Shared reading aloud book group 'offers escapism'

Shared Reading is a different kind of book club.

Instead of reading works of literature separately and then coming together to discuss it, a poem, short story or novel extract is read aloud - and then discussed.

Fiona Dignan, who leads a regular session in Wokingham, Berkshire, said the sessions aimed to make good literature "available to everybody".

Fran Whiteman, who has been attending the sessions regularly for over a year, said she got "joy" from the meetings, adding the conversation starts at the literature but then often "explodes".

"It can become a very serious discussion on one aspect of the story or it can be purely anecdotal," she said.

"It can be a form of increasing your knowledge, sharing your ideas, but it can also be a form of escapism and reminding yourself of things that you think 'oh, I'd forgotten about that' or 'oh, I didn't know I really thought that'."

She added: "We read something that was about space and I think we sat for an hour talking about the galaxies and then what lies beyond, do we believe in the world beyond, and at the end I come out feeling really invigorated."

Ms Dignan, who runs the group in conjunction with charity The Reader, said it was "a very different experience to a book club".

"With a book club you've pre-read it all, you've read it in your own head, and you come and say your piece," she said.

"[But] we're not critiquing this literature, we're saying: as human beings reading this, how are we feeling about this? What is it evoking?"

There are Shared Reading groups all over the country.

Ms Whiteman said there was no pressure to attend every week, or contribute to the discussions.

"You can be there for the whole hour and say nothing. You can just listen," she said.

"I come away relaxed - I've enjoyed the discussion, I've met people, and I've read things that I haven't read before."

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