As I aim to review the books I read for book group I thought I would give you a bit more detail about us.
First and foremost we are a group of friends; the friendships came first and the book group followed as we all love to read. We started the book group in the summer of 2004 (crikey, we have been going a long time!) and the first book that we reviewed was aptly The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble. From what I recall we all liked it…
Over the years a few friends have come and gone with some going to live elsewhere, such as London and Dubai. However we are still going strong with five of us making up the current group; Claire, Hazel, Holly, Kim and myself. We’ve all got very different personalities, tastes, favourite genres and views on what we read; and that’s what always makes our book group fresh and exciting.
All current members of book group with my sister Fiona and friend Jane, who are both past members
Generally we meet every four to six weeks to discuss the latest book we’ve collectively been reading. We take it in turns to choose the next book to review; sometimes a new release is chosen, an old favourite or a book that the person selecting has always wanted to read. I have been known to ‘secretly’ pull a face at some of the choices my friends have made; for example One Day by David Nicholls and David Baddiel’s The Secret Purposes being two of these books. I have to point out though that I ended up falling in love with both of these novels and now read One Day on an annual basis (I just love Nicholls’ characterisation). Likewise, Holly says that she dreaded reading Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret after I chose it for book group, only to absolutely love it!
At Tick Tock Unlock, Leeds
We also tie in book group with other things we like to do, for example we eat out a lot when meeting for book group, often in Manchester but sometimes in Leeds as that’s where Claire lives. Other activities include afternoon tea (the fantastic Richmond Tea Rooms was the venue for this month’s meeting) and we’ve also been known to go gin tasting.
As part of this blog, I plan to share with you our book choices, my review of the book in question and the thought and views of my fellow book groupies. Just to warn you in advance, we have got very diverse tastes…