So the big project for this year has launched this week. Try Reading links 30 library authorities across the north of England in a project that promotes reading, writing and drama alongside the Rugby League World Cup 2013.
Over 150 events, including author talks, writing workshops and drama events will take place across the North West, Yorkshire and Humber regions between April and November 2013. Libraries will be working with local clubs and supporters’ groups as well as schools and other interested organisations.
We are extremely  grateful to Arts Council England who are supporting us with lottery funds through Grants For the Arts. We are also grateful to our new partners at The Rugby League World Cup 2013 who have seen the opportunity to reach new audiences via public libraries and clearly understand how a love of sport and love of reading and writing can go hand in hand. The Reading Agency has also linked its 2013 Six Book Challenge to the RLWC 2013 and the Try Reading project.
This is the biggest project NW Time To Read authorities will have engaged in and we are looking forward to a very different sort of sporting  year. For all the Try Reading information and news visit the new website

Poet Laureate visits Colne Library

 Yesterday was World Book Day. This is largely used as an opportunity to promote children's reading by publishers, booksellers and library staff,  to encourage and inspire children to read. Yet it also stands as a useful hook to hang other reading and literary activities on.

Lancashire Libraries had 2 reasons for inviting Carol Ann Duffy to appear in one of their libraries. Last year saw the 400th anniversary of the Pendle Witch trials. The story of these poor women in a remote corner of Northern England has long captured the imagination of writers and artists. A local Arts organisation Green Close commissioned Carol Ann to write a poem about the witches which could appear along a footpath in the area of Pendle Hill.  Carol Ann wrote a long poem which appears on 30 waymarkers along the path and gave it a first public reading last night, accompanied by "her" regular  musician John Sampson.

I have previously written here about the Poetry Places promotion of poetry that we ran in NW libraries in  the autumn of 2012 and which  included Carol Ann's poem Bees . Our Poetry Places poems all needed to be placed in, or be inspired by, the North West region and it was essential that one of our poems should represent  our industrial heritage.  Bees are a well known symbol of industry and hard work  and appear in the coats of arms of several towns and cities, including  Manchester and Blackburn. How perfect then, that we could represent our important northern heritage  symbolically through a poem about bees written by the Poet Laureate who just happens to live in our region. The poem can be seen and read here.

An essential element of our project was that the poets represented should give readings in libraries, so we were delighted when Carol Ann said she could be available to appear on World Book Day, to read from a range of her work including the 2 poems from the 2 parallel  projects. Colne Library was packed out with an audience which seemed excited to be welcoming the poet laureate into their community and delighted in both Carol Ann's readings and the musical interludes from musician John Sampson. I hope that for many of them it will have been a World Book Day to remember and which inspired them to hear and read more poetry.

Reading history again

Can you believe the goodreads website shows 442 popular books about Richard III ? I had a thought that I ought to list a few,  given that he is currently in our thoughts, but it seems there really are too many for me to mention.  
A quick scan of the first couple of pages of the list shows how fascinated historical writers have been with his character and especially  the as yet unsolved  mystery of whether or not he did despatch the young princes in the tower. I'm not sure the recent discovery of his bones will shed any more light on this mystery, but they certainly reveal that he met a violent end himself.
Any library staff with an eye on the news should be pulling as many of these books from their shelves as possible and displaying them for people to see easily. Our Pages Ago project of 2 years ago which promoted historical reading of all sorts, showed clearly that people loved the opportunity to discover history interpreted through the eyes of all sorts of writers.

New Year- new intentions

Have just noticed with horror how long it is since I last posted anything here. Promise to try harder this year.

A couple of things took up my attention at the end of 2012. One was a very positive outcome from the Dickens' reading group which had been meeting throughout the year. Inevitably a few people had fallen by the wayside, but at least 6 of the group are determined to keep meeting and reading Dickens through 2013. I will help them find a venue and plan the reading and while I might not read another 6 titles by Dickens this year, I shall certainly do my best to read at least one.

 Another project I was winding up was our Poetry Places project. This promoted the work of 12 North West- based  poets. Details can be found at http://www.time-to-read.co.uk/Promotions/default.asp?id=10

 As well as producing attractive print and purchasing collections of poetry books for libraries,at least 350 people  attended a poetry event in a library as a result of this project. Some of the major successes were:
•    Kei Miller in Warrington. 35 people attended an event on a Friday evening and was extremely enthusiastically received - this is just one example from the numerous glowing comments received.
Listening to a music-like performance of a truly talented and mesmerising skilled poet – inspirational!

•    Eleanor Rees pictured, delivered 2 events, in Halton and Congleton, and used these opportunities to create new poems especially for the libraries. She said
Thank you for letting me run with this. It will feature in my PhD thesis and I've been reflecting a lot of how to write for specific contexts and small groups! I also had some very enjoyable days out and was very supported by Janette at Runcorn and Mike and Dan at Congleton who took me out to lunch and picked me up for the station etc! It's been a very positive experience and I hope to develop the work further in the future

•    Lancashire Libraries invited Kevin McCann. They scheduled two poetry writing workshops with him for Lancashire Day (27th November) ... Kevin gave excellent workshops, I was very impressed by his infectious passion for poetry and by the depth of knowledge he had and related about different poets and the techniques they used.  They were highly engaging sessions...

Its really great to have ended the year on a positive note, knowing that library work has made a difference to some readers and writers. 2013 will be a very different year I know but come back soon to find out about some plans we have for reaching new reading audiences.

Poetry and more

What a busy week this has been- and one of the best sort at work. On Tuesday I was able to bring together my network of 20+ NW library staff with 9 of the 12 poets we are about to promote in a new project called Poetry Places 2. We had a great day talking about poetry and the challenges of encouraging people to borrow and read it. We heard  9 poets read some of their work, bringing their voices to life. We also recorded them reading the specific poems we will be promoting. There's still a lot of work to be done spreading the word, fixing events and making the poems as accessible as possible across the region, but a splendid start has been made.

Yesterday was also busy with other things. I held the 4th of 5 planned Dickens' reading group meetings, this time to discuss my favourite so far Hard Times. Weather and holidays kept a few people away- I hope it wasn't Dickens fatigue, but the die-hard readers who did attend,  managed an interesting discussion about the novel- is it humorous or not? What does it tell us about Dickens' own attitude to marriage, women, industry, the north?
I was heartened by some readers who not only intend to stick with this Dickens reading project to the end, but also want it to go on longer. We are already planning an extra December meeting to discuss A Christmas Carol.

From there I went to the beautiful Portico Library to hear Madeline Miller, winner of this year's Orange Prize, talk about her novel The Song of Achilles. For me this was a model book event. Just the right length, interesting and thoughtful questions, an engaging and enthusiastic author who made me want to read her book.

Reading Rewards

Very busy over the last couple of months organising Reading Rewards, an adult reading challenge running across NW Library services over the summer and up to 31st October 2012.
Children have been challenged to read more for a number of years via the Reading Agency's Summer Reading Challenge. There is also the Six Book Challenge for emergent readers.

Reading Rewards  now being tried out, is  for the main body of adult readers who perhaps want to broaden their reading or read more than usual over the summer. Time To Read is offering shopping voucher prizes for readers who read 3, 6 or 10 books from different categories of book. Library staff will be monitoring which the most and least popular categories are over the course of the promotion. Perhaps this will lead to some new and intersting insights into adult reading habits in this region.

One of the main purposes of Reading Rewards is to offer the opportunity for adult parents and carers to demonstrate to children that reading can be enjoyed at all ages. Many parents encourage their youngsters to take part in the Summer Reading Challenge. Now , at least in this region, they have no excuse for not borrowing something themselves and could be rewarded for doing so.

Full details of Reading Rewards can be found on the Time To Read website, along with a printable version of the entry leaflet.

How to kill a reading group???

I was surprised this week to both hear on the radio and read in a newspaper,  that a sure-fire way to kill a reading group is to read Middlemarch. Apparently a definitive list of book club rules has been drawn up by the influential Middle Class Handbook website to help members keep book group discussions on track and prevent the collapse of their club. Top of the list of tips,  is to avoid Middlemarch at all costs.

This jumped out at me because not only is Middlemarch one of my all time great reads, it is also the book I swear I will take to a desert island with me should I ever be lucky enough to have that opportunity. My own reading group read it  back in 2007 and lived on successfully. 

I'm sure I'm not alone amongst serious readers and book group advocates, in pouring scorn on this advice. Surely one of the main purposes of a book group is to be challenged to read something you might not have the motivation to tackle otherwise. Surely books that tackle serious issues, moral dilemmas and  questions about how people treat each other, for good or ill,  make for better book club discussions than simply whether or not its enjoyable?

It would be interesting to know from colleagues if there have been books that "finished off" a reading group of theirs. Certainly there have been many books over the years that I have failed to finish personally, and many meetings which some people have chosen not to attend, often because they really disliked a particular book. But it strikes me that a group that is defeated to a person by any specific book is probably one that is on its last legs anyway. Poor George Eliot for being so maligned!