da2d Tips http://readinggroups.org/tips/ Tips and tricks from the team and people running the groups en Copyright 2013 Fri, 10 May 2013 10:11:00 +0100 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Author focus: Graeme Simsion answers our questions We caught up with Graeme Simsion while he was visiting Britain to promote his new book The Rosie Project. We asked him about his reading habits, where he got his inspiration and his future writing plans. The interview For anyone who hasn't read The Rosie Project, can you give us the plot in a couple of lines? A socially-awkward genetics professor sets out to find a wife the only way he knows how - scientifically. After his 16-page questionnaire fails to find the perfect woman, he meets Rosie, a feisty barmaid who ticks none of Don's boxes. But she needs Don for a quest of her own - to find her biological father. Don is an interesting, charming and funny character. Is he based on any people you know? I brought together two separate story ideas - the socially-inept man looking for love and the woman looking for her father. The first idea came from a friend's quest. The second I'd had fifteen years earlier, and given to my partner, who had abandoned it. Both were dramas - the switch to comedy came as I developed the story. Don's character was inspired and informed by people I've met in information technology and academe. And, as with all my characters, there's a dash of me in him. The book is funny as well as moving, how important do you think that is? And how did you achieve that tricky balance of being sympathetic of a character with Asperger's and being comedic at the same time. I think the success of the book has a lot to do with it being funny. There are plenty of moving or thought-provoking books out there, but it's actually quite hard to be laugh-out-loud funny on the page. I feel Don is a gift there - wherever he goes, there's the prospect of comedy. I prefer the word 'empathetic' to 'sympathetic' here, because I see Don as being different rather than disabled. He's a fish out of water - and that's a very traditional comedy premise. The beauty of it is that it cuts both ways - sometimes we laugh at his failure to grasp the culture around him, but equally we laugh when he exposes the sometimes irrational assumptions of that culture. Think Crocodile Dundee in LA - sometimes he looks the fool, but then he pulls out his knife... But we're also, from the first word ('I'), asked to identify with Don. So we may be laughing, but we're on his side, rooting for him as the Americans say. You'd originally intended for the story to be a screenplay. Did you find it challenging going from writing screenplays to writing a novel? At what point did you decide it was a novel? The re-writing as a novel was very easy. I had characters, story, even dialogue. I needed to add Don's thoughts, which were not on the page, but after five years of developing the screenplay were very much in my head. It took seven weeks from start to the manuscript that got me the publishing deal. The timing was basically when I'd 'finished' with the screenplay - it had done its job of getting a producer (who I later bought out) interested. How have people you've met responded to the book? And what's been the most interesting question you've been asked about the book? So far the feedback has been great - especially from the autism / Asperger's community, which I'm very happy about. My goal was to make people laugh, cry and think - and I'm pleased that it seems to be able to do all three in many cases. I wanted it to be funny and readable, but have something below the surface if people wanted to go there. Overall, the Italian press asked the most intellectual questions - they were interested in the ideas in the book, which was a bit of a challenge for a jet-lagged author! One asked "is society becoming more autistic?" - a great question that I've reflected on since. I just hope my answer at the time made sense. (Yes, if we think of the term broadly, perhaps it is. Social media in particular can give us connection without intimacy.) What do libraries mean to you? Why are they important? Well, right now, I think of libraries as hosting book events. I'm going to one tonight! And, for me, the service they provide in bringing people - especially local people - together around books or other culture is their most important service. I'm not much of a book borrower, but The Rosie Project has opened my eyes to how important that aspect is to many members of the community who would not read my book otherwise. Our mission is to inspire people to read more, we're passionate about giving everyone an equal chance in life by helping people become enthusiastic readers. How important is reading in your own life and what book would you recommend to a reluctant young reader? Reading is central to my life. Like many males, I read a lot of non-fiction, and in the last five years I've read less fiction as I've been writing myself. I've had to draw on what I've read in the past! To a reluctant reader - of any age - I would forget about any idea of imposing my idea of 'quality' - the most important thing is to read something that keeps you turning the pages. I'd certainly consider non-fiction. Try Shackleton's Diaries, the latest fantasy series (before it gets to the screen) if that appeals, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, any of the page-turning thrillers - Ludlum, Shibumi by Trevanian, or, may I humbly suggest, The Rosie Project... I'm probably showing my age with this selection. Your top five favourite books of all time I feel like Rob in High Fidelity, pondering the list for years, then panicking when actually asked. I re-think it all the time. And the books are chosen because they affected me at a particular time, which has as much to do with where I was at as the intrinsic quality of the book. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (makes the reader laugh, cry, think. That's my aim.) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn (read at 15 - for me, a powerful statement about human nature.) Gödel Escher Bach - Douglas Hofstadter (Read when I was a computer / maths geek. A bit of a cult book amongst us.) The Third Chimpanzee - Jared Diamond (Eye opening as is Guns Germs and Steel). The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields (A few scenes that have stuck with me. The man throwing away his possessions and walking to the Orkneys is an image that I have a special affinity for.) The most important book you've never read Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl The book that changed your life The Unkindest Cut - Joe Queenan - this inspired me to make a low-budget feature film and set me off on a writing career. Which book do you wish you'd written The sequel to The Rosie Project. Nice to get it done! Anything else implies being someone other than me, or having different ambitions. I could say Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan, because to write it I'd have to be the most influential artist of the 20th Century, or A Brief History of Time, because I'd have realised my original ambition of being a theoretical physicist. But I'm totally happy with where I am and where I'm going. I am in awe of some literary writers that I don't believe I could emulate - James Joyce's Ulysses comes to mind - but that's not what I wish I'd written. OK, if I'm not allowed to be precious, I'll pick Hofstadter's Gödel Escher Bach - original, reflects a renaissance mind, and got a Pulitzer... The best fan mail you ever got A tweet from a bookseller who had a guy who had never read a book come into the shop. She gave him The Rosie Project. What's next for you? A sequel. And the screenplay - The Rosie Project has been optioned to Sony Pictures and I have the job or updating my screenplay. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is published by Michael Joseph, £12.99 hardback Get involved Follow Graeme Simsion on Twitter. Or visit Graeme's website. Have you or your reading group read The Rosie Project? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Please post your comments below or email them to us. http://readinggroups.org/tips/author-focus-graeme-simsion-answers-our-questions.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/author-focus-graeme-simsion-answers-our-questions.html Author focus Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 Author focus: Damian Barr Damian Barr's new novel Maggie & Me, a memoir of his childhood in Margaret Thatcher's Britain, is published today. Find out more about Damian, his book and the reason he loves libraries in this month's author focus. About Maggie & Me It's 12 October 1984. An IRA bomb blows apart the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Miraculously, Margaret Thatcher survives. In small-town Scotland, eight-year-old Damian Barr watches in horror as his mum rips her wedding ring off and packs their bags. He knows he, too, must survive. Damian, his sister and his Catholic mum move in with her sinister new boyfriend while his Protestant dad shacks up with the glamorous Mary the Canary. Divided by sectarian suspicion, the community is held together by the sprawling Ravenscraig Steelworks. But darkness threatens as Maggie takes hold - she snatches school milk, smashes the unions and makes greed good. Following Maggie's advice, Damian works hard and plans his escape. He discovers that stories can save your life and - in spite of violence, strikes, AIDS and Clause 28 - manages to fall in love dancing to Madonna in Glasgow's only gay club. Maggie & Me is a touching and darkly witty memoir about surviving Thatcher's Britain - a story of growing up gay in a straight world and coming out the other side in spite of, and maybe because of, the Iron lady. About the author Damian Barr is a journalist, writer and salonnière. Shortlisted for a British Press Award, he has been a journalist for over a decade writing mostly for The Times but also the Independent, Independent on Sunday, Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Evening Standard and Granta. He is currently Literary Editor of House magazine. He hosts his infamous Literary Salon at Shoreditch House where guests include Bret Easton Ellis, John Waters, Polly Samson, James Frey, David Nicholls, Colm Toibin, Jojo Moyes, Taiye Selasi, Alex Preston, David Mitchell, DBC Pierre and Naomi Alderman. He has hosted events with the British Council, the Orange Prize, Hay, the BBC National Short Story Award and the Man Booker Prize. Damian has also co-written two plays for Radio 4 and appeared on Front Row, PM and Today as well as The Verb. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts , Faculty at the School of Life and runs the Reading Weekend at Tilton House and Turnberry Resort. He lives in Brighton with his partner and their intensely demanding urban chickens. He is tireless and giving in his search for the perfect martini. You can follow Damian on Twitter. Damian Barr on why he loves libraries http://readinggroups.org/tips/author-focus-damian-barr.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/author-focus-damian-barr.html Author focus Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 The Sea Sisters reading group reviews We gave 10 reading groups the chance to read and review Lucy Clarke's gripping debut novel, The Sea Sisters (published by HarperCollins). About The Sea Sisters There are some currents in the relationship between sisters that run so dark and so deep, it's better for the people swimming on the surface never to know what's beneath... Katie's carefully structured world is shattered by the news that her headstrong younger sister, Mia, has been found dead in Bali - and the police claim it was suicide. With only the entries of Mia's travel journal as her guide, Katie retraces the last few months of her sister's life, and - page by page, country by country - begins to uncover the mystery surrounding her death. What she discovers changes everything. But will her search for the truth push their sisterly bond - and Katie - to breaking point? 'A thrilling and perceptive debut that explores the complex relationship between sisters and loss at its rawest. Trust us, you won't be able to put it down.' Cosmopolitan About the author Lucy Clarke studied English Literature at Cardiff University. She has worked as an advertising executive and a presenter of enterprise events for students. She is now a full-time novelist. She spends her winters travelling and her summers at her home near Bournemouth, where she lives with her husband, James. Author image credit: James Bowden Extras Download a reading guide for The Sea Sisters here. Get involved Are you and your book group reading The Sea Sisters? If so, we would love to hear what your group thinks of this book. Leave a comment below or email us. http://readinggroups.org/tips/the-sea-sisters-reviews.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/the-sea-sisters-reviews.html Reading group reviews Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 The Shock of the Fall reading group guide We teamed up with HarperCollins to give away 50 reading group sets of The Shock of the Fall by debut novelist Nathan Filer. About the book 'I'll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name's Simon. I think you're going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he'll be dead. And he was never the same after that.' The Shock of the Fall is an extraordinary portrait of one man's descent into mental illness. It is a brave and groundbreaking novel from one of the most exciting new voices in fiction. About the author Nathan Filer is a registered mental health nurse. He is also a performance poet, contributing regularly to literary events across the UK. His work has been broadcast on television and radio. The Shock of the Fall is his first novel. Extras Download the promotional poster here. Read an extract of The Shock of the Fall here. Download the reading group guide to The Shock of the Fall, with questions to spark conversation and an interview with author, Nathan Filer. Get involved Are you and your book group reading The Shock of the Fall? If so, we would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or email us. http://readinggroups.org/tips/the-shock-of-the-fall.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/the-shock-of-the-fall.html Reading group reviews Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 Canongate virtual book club: The Heart Broke In This March Canongate's virtual book club are reading James Meek's latest novel The Heart Broke In. The virtual book club is a place where people get together and discuss all things literary. About The Heart Broke In Bec Shepherd is a malaria researcher struggling to lead a good life. Ritchie, her reprobate brother, is a rock star turned TV producer. When Bec refuses an offer of marriage from a powerful newspaper editor and Ritchie's indiscretions catch up with him, brother and sister are forced to choose between loyalty and betrayal. The Heart Broke In is an old-fashioned story of modern times, a rich, ambitious family drama of love, death and money in the era of gene therapy and Internet exposes. From the author of the 'spellbinding' (Guardian), 'quite extraordinary' (Philip Pullman), 'startlingly original' (Mail on Sunday) novel, The People's Act of Love. About James Meek James Meek was born in London in 1962 and grew up in Dundee. His novel The People's Act of Love (2005) won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the SAC Book of the Year Award, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and has been published in more than thirty countries. His novel We Are Now Beginning our Descent (2008) won the Prince Maurice Prize. He is the author of two other novels and two collections of short stories. His journalism has won a number of British and international awards. He lives in London. Extras Watch a video interview of James Meek talking about The Heart Broke In. Download questions for your reading group to provoke thoughtful discussion around The Heart Broke In. Get involved Are you and your book group reading The Heart Broke In? If so, we would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or email us. http://readinggroups.org/tips/canongate-virtual-book-club-the-heart-broke-in.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/canongate-virtual-book-club-the-heart-broke-in.html Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 Author focus: David Baldacci answers our questions Last week we caught up with best selling crime author, David Baldacci, asking him about his reading habits, his love of libraries and his charitable work in America. You do a lot of charitable work and established the Wish You Well Foundation. Will you tell us a little bit about the programme and your involvement? My wife and I created the Wish You Well Foundation to fund family literacy programmes across the United States. I am chairman of the board; we meet four times a year and review thousands of applications for grants. We fund as many as we can. We also run a program called Feeding Body and Mind. On my book tours I collect books from fans. We then ship those books to local area food banks around the country on the theory that people seeking food assistance often have low reading skills. Putting books in their homes and literacy as a focal point in their lives can lift them out of poverty and help make them self-sustaining. To date we've collected and shipped out over a million books. Over 500 libraries in the UK are taking part in a campaign to promote your books and push you up the most borrowed charts. What do libraries mean to you? Why are they important? I was a library rat. I grew up going to the library every week and checking out as many books as I could. I traveled the world and the eons through books. Reading is what made me want to be a writer. Make no mistake: libraries are the bastion of freedom and democracy. The first thing dictators do when they take over a country is shut all the libraries and burn books. Why? Because libraries represent the ultimate freedoms: speech and expression. They are the epicenter of democracy. They represent ideas and different opinions. No wonder dictators hate them. We should fund libraries to the fullest. When people read and become better educated and more enlightened every societal ill we have, from crime to poverty, decreases. The Reading Agency is a charity with a mission to inspire people to read more, we're passionate about giving everyone an equal chance in life by helping people become enthusiastic readers. How important is reading in your own life and what book would you recommend to a reluctant adult reader? I read every day. It's a passion of mine and is part of my life. I look forward to the moment when I can sit and fall back into an imaginary world someone has created for me. I'd recommend Murder on the Orient Express. Reluctant readers need books that are gripping from the get-go so they won't feel the impulse to put them down. Agatha Christie was a true storyteller. And her books are fun! Your top five favourite books of all time To Kill A Mockingbird, Hound of the Baskervilles, The Cider House Rules, A Tale of Two Cities and Sophie's Choice. The most important book you've never read Atlas Shrugged. The book that changed your life In Cold Blood. I read it while I was a security guard at night paying my way through college. I was supposed to make rounds but I stayed in the guard shack all night reading Capote's "nonfiction novel." It scared me to death but also provided inspiration. Your most memorable author moment When a fan asked me to inscribe in her boyfriend's book the fact that she was accepting his marriage proposal. Which book do you wish you'd written A tie between the Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes series. Hey, I like to aim high. The best fan mail you ever got I've received fan mail from presidents and other VIPs, but the one that sticks out is from the woman who wrote and said her terminally ill father asked for my novel Wish You Well. He lay in bed reading it for two days. When he finished, he laid it down on his chest and passed away, peacefully. Books can be your best friends and your greatest comfort at times. What's next for you? We're finishing up the film of Wish You Well. The King and Maxwell television series will be premiering on TNT in June. I'm getting ready for the release of The Hit in April, and working on the next book for the fall. And I'm coming to London in April for the London Book Fair. See you there! The Hit by David Baldacci is published in April. Libraries take-up the David Baldacci reader challenge Readers were inspired to try a new author and the campaign highlighted crime writing in general to many who hadn't considered it before. Librarian At the end of 2012 we launched the David Baldacci reader challenge in 500 libraries across the UK with Pan MacMillan. The campaign aimed to introduce readers to David's books and push him up UK libraries' Most Borrowed list. We also ran a competition for the best library display during the challenge.To view all the brilliant displays, please check out our photoset on Flickr. Has your reading group read any David Baldacci books? Let us know what you think. Find a crime reading group to join. http://readinggroups.org/tips/author-focus/author-focus-david-baldacci-answers-our-questions.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/author-focus/author-focus-david-baldacci-answers-our-questions.html Author focus Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 Capital Reads: top tips for running events for readers Susanna Thomas, Senior Branch Librarian at Rhydypennau Library in Cardiff, runs successful events with the support of a team of volunteers called Capital Reads. They aim to offer three or four quality events for free to the public each year. So far they have held 'How to get published' events with e-published,self-published and traditionally published authors telling their tips on writing a book and then getting it published; 'Meet the author' events, including a first showing of Owen Sheers' 'Resistance' followed by a Q&A with the author himself as well as literary quizzes, children's events and recently a 'Comic Creations' day to showcase graphic novels. We asked Susanna to give us her top tips for how she goes about organising and promoting events for readers and reading groups with her Capital Reads volunteer team: What do people want? (Market research) There's no point offering an event that no one attends so I started by asking the reading groups what sort of event they would be interested in. Instead of just asking what people wanted, I gave some examples: Meet the Author, Poetry, Graphic Novel events and/or a book quiz were some of the options with a space for them to enter their own ideas. A word of warning: be prepared to have a slow uptake if you are offering a brand new event. Until you have offered a few quality sessions people don't know what to expect and apathy should be ignored at your peril. Be prepared to put in a lot of work for possibly little return in the beginning. But...it's all preparation for bigger and better events so think of it as time invested. Much like DIY, it is all in the preparation. Once you know what people are prepared to venture out for you can build on that success. How can we offer it? (Your assets) Here, there's lots to think about. Where, when, who, how much. First of all, don't be widely ambitious unless you have the resources. These include volunteers and they are very often in short supply. A tip is to find the busiest person you can, they are busy for a reason (because they take on the work that others don't want to do). If you want to continue offering events you need to have goodwill between the volunteers and also any partnerships you establish. Ask if people want to be involved but find out how this will benefit them; if they're sponsors or partnerships then think how this will increase their profile, put them in a good light with their customers and introduce your customers to them. If it's volunteers, will they benefit by growing in confidence, add another talent to their CV or just enjoy working in a different role to the usual one? Find what's in it for them. Now you have reliable volunteers (remember they are volunteers so you can't demand them to work) you can assign roles. Work out what roles are required (someone to work on getting funding, someone to do the admin, someone to work front of house at the event). Let the volunteers be involved and creative so it's enjoyable for them. So you have your team and they have their roles. You'll need to project manage at least the first event and keep on top of everything before it all gets too large and confusing. (Remember, you want to look your best for the event and not be a gibbering wreck in the corner!). Work out where you will hold the event, if you have any funding, (we have held full capacity events on a zero budget so all is not lost if you don't secure funding) who is working on the day, Health & Safety 'stuff', how many people can fit into a room, where the muster points are in case of a fire, that sort of thing. If it sounds daunting, it isn't. It's just better to be safe than sorry. Promote, promote, promote We work on promoting an event a full six weeks before it takes place. We also promote in a variety of ways and thanks to modern technology a lot of these ways are free and immediate with a huge audience. Hooray for the Internet! We have to ensure we have a catchy title, any logos of sponsors, date, time, place, contact details and a strong visual impact in the advertising space. You don't need information overload, we try to set the scene with visuals. When we offered a 'How to get published' event we used copyright free pictures of scribes, when we offered a Graphic Novels event we used a comic font and a storyboard background. If you have the basics info plus a 'For more information contact....' line then you should be covered. Once you have your advertising ready you need to get it out there. Use Facebook, blogs, websites, Twitter plus your sponsor and any partner's websites and blogs, etc. Old fashioned fliers and posters still work too. We find that there is an equal percentage of the audience finding out from a variety of ways so don't discount anything. Talk about it to people. Just keep promoting. We work on a six week promotion. Six weeks before the event we start by contacting our mailing list (made up from past audience members as well as reading groups and library users who have expressed an interest in attending events) and then print out posters to display anywhere and everywhere. The information goes on our e-resources and two weeks before the date we send the info out again to remind people. If you make it sound exclusive - 'places are limited, book now to avoid disappointment' - then it adds value to the audiences' expectation. To charge or not to charge We don't tend to charge for events because our whole ethos is enjoying literature for free but there is a valid debate that charging for something gives it value and of course it is a chance to get some revenue to cover costs and use for future events. If people have paid for something it often means they will make the effort to attend. Also be aware that if you are offering refreshments you will need a license if alcohol is involved. People are usually happy with a cup of tea or coffee and they do appreciate a quick break for a drink and a visit to the loo if the event is longer than an hour. I always do a very short housekeeping talk in my introduction so people know where the fire exits and toilets are, a reminder to have phones on silent as it's incredibly disruptive to have phones going off (that goes for the landlines too in a building), to let them know if there is a chance to ask questions/take photos/buy books and to tell them what time the event will be finishing (many people organise lifts home). This helps people know what to expect so they can settle down and enjoy it. Keep on top of things Have regular meetings or emails. I find an hourly get together once a month with key members of the team followed up by minutes being sent to all volunteers means we are still on track and nothing gets missed out. Use the event to help your cause In a library we want people to become members and take out library items so at our events we ensure there is somewhere that people can become members quickly and easily. We display relevant material that people can borrow on the night and we ask everyone to take a few minutes to fill in the evaluation form on their chair. If you can spare them, do provide pens as people won't bother filling in a form if they have to wait for a spare pen or track one down. If you put out fifty pens expect to get less than half of them back. I don't know what it is with people and pens but ask any delivery man - once they are in someone's hand it's hard to get them back again. Evaluation forms are excellent for finding out what worked and what didn't. A word of warning first. Don't take anything to heart. People are being asked their opinion and if they say they didn't like the host don't track them down and demand a reason why. Not everyone is going to love you as much as you want them to. Give your audience an incentive Now just because you have provided a wonderful event and shown the audience a terrific time doesn't mean they owe you anything. That includes valuable feedback. So we always provide a prize draw for all people who leave feedback. This may just be a book token or a free prize from a partner. It is just a gesture of goodwill but really encourages people to fill them out and hand them back in. We ask for feedback on the venue, organisation, event itself and also for suggestions for future events. Ignore it all at your peril if you want to continue to host great sessions. Don't forget to ask for their email address (printed, not scrawled) so you can add them to your mailing list for future events. People are naturally suspicious of being inundated with emails once they have given out their details so assure them that you will not use them for any other purpose than to email the person with event news. Make sure you adhere to this! Data protection is a huge deal. You can be fined enormous amounts if you don't keep it private. Learn from your mistakes Have a mop up meeting where the volunteers get together to see what worked and what didn't then please remember to thank them! You'll have remembered to thank your audience for attending so remember to thank the people who made it possible too. Have fun We all have enough to do in life that isn't pleasurable. Remember to enjoy yourself and enthuse others. If done correctly, or as near as dammit, then there's a lot of fun to be had from getting involved. The benefits can be enormous. Get involved Find out what's happening in Cardiff Libraries. Find a reading group to join in Cardiff. If you run events for reading groups and book clubs and would like to share your top tips on how you go about organising and promoting them, please do get in touch, we'd love to hear from you. If you are holding an event for reading groups and book clubs, do let us know as we are happy to blog about it on Reading Groups for Everyone. You can check out events here. http://readinggroups.org/tips/capital-reads-top-tips-for-running-events-for-readers.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/capital-reads-top-tips-for-running-events-for-readers.html Running reading group events Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 Ann Cleeves Murder Mystery Night pack Award-winning crime writer Ann Cleeves is equipping librarians with everything they need to hold spine-chillingly successful murder mystery nights for the readers in their libraries. Having previously written a murder mystery script based on her novel The Glass Room, starring her well-loved detective character, DI Vera Stanhope, for independent bookshops, festivals and public libraries, Ann Cleeves has now produced a special murder mystery night pack for libraries. The pack includes her script, a CSI report, 'whodunnit' forms to be completed by attendees, and a prize. At a special launch event yesterday (24 January) hosted by the London Borough of Camden's Swiss Cottage library in north London and led by the author, librarians from local authorities around the country were the first to receive special newly-produced packs. It was a successful evening full of intrigue. Get involved We have lots of exciting downloadable assets to get you started for your own Ann Cleeves Murder Mystery Night! Murder Mystery Front Cover Murder Mystery Instructions Murder Mystery Ticket Murder Mystery Competition Form To receive the script and the forensic report for your Murder Mystery night, please get in touch with Becky Plunkett. http://readinggroups.org/tips/ann-cleeves-murder-mystery-night-pack.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/ann-cleeves-murder-mystery-night-pack.html Running reading group events Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 The Marlowe Papers reading group reviews We gave away 5 reading group sets of The Marlowe Papers by Ros Barber to book clubs. 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 On May 30th, 1593, a celebrated young playwright was killed in a tavern brawl in London. That, at least, was the official version. Now Christopher Marlowe reveals the truth: that his 'death' was an elaborate ruse to avoid being convicted of heresy; that he was spirited across the Channel to live on in lonely exile; that he continued to write plays and poetry, hiding behind the name of a colourless man from Stratford - one William Shakespeare. With the grip of a thriller and the emotional force of a sonnet, this remarkable novel in verse gives voice to a man who was brilliant, passionate and mercurial. A cobbler's son who counted nobles among his friends, a spy in the Queen's service, a fickle lover and a declared religious sceptic, he was always courting trouble. Memoir, love letter, confession, settling of accounts and a cry for recognition as the creator of some of the most sublime works in the English language, The Marlowe Papers brings Christopher Marlowe and his era to vivid life. Written by a poet and scholar, it is a work of exceptional art, erudition and imagination. About the author Ros Barber is the author of three poetry collections. Her poems have featured in publications that include Poetry Review, London Magazine, The Guardian and Independent on Sunday, and in anthologies published by Faber, Virago and Anvil Press. She has a PhD on Marlowe, and jointly won the Hoffman Prize 2011 for The Marlowe Papers. She lives in Brighton and has four children. http://readinggroups.org/tips/the-marlowe-papers-reading-group-reviews.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/the-marlowe-papers-reading-group-reviews.html Reading group reviews Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 Author focus: Ewan Morrison answers your questions Our author focus this month has been on Scottish author Ewan Morrison and his latest novel Close Your Eyes. We asked for questions to be put to Ewan and the best would be answered by him in a blog interview. We had some amazing thoughtful questions! The interview Q: Your book is all about how our past, both known and unknown, shapes us - how do you think your past shaped you and the writing of this book? - Asked by Books and Banter Reading Group from Slough A: The past does shape us, but there would be no hope for any of us if we were all tied to it to the degree that we can never grow beyond it. Over the decades (I am now 44), I've struggled with the demons bequeathed my 'radical' upbringing. In terms of the story itself some of the elements are based on biographical fact, but these were really only a starting point. Yes, I had hippie parents, I also had a terrible stutter, like Jono in the book, and I was abused and bullied by local children in a small town in the far north of Scotland, but these were just beginnings for a bigger story that had to expand beyond my own experience (on that note the abuses I suffered were also suffered by other 'immigrant children' and some of the things that happened to Jono were stories I'd heard about the victimisation of these other kids). Then again, there are things in the book that have no correlation to my lived experience at all. For example - there was no commune like Ithaca in the place where I grew up and my parents did not belong to any kind of anarchist, Marxist or New Age group. Ithaca was a hybrid of places I've visited as an adult - Findhorn and other "intentional communities" in the UK and Europe. And of course, the biggest difference of all - I am not a woman, and have never had a child or breastfed! My aim was to expand beyond the biographical beginnings of the book and engage with the bigger world of the subject matter - the legacy of the radical 60s. I also had to write this book from a women's perspective - as a challenge to myself, to attempt to transcend my own history, and also because out of this period of social change in history, the revolutionary 60s onwards, it has been women who have been most profoundly effected and who have had to carry the can and patch up the problems. The past has also shaped me also in a positive way, in as much as my hippie parents exposed me to a lot of culture - writers, poets, musicians; they used to run a 'festival of poetry, folk and Jazz in the 1970s' - and this developed in me an early love of culture. This is complicated too though because creativity can be a kind of curse, it involves being quite unbalanced most of the time and having to endlessly run back to make art out of your experiences, rather than just living your life. Most writers, including myself, are not actually that easy to live with and we become even more mad if we can't get space to write and to escape from the world. In the bigger picture, my parents bequeathed me a set of big questions which I've been unravelling throughout all of my books (and I think making progress and actually learning something!) These are questions about whether it is possible survive and thrive outside of 'normal society'. Q: 'I was amazed at Ewan writing so convincingly about breast feeding in his book Close Your Eyes - how did he get into the persona of Emma/Rowan, how did he write so astutely about such a feminine experience?' - Asked by Annie Bell from Edinburgh Central Library Reading Group A: I have two kids (with my first wife) and being one of those 'New Men', I took on a fair bit of childcare and was involved with bottle feeding, decanting expressed milk, sleep therapy and so on. Of course none of this is comparable to actually lactating and breastfeeding but I sympathised with what can at times be an experience that is very far from the "wonderful sense of one-ness with one's baby" that mothers are supposed to experience. To be honest I feel that most parents nowadays are driven a bit mad by the expectations placed upon us - to be perfect at everything that we do. This comes from the sheer amount of studying and reading of baby manuals that goes on and the competitiveness between parents. The birth scene in the book is a case in point, Rowan and her hubby have everything planned for the birth (birthing tank, soothing music, etc) but none of that happens because she has to have an (fairly standard) emergency procedure. Parents, and in particular fathers, are really unprepared for things not going according to plan, as being left with little to do as the baby gestates they/we tend to get obsessed with plans. Us fathers become like Joseph Stalin in the nursery. Beyond that, I think we spend too much time preparing for the birth itself and really not enough working out the 18 years of care that are going to have to follow on from that. We are a generation really who are specialists at birthing procedures but amateurs at child-rearing. And that covers both men and women. Because couples share so many roles now, I think they get greater insight into the differing roles of mother and father. Men probably know more about mothering and the female body than they ever have in history, and that's a good thing. Exhaustion is a common experience to new parents that share childcare, so from my own experience I can testify to what 3 weeks of broken sleep can do to a person, male or female. Like it says in the manual 'Do not attempt to operate machinery'. Sleep deprivation (which is Rowan's main initiating problem) makes people do strange, desperate things, and that's also common between the genders. As for the actual understanding of "feminine experience", I've always found women more interesting, and better friends than men and I've never shy'd away from all aspects of the female body in its cycles and moods. Also, from knowing women I know there are taboos about what a woman can and cannot say about being a mother and there are also taboo behaviours. For example, that a mother might dislike her child, or feel estranged from it, or disappointed in herself, or even feel that she might hit, or drop the child. For women to say this breaks so many unspoken rules and casts them in the light of 'bad mother'. So paradoxically, as a man, maybe I have more liberty to say that women do actually sometimes feel like this. Women are actually, after all, just like men in this respect - they have high expectations placed on them, and they feel guilty when they fail to live up to them. Failing at the role you've been assigned, is a very common experience and one that should have common cause between the genders and inspire compassion and understanding, and maybe even a questioning of these divided roles too. Q: When and how do your plots and characters come to you? Is it in a dream or something more concrete? - Asked by Lye Down With A Good Book Reading Group from Lye, Stourbridge A: Interesting question. Dreams do play a part, and one or two of the scenes in the book were dreamed before they were written, but I'd have to say that daydreaming is the majority of the work, and that this daydreaming is not just mental meandering but quite a disciplined process - a bit like working out how to do a Rubik cube or to solve a very intricate puzzle. There are all these elements that have to be juggled - characters, places, motivations, consequences and of course the forward movement of the protagonist's story - Rowan. I find that a lot of this imagining of the world of the book comes about through walking rather than sitting with pen and paper or at the laptop. With Close Your Eyes I went into a kind of walking dream for several months, just inhabiting the day-to-day life of Rowan, whenever I had a spare moment, I'd be back into it again (which I have to say makes me very absent minded, people would say "oh no, he's off again"). In a way this might be similar to the processes what people go through when they're meditating. Again, this sounds all a bit airy-fairy, but it's a very ordered kind of daydreaming and it can even be quite fraught at times. As an aside, I've heard that mathematicians and physicists work out formulae in a similar way, while walking or travelling and not actually on the page. Where characters come from is rather mysterious. Of course many are hybrids of people I have known but at a certain point in the writing they start to do things you don't expect. For example in the book, I had no idea that Eva and Jenna would become enemies and that one of their fights would be over the use of 'singing'. Then it makes perfect sense on many levels, because Eva was always envious of the power of Jenna's voice and her natural generosity. How do I know this? I really don't know, I must have observed the ambiguous feelings that people have towards beautiful singers. And yes, of course, my mother was and still is an incredible folk singer, so that must be part of it. But my mother is nothing like Jenna. Maybe we are all collages of fragments of other people anyway. So in that sense we're all 'made up characters'. Q: It's quite an emotional topic at the heart of this book. Did you base it on someone you've known, or did you research it from scratch? - Asked by Elaine Wilkinson of Central Reading Group in Peterborough A: The emotional core of the story, of experiencing a profound sense of loss around a failed utopian project, was very much from my own experience, but my family never attempted anything as ambitious as Ithaca. Their collapse was their folk festival and the hippie dream of integrating into a remote community and creating "real culture". They were beaten by the Americans, Country n' Western and Coca-Cola, like people have been all over the world. Missing people has also been a recurring theme in our family and it is a very traumatic subject, as is suicide and its impact on a family. Did Jenna die by accident or kill herself? The worst thing of all is that Rowan might ot ever know, and it's the not knowing that you fill up with your own imaginings of what might have happened and why. In our family, we have an uncle who vanished, without a trace twenty five years ago - I half expected him to turn up un-announced at my father's funeral - the return of the prodigal son, but I'm afraid he didn't. My grandfather too, who was once a church minister in Scotland, was banished from the family and disappeared for almost a decade. These tragedies of disappearance seem to haunt our family; they also give it a kind of poetic melancholy which I think comes across in the book. As of family members of mine who appear in the book, well there are shades of both my mother and father in several of the characters. Research played a very important part in the book. The entire experience of the revisit to Ithaca, was based on real research that I did in the Findhorn Foundation. I went up there and took part in an "experience week". It really was quite an experience and one that was much more positive than that which is portayed in the book. But it gave me a wealth of details to work with. As always it turns out that reality is stranger than fiction and there were things there that I could not have imagined - like for example the fact that every room has the name of a flower, and that inanimate objects like bowls and baths and toilets also are named and have name signs which read things like "Hello I am Juniper, the Bath Goddess, please don't use me after 9pm". I used a lot of that real research in the book and also took on board the idea that a New Age community creates its own world by re-naming everything and creating a mandatory language that all must learn. It controls the people in it and their thoughts by controlling the language they use. I would not have realised this had I not gone to do this very crucial research. Q: It's The Reading Agency's 10th birthday. As a charity with a mission to inspire people to read more, we're passionate about giving everyone an equal chance in life by helping people become enthusiastic readers. How important is reading in your own life and what book would you recommend to a reluctant adult reader? - Asked by The Reading Agency A: Reading is more than just one thing for me. It's entertainment, yes, but it's also learning. At certain periods in my life I have no interest in being entertained at all, and I read furiously, trying to teach myself about economics, philosophy, Buddhism, you name it. At other times I just need a story to take me out of myself. For a reluctant adult reader I would always recommend Catcher in the Rye - it might seem a cliché, but it's a crucial text that plays out one of the formative experiences of adult life - that first awakening of rebelliousness and finding your own voice. Q: What do libraries mean to you? Why are they important? - Asked by The Reading Agency A: Both of my parents were librarians and books were what we lived and breathed every day. Perhaps this sounds very boring, maybe it was. But most of all this taught me patience with a book. This must ultimately be why I became a writer, or at least it couldn't have harmed the process. If libraries ceased to exist I fear that we would all be zooming around from one digital text to the next and never focusing; I fear that we might all become speedy readers and none of us would develop the patience to become writers. About Ewan Morrison Ewan Morrison is the author of the novels Close Your Eyes, Menage, Distance and Swung (all Jonathan Cape/Vintage) the short story collection The Last Book you Read, and the mixed format book Tales from the Mall. As a cultural commentator he writes regularly for the Guardian. Ewan was the recipient of a Scottish Arts Council Writers Award 2005 and 2008, was a nominee for the ARENA magazine O2 Entrepreneur Award 2006, and was awarded a VARUNA writers residency in Australia as part of UNESCO's City of Literature 2006, where he appeared at the Sydney Writers Festival and on ABC Radio. In 2008 Ewan was shortlisted for the Le Prince Maurice Award for best English language love story. The award was held in Mauritius. About Close Your Eyes In 1981 a mother abandoned her child and drove into the night, never to return. Her disappearance was reported in the press as a fatal road accident. Her body was never found. Thirty years later, Rowan has a child of her own. Afflicted by post-natal depression, she is convinced that she'll hurt her daughter unless she unpicks the mystery of her past, buried deep within a commune in the remote highlands of Scotland. Leaving her young family and life in London, she returns to her childhood home to find a failed utopia shrouded in secrecy. And there, with a looming cult leader, among the rites and rituals, the sacraments and ceremonies, is a single postcard dated a week after her mother's death. As she draws ever closer to the truth about her mother, she fears she might lose even herself. Close Your Eyes is a powerful novel, exploring the eternal bonds of maternal love. Evoking the spirit of the 60s and 70s in its gentle, lyrical passion, it tells the secret history of a revolutionary social experiment, and, with unflinching honesty, depicts the impacts, both good and bad, that it had on its children. Extras Find out more about Ewan Morrison. Listen to a podcast of Ewan being interviewed by ABC Radio in Australia. He discusses Close Your Eyes. Read Chapter One of Close Your Eyes. Follow Ewan on Twitter. Our author focus features on Reading Groups for Everyone include free taster downloads for your reading group or book club which will, hopefully, inspire you to read the books in your reading group. http://readinggroups.org/tips/author-focus-ewan-morrison-answers-your-questions.html http://readinggroups.org/tips/author-focus-ewan-morrison-answers-your-questions.html Author focus Tips Sat, 18 May 2013 09:02:19 +0100 0