http://www.readinggroups.org/ en Copyright 2012 Tue, 15 May 2012 16:56:00 +0100 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Are you promoting the Orange Prize for Fiction in your library in a unique way? If so, two lucky librarians can win tickets to the Orange Prize awards ceremony. We have two tickets to the Orange Prize ceremony for the library that is promoting the Orange Prize shortlist in the most innovative way. Whether it's through reading groups, an unusual display, or a shortlist event, please send details of your fun and creative ideas, in no more than 200 words, to Juliana Oliver by 5pm on Wednesday 16 May. We are looking for innovative ideas so that we can include them in a special press release about libraries work around the Orange Prize. The winning library will win two tickets to the awards ceremony on Wednesday 30 May at the Royal Festival Hall in London. We regret that we cannot pay travel expenses. http://www.readinggroups.org/offers/calling-all-libraries.html http://www.readinggroups.org/offers/calling-all-libraries.html Competitions Offers Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 The winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012 has just been announced. Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld, translated by Jeffrey M Green from the Hebrew, published by Alma Books At 80, Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld is the oldest author to win the prestigious Prize, following on from the youngest ever winner, Santiago Roncagliolo, who won the Prize last year. The £10,000 award is shared equally with Appelfeld's American translator, Jeffrey M Green. Aharon Appelfeld said: Blooms of Darkness is a work of fiction that includes my personal experience during the Second World War. I wanted to explore the darkest places of human behaviour and to show that even there, generosity and love can survive; that humanity and love can overcome cruelty and brutality. It is a joy to win the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize alongside Jeffrey M Green - he is a highly professional translator and I love his work. Jeffrey M Green said: Translators are humble people by nature, so it is astonishing and gratifying for translators to be honoured by the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Clearly, if Blooms of Darkness had not been excellent, even an excellent translation would not have won this Prize, but a bad translation would certainly have destroyed the excellence of the original. It has been a privilege to be Aharon's voice in English. About the book The ghetto in which the Jews have been confined is being liquidated by the Nazis, and eleven-year-old Hugo is brought by his mother to the local brothel, where one of the prostitutes has agreed to hide him. Mariana is a bitterly unhappy woman who hates what she has done to her life, and night after night Hugo sits in her closet and listens uncomprehendingly as she rages at the Nazi soldiers who come and go. When she's not mired in self-loathing, Mariana is fiercely protective of the bewildered, painfully polite young boy. And Hugo becomes protective of Mariana, too, trying to make her laugh when she is depressed, soothing her physical and mental agony with cold compresses. As the memories of his family and friends grow dim, Hugo falls in love with Mariana. And as her life spirals downwards, Mariana reaches out for consolation to the adoring boy who is on the cusp of manhood. Get involved Find out more about this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist. Has your reading group read Blooms of Darkness? Do let us know what you think. http://www.readinggroups.org/news/independent-foreign-fiction-prize-announce-winner.html http://www.readinggroups.org/news/independent-foreign-fiction-prize-announce-winner.html News Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 The Reading Agency is working with Culture 24 to get more writers into more places, so we're really pleased to announce that as part of the 2012 Museums at Night Festival, reading groups and book clubs can get to see and hear four top writers talking about their work at leading cultural venues. Museums at Night is the annual after-hours celebration of arts, culture and heritage when hundreds of museums, galleries, libraries, archives and heritage sites open their doors for special evening events. It takes place over the weekend of Friday 18th - Sunday 20th May 2012. Museums at Night author events Friday 18 May Man Booker prize nominated novelist Jon McGregor will be at Dundee Discovery Point. He will use photos, videos, maps, a suitcase full of props and mysterious works from his latest book, This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You, for a short story performance. 1900-2000, free admission. Craig Taylor, whose book Londoners: The Days And Nights Of London Now captures the thoughts and feelings of hundreds of the capital's inhabitants, will be doing a reading at the London Transport Museum. 1900-2200, tickets £8 (£6 concessions) Hugh Barker, whose Hedge Britannia celebrates the glory of the hedge, will be at Lyme Regis Museum discussing how we became a nation of gardeners. 1830-2000, free admission. Saturday 19 May Veteran war reporter, ITN news anchorman and Afghanistan expert Sandy Gall will be at Surgeons' Hall Museum, Edinburgh to talk about his book War Against The Taliban: Why It All Went Wrong In Afghanistan. 1800, free admission. Keep up to date with what's happening at Museums at Night on Twitter. http://www.readinggroups.org/news/authors-at-museums-at-night.html http://www.readinggroups.org/news/authors-at-museums-at-night.html Events News Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 GATZ is coming to London for a strictly limited season and is presented as part of LIFT (The London International Festival of Theatre). It is a sensational, word-for-word dramatisation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. 'The most remarkable achievement in theatre not only of this year but also of this decade.' The New York Times To win 5 tickets, we are asking reading groups to submit a 2 minute video review of The Great Gatsby. The video must be entertaining and inspired by the roaring 1920s. The deadline for entries is Friday 25th May. The winners must be available to travel to London to see the play on Friday 8 June for the 2.30pm showing. Your reading group will also win a set of a newly released paperback of The Great Gatsby. For more information on how to enter the competition, go to our GATZ page. http://www.readinggroups.org/offers/win-tickets-to-see-gatz.html http://www.readinggroups.org/offers/win-tickets-to-see-gatz.html Competitions Offers Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 If you're in a reading group or book club in Norwich or Norfolk then check out Summer Reads. Between May and July the Writers Centre Norwich and Norfolk Library Services are inviting readers, reading groups and book clubs to read, meet and talk about five brilliantly written and readable books. Perfect whether you're in a book club looking for sure fire hits to share, or a lone reader just wanting something good to read. But reading the books is just the start - with Summer Reads you can fully immerse yourself in the world of the book and meet lots of other people too. Download loads of extra info and resources on the books; meet the authors of the books in their special events; meet other readers at book clubs and book quizzes and join the buzz online. Last but not least, you can win some book tokens by voting for your favourite read. Get involved with the 2012 Summer Reads books The five Summer Reads books are: All That I Am, Anna Funder: 1st - 20th May Before I Go To Sleep, SJ Watson: 21st May - 10th June Open City, Teju Cole: 11th June - 1st July Of Mutability, Jo Shapcott: 2nd - 15 July Down the Rabbit Hole, Juan Pablo Villalobos: 16th - 27th July The dates alongside the book correspond to when the books will be discussed online and when the WCN book club will be meeting to discuss them. Book clubs and reading groups can borrow the books from your local library or buy them from participating bookshops. More information about how you do this here. Find out more Summer Reads and how you can get involved. http://www.readinggroups.org/news/get-involved-with-summer-reads.html http://www.readinggroups.org/news/get-involved-with-summer-reads.html General News Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 We gave away reading group sets of Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada. If your reading group or book club has read the book, please do use this page to post your reviews and see what other reading group members think of it. About the book Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways - the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive the news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France. Shocked out of their quiet existence, they begin a silent campaign of defiance and a deadly game of cat and mouse develops between the Quangels and the ambitious Gestapo inspector Escherich. When petty criminals Kluge and Borkhausen also become involved, deception, betrayal and murder ensue, tightening the noose around the Quangels' necks ... About the author Hans Fallada was one of the best-known German writers of the twentieth century. Born in 1893 in Greifswald as Rudolf Wilhelm Adolf Ditzen, he took his pen name from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. His most famous works include the novels Little Man, What Now? and The Drinker. Fallada died from an overdose of morphine on 5 February 1947 in Berlin. About the translator Michael Hofmann is the author of several books of poems and a book of criticism, Behind the Lines, and the translator of many modern and contemporary authors. Penguin publish his translations of Kafka's Metamorphosis and Other Stories and Irmgard Keun's Child of All Nations. Post your reading group reviews Post your reviews of Alone in Berlin here. If you're already a member, just login. If you're not, join and post your comment. We look forward to reading your reviews http://www.readinggroups.org/tips/reading-group-reviews-alone-in-berlin-by-hans-fallada.html http://www.readinggroups.org/tips/reading-group-reviews-alone-in-berlin-by-hans-fallada.html Reading group reviews Tips Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 To celebrate the launch of Mood Boosting Books, we gave away reading group sets of Mark Haddon's A Spot of Bother which features in our Mood Boosting Books list. If your reading group or book club has read the book, please do use this page to post your reviews and see what other reading group members think of it. About the book George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything._ 'The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely'._ Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has 'strangler's hands'. Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart - and come together - as a family is the true subject of Mark Haddon's disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. About the author Mark Haddon is an author, illustrator and screenwriter who has written fifteen books for children and won two BAFTAs. His bestselling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was published simultaneously by Jonathan Cape and David Fickling in 2003. It won seventeen literary prizes, including the Whitbread Award. His poetry collection, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea was published by Picador in 2005. Follow Mark on Twitter. Post your reading group reviews Post your reviews of A Spot of Bother here. If you're already a member, just login. If you're not, join and post your comment. We look forward to reading your reviews http://www.readinggroups.org/tips/reading-group-reviews-a-spot-of-bother-by-mark-haddon.html http://www.readinggroups.org/tips/reading-group-reviews-a-spot-of-bother-by-mark-haddon.html Mood Boosting Books Reading group reviews Tips Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 We gave reading groups and book clubs sets of Lucky Break by Esther Freud. Do use this page to post your reviews and see what other reading group members think of the book. About the book It is their first day at Drama Arts and the circle of huddled, nervous students are told in no uncertain terms that here, unlike at any other drama school, they will be taught to Act. To Be. To exist in their own world on the stage. But outside is the real world - a pitiless, alluring place in which each of them in their most fervent dreams, hopes to flourish and excel. Nell, insecure and dumpy, wonders if she will ever be cast as anything other than the maid. She'll never compete, she knows this, with the multitude of confident, long-legged beauties thronging the profession most notably Charlie, whose effortless ascendance is nothing less than she expects. While Dan, ambitious and serious, has his sights fixed on Hamlet, as well as on fiery, rebellious Jemma. Over the following decade these young actors will grapple with haphazard tours, illogical auditions, unobtainable agents, deluxe caravans, rocky relationships and red-carpet premieres. This dazzling new novel from Esther Freud uncovers a world of ruthless ambition, uncertain alliances and the many-sided holy grail of Success. About the author Novelist Esther Freud was born in London in 1963, the daughter of the artist Lucian Freud. She trained as an actress at the Drama Centre and has appeared in and written for various productions for both stage and television. She is also co-founder with fellow actress and novelist, Kitty Aldridge, of the women's theatre company Norfolk Broads. Esther Freud was named as one of the 20 Best of Young British Novelists by Granta magazine in 1993. Her debut novel, Hideous Kinky (1992), evokes the bohemian childhood of two young children accompanying their mother in her search for freedom and adventure in 1960s Morocco. The novel, which was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet. Freud's second novel, Peerless Flats (1993), set in London in the 1970s, is centred around Lisa, a teenage drama student who lives in a block of flats with her mother and five-year-old brother. Gaglow (1997), shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction, is told by an out-of-work actress as she is painted by her artist father, and interwoven with the story of her German ancestors and their estate at Gaglow. Themes of family, step-family and childhood are again at the heart of The Wild, published in 2000. The Sea House (2003), is a love story set in a seaside village in Suffolk. Esther Freud lives in London and Southwold, Suffolk. Post your reading group reviews Post your reviews of Lucky Break here. If you're already a member, just login. If you're not, join and post your comment. We look forward to reading your reviews http://www.readinggroups.org/tips/reading-group-reviews-lucky-break-by-esther-freud.html http://www.readinggroups.org/tips/reading-group-reviews-lucky-break-by-esther-freud.html Reading group reviews Tips Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 To celebrate the release of Dork Diaries: Skating Sensation by Rachel Renee Russell, Simon and Schuster are offering party packs to help you host Dork Day in your library. Each pack contains seven different activity sheets, Dork Day button stickers (30 per pack) and an A4 Dork Day poster. Packs are given away on a first-come first-served basis and you can sign up for your pack here. The deadline for entering is 20 May. About the book Nikki Maxwell isn't at all surprised to find out that her crush Brandon volunteers at a local animalshelter. He's such a sweet guy! Then Brandon tells her that the shelter is in danger of closing, and Nikki knows she can't let that happen. So Nikki and her friends enter an ice skatingcompetition to help raise money for the shelter, but Mackenzie is out to cause trouble. Nikki just won't let that happen and she'll just have to come up with some extra creative ideas this time! http://www.readinggroups.org/offers/host-a-dork-day-in-your-library.html http://www.readinggroups.org/offers/host-a-dork-day-in-your-library.html Chatterbooks Offers Promotions for reading groups Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100 We teamed up with We Love This Book to give reading groups and book clubs sets of bestselling author Adele Parks' books to read and review. Do use this page to post your reviews and see what other reading groups think of the books. About the books Tell Me Something When Elizabeth and her Italian husband Roberto decide to leave London for romantic Italy and his family business, Elizabeth hopes the change in lifestyle might help boost her chances of conceiving their longed for child. But the idyll shatters as her wily mother-in-law seems bent on destroying her marriage, and Roberto's beautiful, significant ex is a constant unwanted presence. Unwanted by Elizabeth, at least. Is Elizabeth's ferocious hunger for a baby enough to hold a marriage together or is it ripping it apart? And what about the gorgeous American stranger who's suddenly walked into her life? Husbands Love triangles are always complex but in Bella's case things are particularly so as she is married to both men in her triangle. Bella secretly married Stevie when they were at university, two big kids playing at being grown ups. Whenit all unravelled and reality hit, Bella simply left. Years later, Bella met Philip and they fell in love. Still technically married, but desperately ashamed of her secret, Bella never found a way to tell Phil and Stevie. The moment has well and truly passed, as Bella and Phil are now married too. Bella believes she can keep her past a secret - after all Stevie is no longer part of her life. That is until, her best friend Laura, introduces her new man to Bella and it's none other than husband number one. Love Lies Ferm is staring thirty in the face and she believes a romantic wedding should be the next step for her and long-termlove Adam, but he just won't go down on one knee. Then a chance meeting catapults her out of her everyday existence and into a girl's ultimate fantasy - being swept away by Prince Charming to a life of luxury, wealth and celebrity. But is her whirlwind romance with pop star Scottie Taylor everything it seems? Modern day Cinderall Fern is forced to ask herself if a fairy tale ending is possible in such a modern rock and roll world... About Adele Parks Adele Parks worked in advertising until she published her first novel, Playing Away, in 2000, which was the debut bestseller of that year. Adele has gone on to publish eleven novels in eleven years, and all of her novels have been top ten bestsellers. Her work has been translated in to twenty-five different languages. Adele has spent her adult life in Italy, Botswana and London until 2005 when she moved to Guildford, where she now lives with her husband and son. Adele believes reading is a basic human right, so she works closely with the Reading Agency as an ambassador of the Six Book Challenge, a programme designed to encourage adult literacy. Follow Adele Parks on Twitter. Post your reading group reviews Post your reading group reviews of Adele's books here. If you're already a member, just login. If you're not, join and post your comment. We look forward to reading your reviews. http://www.readinggroups.org/tips/reading-group-reviews-adele-parks.html http://www.readinggroups.org/tips/reading-group-reviews-adele-parks.html Reading group reviews Tips Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:36 +0100