Reading Engagement Group

Our reading engagement group has been running once a month since June 2003. We held our 50th meeting in March 2008. At our 25th meeting in September 2005 Patricia Walker-Hesson gathered together all the books we had read up to that point so we could take a photo (below). Members picked out their favourites and wrote a little about them to use in a piece for the newsletter.

Members of the group take turns in choosing a small selection of books from which the rest of the group select one to read and talk about together. Attendance is generally at the level of around five regular members, though we are occasionally pleasantly surprised to be joined by someone else who has found out about us, either through the website or the newsletter. The group has a relaxed atmosphere and newcomers are welcome to come along and join us. This group is co-facilitated by Patricia Walker-Hesson and Jane Blackall.

Books we've tackled since June 2003...

"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by Oliver Sacks (forthcoming - Nov 2008)
"In the Country of Men" by Hisham Matar (forthcoming - October 2008)
"The Green Knight" by Iris Murdoch (forthcoming - September 2008)
"Suite Francaise" by Irene Nemirovsky (forthcoming - July 2008)
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby
"I Heard the Owl Call My Name" by Margaret Craven
"Under My Skin" by Doris Lessing
"The Wrong Boy" by Willy Russell
"Year of Wonders" by Geraldine Brooks
"Waterlog" by Roger Deakin
"Bee Season" by Myla Goldberg
"Justine" by Lawrence Durrell
"His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman
"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult
"Saturday" by Ian McEwan
"Of Water and the Spirit" by Malidoma Patrice Some
"Beginners Guide to Changing the World" by Isabel Losada
"Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson
"A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" by Marina Lewycka
"The Time Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger
"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruis Zafon
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston
"March" by Geraldine Brooks
"Larry's Party" by Carol Shields
"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
"The World's Wife" by Carol Ann Duffy
"Gem Squash Tokoloshe" by Rachel Zadok
"An Evil Cradling" by Brian Keenan
"Journal of a Solitude" by May Sarton
"Theo's Odyssey" by Catherine Clement
"Making History" by Stephen Fry
"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
"The Dispossessed" by Ursula Le Guin
"The Saddlebag" by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani
"The Matisse Stories" by A.S. Byatt
"The Outsider" by Albert Camus
"Anne Hughes: Her Boke" Edited by Mollie Preston
"The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
"Refuge" by Terry Tempest Williams
"Mr. Golightly's Holiday" by Salley Vickers
"The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Where Angels Fear to Tread" by E.M. Forster
"The Knitting Sutra" by Susan G. Lydon
"Crescent" by Diana Abu-Jaber
"Toast" by Nigel Slater
"According to Mary" by Marianne Fredriksson
"Silas Marner" by George Eliot
"The Bookseller of Kabul" by Asne Seierstad
"Astonishing Splashes of Colour" by Clare Morall
"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon
"Brick Lane" by Monica Ali
"Burmese Days" by George Orwell
"The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
"Hotel World" by Ali Smith
"Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver
"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
"Buddha Da" by Anne Donovan

Juliet Edwards wrote the following piece about our book group for the Unitarian Women's Group newsletter in March 2006:

"Isn't it strange that a book which we thought wasn't all that well written has stimulated a really interesting discussion."

We were talking about 'According to Mary' by Marianne Fredriksson. It's a novel in which an ageing Mary Magdalene remembers Jesus' minstriy. To be fair it could well have been a translation which did not do justice to its Swedish author.

Our Reading Engagement Group at Essex Church, Kensington, has been holding its monthly meetings for over two years now. I have doubled the number of books that I read in a year. All of us have read authors who are new to us. We take it in turn to recommend a book. We have made it a rule that at least one of the group has to have read the book chosen so that we don't end up with a dud. For instance I wanted to read George Eliot's 'Silas Marner' (I tend to like to get the classics under my belt) and Patricia said that she had read it, so it became my choice for the month. It led to an interesting discussion about child care and about being a child.

There have been a number of relevant up-to-date choices. 'The Bookseller of Kabul' by Asne Seierstad, 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini are both about Afghanistan and 'Crescent' by Diana Abu Jaber is about an Iraqi-American woman who works as a cook in a cafe in Los Angeles. The descriptions of the aromatic foods she prepares are marvellous.

Almost all of the books we have chosen have been novels but they don't have to be and mostly the people who attend are women but the group is open to all. Because it's an engagement group it always begins with a reading and candle lighting and finishes with closing words. We are reminded to be in 'right relationship' with one another and so each person can depend on being listened to.