim Crace, Helen Dunmore, Sebastian Faulks, Barbara Kingsolver, Jay McInerny, Shena Mackay, Anne Michaels, Annie Proulx, Meera Syal, Amy Tan and Barry Unsworth.

Many readers' guides feature brief synopses of books, but this guide goes much further. The synopses are clear and well written, and seem intended to whet the appetites of potential readers. The next section groups the books into themes, so that groups can readily identify topics which may interest them.

The largest section of the book – the detailed guides – include more detailed synopses than in the earlier section, brief author biographies, discussion points for the groups, and suggestions for further reading.

To a new reading group leader these guides provide exactly the right entry points for initiating and sustaining discussion on selected books, and I am sure that even the experienced leader will find the book extremely useful. While trawling round the shelves in a bookshop is one of my favourite activities, it does not make for the structured approach to reading which you find in reading groups. This book provides a focus for reading and the discussion of books which takes some of the risks out of serendipity – you know what you are going to get. Even so, I have the feeling that it is not a closed experience. Those groups who select, read and discuss even a proportion of the books described here will, I believe, have the confidence to approach new texts with a similar degree of enthusiasm and a sharpened critical faculty.

Another short section of the book lists a number of resources – books, magazines, internet and radio – which reading groups might use, and the book concludes with a list of a further 50 books which groups might tackle next.

Perhaps the weakest part of the book is the section on setting up groups. I suspect this is due to its being written and published pre‐“Big Read”. The BBC project has spawned many new book groups of all types, and their information pack on reading groups contains a great deal of help to those who want to start up their own groups. The web site also provides a forum for online discussion of books, and while this form of communication is too often shallow and superficial, there are some genuine nuggets. The other factor not reflected in the book is the public library network's response to the demand for reading groups. Libraries host many groups, or support them through the provision of multiple copies or other facilities. Libraries also provide a framework for reading through programmes of readership development, nationally and regionally. While I am not suggesting that reading groups need to know anything about library infrastructure, they should be aware that in almost all libraries in the UK they will find interest and assistance in setting up and running their groups.