Location: Kent
Number in group: 12
Hollingbourne Reading Group is from Hollingbourne Village, a small settlement in Mid Kent that nestles beneath The North Downs close to Leeds Castle. We used to meet in the local pub but we were a bit noisy so now meet in each other’s houses. We meet monthly in the evenings over a glass of wine and we take it in turns to choose our books. We obtain all our books from the Kent County Council Library Van which parks outside the church every Thursday afternoon.
We have started on our first Dickens book which is A tale of Two Cities. We love the opening and closing lines – so magnificent. Many of us can remember the old black and white film starring Dirk Bogarde. This is quite different from most of Dickens’ books but the characters are still strong.
When we saw the pile of books that we were all given, one of our group said: Is it an anniversary of Shakespeare next year we could get used to these big reads?
Another member said: We ought to qualify for a GCSE when we have finished our books.
We became interested in Dickens as a group when we were asked to be a part of a Great Expectations Project. We met monthly and had talks on Dickens and used the museum’s artefacts to illustrate what we had read. This gave us a real appetite to read more. The picture at the top of the blog is the churchyard used as the inspiration by Dickens for the beginning of Great Expectations and below, here we are visiting a “Dickens setting” in Rochester High Street.
Our Dickens Champions
Read Dickens Champions Mitchell Classics Book Group first blog post.
Meet the rest of our Dickens Champions and watch out for their blog posts as they read their way through Dickens during 2012.
