The 2002 winners of the Penguin/Orange readers' group prize were the National Women’s Register Readers’ Group 1 from Wokingham

The prize winning entry

Part of human nature is that when we enjoy something, we want to tell others about it, to share our enthusiasm, to convert sceptics. In other words, to spread the good news. As reading is such a private activity, up till recently the only way to recommend books (apart from book reviews) had been by word of mouth. Thanks to readers’ groups, all that’s changed. Across the reading world, strangers are getting together, drawn only by a desire to talk about the joy of the printed page and their reaction to it. We’ve even had a TV series about a Readers Group!? What’s more, readers group members can fell free to say what they think, not what they feel they should think. Each person’s opinion is a valid one.

Our book group cum reader’s group, call it what you will, has been going strong since the early eighties, so we feel particularly glad that others have caught on to the joys of reading, debating, arguing, laughing about, poking fun at and generally voicing one’s reactions to a given book.

There are fourteen or so in our National Women’s Register Readers’ Group here in Wokingham, Berkshire. As the name suggests, we’re are all women, ages ranging across thirty years and with varied occupations, such as a reflexologist, a free-lance computer whizz, a teacher, a civil servant and an IT worker who is blind. She comes when the books are on audio tape, something that is very important if you are visually impaired. We meet in the evening, but not always the same day, so as to provide alternatives of day and venue. Refreshments tend to be of the coffee and biscuit variety, with the occasional cake and champagne on special occasions in our lives.

Our personalities and interests vary widely. Some are fairly quiet, but mostly we are a noisy lot. Because we meet in each other’s houses, sometimes there are complaints, from children, if you please, that we are making too much noise! However we do make sure that everyone has their say and that by choosing a variety of books, we can please some of the people some of the time, if not all of the people all of the time.

How to choose a book to read? Well, it’s got to be a democratic choice, although as in other areas of life, some have louder voices and more domineering personalities than others. To give everyone a chance, we go round the room at our planning meeting, asking for suggestions of what to read in the following year. Then we vote, trying to include ‘something for everyone’. It’s essential that we cater to different tastes, choosing books some might think of as light, or others which present a challenge. Because of the ‘word of mouth’ element, we read books we otherwise might not have done. In fact a common remark is ‘I really enjoyed that book, although I would never have thought of reading it’.

Authors vary widely. Over the years, we’ve read both Trollopes (Anthony and Joanna). We’ve read titles from the Top Twenty – Ian McEwan, David Lodge, Pat Barker, Sebastian Faulks, Margaret Atwood, E. Annie Proulx, too many to list. Then there have been crime novels, by authors like Sara Paretsky. We’ve read classics like Dickens and Colette. Travel books, such as Bill Bryson’s, have been on our list, also biographies, such as ‘Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’, by Amanda Foreman. A favourite read was ‘Have the Men had Enough’, by Margaret Forster, which brought home the difficulties of senile dementia, a subject later made topical by John Bayley in his memoir ‘Iris’.

One book we had fun with was ‘Janice Gentle gets Sexy’, by Mavis Cheek. It was a very funny book anyway, and we couldn’t resist trying out different titles for it: ‘Sexy Janice gets Gentle’, ‘Cheeky Janice gets Mavis’ and so on. We love books, but can still have a laugh about them.

Once a year we look at a poet’s work and this does tend to be a smaller meeting, but reading the poet Carol Ann Duffy encouraged us to go and hear her speaking about her latest poetry collection. The year of Ted Hughes’ death, we felt it appropriate to talk about ‘Birthday Letters’ and a couple of members read and talked about biographies of his first wife, Sylvia Plath, to give us some background.

We also have an annual play-reading, making sure there are parts for everybody. This year it was ‘Steaming’ by Nell Dunn and the verdict was ‘Very rude but extremely funny’ and provoked raucous laughter.Our attempt at characterisation was a riot.

In August we have a meeting which we call ‘Enthusiasms’. This gives us a chance to look at books we have read outside the book group and which we recommend. Lately we’ve extended this to recommend films, plays or art exhibitions and then we might get up a group to go together to do something which has been recommended.

When we discuss a book, background information is welcome. For our discussion on ‘Headlong’, by Michael Frayn, someone brought along a book of paintings by Breughel, whose paintings were an integral part of the plot. When we talked about ‘Chocolat’, our hostess for the evening provided delicious chocolates for us to sample. Sometimes our reading spurs us on. ‘Affinity’ by Sarah Waters, inspired one member to give a talk about it at the local literary society and learned a lot in the process.

Our pleasure in reading and in each other’s company led some six of us to attend a Readers’ Day, appropriately held in Reading and organized by New Books mag. We met authors such as Victoria Glendinning, Tim Lott, Sarah Waters, Anita Diamond and talked to them about their books and felt we had an extra insight into their work. We took part in a quiz, although we didn’t win, but we did come home with a goodie bag at the end of the day. More to read!

A little later, two committed members of our group went away on a Readers Weekend and met James Runcie (Discovering Chocolate), Diana Norman (‘A Catch of Consequences) and Margaret Le Roy (‘Trust’). I was lucky enough to sit next to Sally Vickers (author of ‘Miss Garnett’s Angel’) at dinner. Her book had been a very popular choice of ours.Sally was the after dinner speaker and we really felt we learned a lot from her about the process of writing. We can hardly wait to read the follow-up books she is writing! Sally told us that some readers of ‘Miss Garnett’s Angel’ had gone to Venice to see churches and the painting mentioned in her book. We haven’t got as far as Venice yet, but who knows what the future holds. Look how many people went to Cephalonia after reading ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’!

One bonus of the weekend was meeting and exchanging ideas with other reading groups. We swapped reading ideas, wrote down each other’s e-mail addresses and promised to keep in touch.

I’m sure that other reader’s groups, like ours, often don’t agree about what we have read! Many a time, feelings have been roused, voices raised, arguments and passions have raged. One book which divided us was ‘The Great Gatsby’, by Scott Fitzgerald. It was the all-time lifelong favourite of one member. To another, it was laughably awful! ‘Felicia’s Journey’ by William Trevor was pronounced by someone to be too disturbing to read. Still, we were almost unanimous about ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ by Barbara Kingsolver which stirred us all to compassion and, we hoped, a greater understanding of life in the Congo.

So let’s keep reading. Believe me, its fun and I should know, because I’m an addict!

Edinburgh Reflections

What we took to Edinburgh was a series of abstractions. Knowledge was hearsay and two-dimensional.We knew the words ‘Edinburgh Castle’ and ‘Holyroodhouse’; the road that joined them was a pair of lines on a flat map. Speakers on the radio talked of the tented village of the Book Festival in Charlotte Square. Writers in the newspaper referred to the Fringe.We took to Edinburgh only our intellectual understanding of other people’s words.

What we bring back from Edinburgh is a cheerful jumble of experiences which we can sort through and mull over. Our hotel is hard by the steps up to the top of Calton Hill. On a sunny clear windless morning we gaze over the busy streets and blackened monuments of the city. In a gap on the horizon is a massive triangle, too huge to be true to scale so far away. It is a shock to realise it is the Forth Bridge. On the other side of the hill, Arthur’s Seat, an oddly shaped crag, massively demonstrates its volcanic status. Below it, Holyroodhouse sits in its green park, its royal isolation becoming eroded by the democratic buildings going up at the entrance.

Edinburgh Castle sprawls along its rock, a brooding defence for the city. An imposing mass by daylight, at night it seems insubstantial, lit by flickering flares and floodlights changing colour from white to blue to red.

In the open space next to St. Giles, the crowds gather round the street entertainers. A man on a unicycle, who has juggled with flaming clubs, calls for the audience to be generous. He turns a toddler upside down to see if there is money in his pockets. Outside the Festival Fringe office we are entreated to come to this show and that performance, flyers thrust into our hands. Inside the calm of the Cathedral we admire a solid wooden carving of six monks carrying a bier on their shoulders. A tourist poses his girlfriend next to the lifesize statue of John Knox and takes a photograph.

Our event is at the Book Festival in Charlotte Square. The festival takes place in a series of marquees surrounding a central lawn and the Albert Memorial. The air is warm and slightly damp. A duckboard walk keeps us off the trampled muddy grass. Inside the tent we sit in reserved seats as VIPs, an unfamiliar and slightly uncomfortable honour. Earnest booklovers queue patiently along the boardwalks to listen to erudite expositions. We travel luxuriously by taxi to a delicious lunch and interesting conversation with acclaimed authors.

The Edinburgh visit has been thirty hours or so of novel experience enjoyed with good friends. We’ll all recall it with the greatest pleasure.