Long before I heard of the North London Reading Group, I spent my days and nights as a prolific reader who more or less kept her thoughts – of what she had read – to herself. Not a problem, eh? A perfectly respectable model to follow, and a trusted mechanism that has worked beautifully for millions of readers throughout the centuries. After all, isn’t that the purpose of reading i.e. the exclusive relationship between the writer and reader? I mean why would anyone want to change it to a communal experience with other readers?
Of course there were times when I read a book I was enamoured with and declared it to be that good that I would tell everyone I knew to “read it, and read it now, damn it!” Then I would lend them my copy and six months later, find that my recommendation had not even been opened or “wasn’t all that”. That was disappointing; I just wanted someone to experience the excitement I had.
Girl’s books
So back in 2008, I was working at a local authority in North West London, when one of my colleagues suggested a book swap at work. I, being the sort of person who can’t bear to be parted from my favourite contemporary fiction, brought in the ones I didn’t want (you know presents from well-meaning friends and family members who didn’t understand my reading tastes, we’ve all experienced it!)
The look on my colleague’s face summed it up before he vocalised his disappointment: “These are girl’s books!”
Alas my plan to off-load my leftovers failed. I did not lose literary face, though, as a few months later, that same colleague and I discussed the possibility of starting a book group at work. It was hard to get other colleagues interested but when we had a few more people – in our case four – we chose the book, set the date and the location and we were ready to rock, reading style. The first meeting was okay; one of the members had left the council the day before but I don’t think it was to avoid the book group. The book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, didn’t grip us either so we ended up getting drunk and going for a curry.
Nevertheless, we agreed to carry on and I would host the next group. At the second meeting, this was two months later, the three of us pledged to ‘bring a friend’ and managed to recruit three more members. Coincidently, when I was looking for a pub to host our next group, I Googled ‘book group venues’ and found an article about the North London Reading Group (NLRG) and how they had been short-listed for a book group award. I was amazed!
I also found another website of all the book groups around London, including one near me in West London. There appeared to be this whole under-world of book groups out there that met every month, with people from all walks of life. I contacted the NLRG via their website, asking them to suggest venues for my work book group. Paul Drinkwater responded with some helpful tips and I was impressed, thinking this must be a closed group for approved members only, although at the time, there was a waitlist system in operation. I didn’t think anymore of it and carried on planning for my next group.
The second meeting was much better, we read The Book Thief, yet the conversation about the book dried up and diverted and we ended up talking about other things, unrelated to the book, such as work. So there was still something missing for me that wasn’t fulfilling my need to be in a book group. I was fast thinking perhaps I just need to go back to being a lone reader and that book group wasn’t the place for me.
Book group adultress
I thought back to my contact with Paul and the NLRG and wondered what the deal was with them? I started to feel a tinge of guilt for thinking about another book group, like some kind of book group adulteress. We had selected our third book, Kafka on the Shore, which I had purchased and starting reading but couldn’t help wondering what life would be like in another book group? Would I be happier? What would the other people be like? Would we talk about the book? What if the books we read were ‘girls books’? And if my number came up on the waitlist, how would I get to North London, by car or tube?
Well all those questions were shortly answered. I received an email from Kara Luscombe and Dawn Barnes inviting me to a new members night. It was such a relief to know that there were other people, just like myself, looking to join a book group. So I signed up for the session and even though I was a bag of nerves, I went.
The conclusion? Well that member’s night took place in July 2009 and I am proud to say that in January 2013 I am still a happy and committed member of the North London Reading Group. I meet with my group – NLRG 6 – every month and six out of nine of us have been in the group since the start.
So what happened to the work book group? I came clean and dropped out. Thankfully my colleagues understood that I needed more so it did work out for the best. I have since left the council but I realised at the time what I needed was an activity outside of work and to discuss literature with like-minded people.
It’s a wonderful thing to share your thoughts in a group, even though other people’s opinions might not be the same as yours. NLRG 6 is quite diverse when it comes to literary tastes and that makes our meetings so rich and exciting. I always look forward to book group, even when I don’t necessarily enjoy what we’ve read that month; it’s always so interesting to learn what effect a book has on other people.
Well that was a story in itself – and yes, you are invited (a la book group style) to discuss it at the end of this blog!
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