News and updates
The North London Reading Group is a reading group based around the Piccadilly line in North London. This is what we've been up to recently.
Our reading group network Christmas party will be on Sat 23 Jan at The Victoria in Bayswater.
As well as a chance to meet members from other reading groups, on offer is:
* an evening at a lovely historic pub in Paddington
* nibbles
* a quiz - with prizes
* literary bingo (!)
* other surprises on the night.
All for the bargain price of £10 a head.
To secure your place, please get in touch before Tues 19 Jan. You are very welcome whether you are already a member of one of our reading groups or looking to join a group for 2010. Partners / friends / family welcome too!
We are arranging an evening to try and kick start another North London Reading Group on Mon 11 Jan.
It will almost certainly be from 7pm onwards at Smithy's in Kings Cross, the birthplace of five other groups in our network. The aim of the night will be to introduce everybody, agree a format for the group and choose a date and book for the first meeting.
If you are looking to join a book group in North London, please get in touch via our contact box to book your place.
Our Reading Group Network Christmas party will be in January. Because some of us can't possibly wait until then, we are also getting together for a pre-Christmas pub quiz at The Salisbury Hotel on Mon 7 Dec.
It's a fab atmospheric London pub on Green Lanes roughly equidistant between Manor House & Turnpike Lane tube stations (a brisk 10 min walk from either, or a jump on a 29 bus). Join us from 8:45 PM and help avenge our cruel defeat earlier this year when we were beaten by a solitary point.
Watch this space for details of the Christmas party proper.
Issue 8 of Streetcake, the online magazine for innovative, visual and experimental writing is out now (PDF, 675 MB).
One of the leading lights in our book group network has a debut novel out next year. Ellipsis by Nikki Dudley will be published by Sparkling Books next March.
"Right on time."
Daniel Mansen mouths to the woman who pushes him to his death.
Only drawn out of madness by Daniel, the murderer, Alice becomes obsessed with discovering how a man she doesn't know could predict her actions. Similarly, Daniel's cousin, Thom, is driven to explore the circumstances of the death when he finds a note at the family home detailing the time and place it occurred.
At first a simple search for answers, Thom and Alice soon become knotted together in a story of obsession, hidden truths and the gaps in everyday life that can destroy or save a person.
The vivid first chapter is available now to read on Nikki's blog. Appropriately for a network that meets up and down the Piccadilly line, it starts with somebody getting pushed in front of a tube train, and should whet your appetite nicely!
We've always felt our reading group network is a little rock n' roll.
Now indie-folksters Mumford and Sons, whose lovely Little Lion Man is being played played heavily across the radio, have started their own online book group for fans.
Their first choice is Cormac McCarthy's'All The Pretty Horses and we guess it should make life on the road a bit more bearable.
You can read more on the NME's website.
Our jaunt to Dickens World, the Kentish literary theme park (see below) has been confirmed for Sat 28 Nov.
We have a mixture of people in reading groups and people looking for a group going — watch this space for further details.
To misquote the great man, we are sure it will be the best of times, and not the worst of times!
Streetcake is an online magazine for exciting writing that is visual, innovative and experimental, and which is put together by one of the members of our network.
Issue 7 is now available (PDF 2.3MB). Poetry and fiction that surprises, looks downright weird or is a little out of the ordinary is welcomed for the next issue!
Having chewed on and spat out The Alchemist we are meeting next on 13 Oct to discuss Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square, set in the publands of Earl's Court on our beloved Piccadilly Line.
In the meantime, following another mention in the Enfield Independent (not much else going on in Enfield in August, it seems!) we are continuing to get plenty of emails from people wanting to join one of the groups in our network.
We are hoping to set up a new group on during a visit to Dicken's World. See below for details and get in touch with us by Wed 9 Sept if you are interested.
We are arranging a trip to 'Dickens World', a theme park in Kent devoted to the most popular novelist of the Victorian era.
We are not quite sure whether it will be wonderful, horrendous or surreal. But it will be a lot of fun finding out.
We'll be visiting the park, having lunch and possibly hiring a guide to give us the lowdown on an aspect of the great man's work.
After going on the Great Expectations log flume (no joke) we may retire to a local hostelry to also discuss one of his shorter tomes such as his unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Entry should be under a tenner, and the trip will take place on either:
* Sun 27 September
* Sat 3 or Sun 4 October
* Sat 28 or Sun 29 November
Please join us - whether you are in a reading group or looking to join a group. If we have enough people looking to join a group, we'll try and kick off a new reading group on the day.
If you want to come, or just know more, please get in touch by Wed 9 Sept and let us know which dates you can make.
If you've driven along London's 'North Circ' you can't fail to miss the depressing sight of boarded up houses along it.
Nearly 360 homes along the A406 in Enfield are owned by Transport for London (TfL). They were compulsorily purchased in the 1970s for an abandonned scheme to widen the road. They have been in a state of disrepair, vacant or offered temporary homes of poor standard ever since!
We're not a political book group, but it's difficult not to get cross when some 15,000 people are homeless in London. Please sign this petition organised by one of our members.
Did you you missThe Book Group, Channel 4's sitcom about a dysfunctional reading group, a few years back? You can now watch both of its series for free on Channel 4 On Demand.
If you've not seen it before, it's well worth a look. In Episode 2, the group read Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist, the subject of our next meeting on Tues 8 Sept.
Following our recent reading group set up nights, two new North London reading groups have been successfully brought into the world!
A sixth group of 11 people will be meeting at The Old Dairy, Finsbury Park on Tues 25 Aug to discuss Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.
A seventh group of 12 people will be meeting at Smithy's Wine Bar, Kings Cross on Mon 24 Aug to discuss God's Own Country by Ross Raisin.
BBC2 has been in touch with us looking for people with various ailments to take in the next series of Grow Your Own Drugs.
For the uninitiated, it's a programme about natural remedies for common ailments, and not a how-to guide for producing waccy baccy on your allotment.
If you are suffering from dandruff, sinusitus, shaving rash, cracked heels, minor burns or the menopause, Silver River Productions would like to hear from you (PDF, 36kb).
However, if you've got swine flu, they don't — best to go to NHS Direct instead.
We have had lots of interest in our reading group over the last few months, mostly as a result of the Penguin/Orange Reading Group Prize thing.
Because of the number of enquiries we've had, we are arranging three two separate evenings to try and set up new groups along similar lines on:
* Tues 21 July - 7pm at The Ranelagh in Bounds Green.
* Mon 27 July - 7pm at Smithy's Wine Bar in Kings Cross.
* Wed 29 July
It will involve getting people together, over a glass of wine or two, to settle:
* a first book to discuss
* when, where and how often the group would meet
* any ground rules (no sci-fi tends to be a common one!)
A couple of members from the North London Reading Group will be there, and we can let you know how our group works if you wish. We've now done this a few times and it has always been good fun. If you want to join in, drop us a line.
We are busily reading On the Holloway Road, a Kerouac-inspired novel about two men who meet on the Holloway Road and end up in the outer Hebrides.
We'll be discussing it on Thurs 30 July, at The Bailey, along said road. Author Andrew Blackman has agreed to join us. Starts 7:30 PM.
Apparently, tube drivers are to start quoting Ghandi and Einstein during our daily commutes along the Piccadilly line.
If you are turned on by this tube-philosophy 'mash-up' you might want to check out Christopher Cross' Tunnel Visions, which we discussed a while back.
We've had a flurry of people asking to join since our little mentions in the London Evening Standard, London Lite, Londonpaper and Enfield Independent. (see below — sadly, we didn't win!).
Thanks to everybody who has got in touch. We'll be organising a get together over the next few weeks to set up another group or two. Stay tuned!
Crikey! We are honoured to have made the shortlist of the Penguin Orange Readers Group Prize.
This evening we had a fun impromptu photoshoot at our birthplace, Smithy's Wine Bar in Kings Cross, for tomorrow's London Evening Standard. We hope it doesn't put too many commuters off their tea.
The prize was set up eight years ago to celebrate 'making reading social'. The winner will be chosen by Labyrinth author Kate Mosse and announced on the 27 May.
Our group was set up with a solitary web page that tentatively asked whether anybody was interested in setting up a reading group?" in June 07. People were, and two years later we're still going and have given birth to four similar groups and a network of some 100 like minded people.
Anyway, it's been very special and we hope the Readers Group Prize inspires other people to get involved.
If you missed our recent Enfieldian poetry night, you may be interested in another poetry evening that takes place on 6 June in a Grade II listed Jacobean house in Edmonton.
The Salisbury House Poets are a collective of North London poets interested in both reading and listening to poetry. They will be joined by Diana Bishop, Norbert Hirschhorn and Sami el Mahdi from 7:30 PM.
The evening costs just & pound;3.50 (concessions & pound;2.50), with refreshments available in the interval. Directions are available here.
The group also hold regular themed poetry workshops. For more details, email organiser Katherine Gallagher, or visit her website.
Author Louis de Bernières will be reading extracts from Captain Corelli's Mandolin and some other of his novels, accompanied by live music (guitarist Craig Ogden and mandolinist Alison Stephens) and Greek-influenced Sicilian cuisine.
The evening takes place at the spanking new Forge Music Venue and Caponata Restaurant in Camden on Saturday 6 June from 7pm.
Tickets are £50 (includes music, reading, a 3 course meal and aperitif) or £20 gallery seating (viewing only). To book a table phone the restaurant on 020 7 387 5959.
Join us at Palmers Green's Waiting Rooms for an informal poetry night featuring two Enfieldian poets, a glass or two to drink and the chance to meet some other group members.
The Waiting Rooms is an individual, intimate venue at Palmers Green station which hosts live music, displays local artists and jewellery makers and boasts an interesting toilet situation... It's also exclusively ours for one night only.
14 May, 7.30pm - please let us know if you can make it. You can download a flyer here (PDF, 73k).
We are now reading Ross Raisin's Yorkshire Moors-based God's Own Country for our next meeting on Tues 19 May (venue TBC). Sadly, unlike our last read, The Grapes Of Wrath, there's no Lego version!
We've also got a literary pub walk and poetry night to look forward to before then — see below. Please join us, whether you are a member of a reading group, or have just stumbled across this website.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the only thing that goes better together than pubs and books is melted cheese and toast. With this in mind we are arranging a literary pub walk via the London Walks people.
We'll have our very own guide to take us (and no tourists) around the literary haunts and pubs of Bloomsbury on Sun 17 May. It begins at 4pm from Holborn tube station, and the cost should be a recession-friendly £5.50 per head.
Details about the walk itself are available on the London Walks website.
We need to know numbers so if you would like to come, please let us know by Sunday 26 April. All welcome.
Enfield poets Anthony Fisher and Katherine Gallagher have agreed to read some of their poetry for the North London Reading Groups.
Join us at Jazz & Blues cafe-bar The Waiting Rooms, a fab little arts venue which as its name suggests has made its home in a railway station waiting room!
The evening is on 14 May and starts at 7:30 PM. The venue is closed mid-week and will need to open specially for us. We need to hit a minimum number of people to make this happen, so please confirm your interest.
They will do food for us (at a cost) if we request in advance, otherwise it's drinks only. If you want food we'll get costs and go with the majority request.
Our next book group meeting is on Mon 9 Feb. We will be discussing Conrad's The Secret Agent at The Salisbury Hotel between Manor House and Turnpike Lane tubes from 7pm.
Our March meeting is on Wed 4 March, where we will be discussing Richard Yates' tale of surburban malaise, Revolutionary Road. by There will also be a complementary cinema trip to see the recent Leo 'n' Kate adaptation on Tues 17 Feb, and non-members are more than welcome to join us.
So long as they won't buy any pungent cheesy nachos or hot dogs, that is.
One of our members is organising the next installment of Look Both Ways, a night of 'artsy magic' on Thurs 19 Feb. Featuring music, film and poetry, it's free and it's in a pub. What more could you possibly want?
Join us upstairs at the Old Queen's Head, 44 Essex Road (near Angel tube) from 6.30pm!
It feels like it's been rescheduled more often than a wet Wimbledon quarter final, but we will finally be getting our claws into The Secret Agent on Mon 9th Feb at a venue to be confirmed.
We've also decided on our next book which is Revolutionary Road by James Yates. We are hoping to organise a complementary trip to the cinema to see the Leo 'n' Kate film adaptation so we can argue over which is better (or worse).
We are holding a 'Join a Reading Group Nite' on Monday 30 March at 7pm. See below for more details.
As there has been a lot of interest, the venue has been changed to The Edinburgh Cellars, 125 Newington Green Road, Newington Green N1 4RA.
It's not too far from Highbury & Islington Tube station or Canonbury Overground station. If you can make it, please confirm via the box on the About Us page.
A couple of events that may be of interest:
Natural London – through the lens is a free photography exhibition between 17 and 18 Jan at Camley Street Natural Park, King's Cross.
Literary club nite Book Slam returns on 29 Jan and features Guardian First Book Award winner Ross Raisin and Apples author Richard Milward. If you've not been before, this Patrick Neate curated event always promises a good night out.
After lapping up Revolutionary Road (as well as some rather potent whisky at the Whisky Rooms) our next meeting is on 7 April, where we will be discussing Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. It is said that readers turn to escapist fiction during times of economic malaise. Not us!
Hats off to TheatreVOICE for trying to bring some culture to our beloved Piccadilly Line. Urban Scrawl is a series of short audio plays — one for each stop — to make your commute more bearable.
Download them here or read more about them in The Guardian or Time Out.
We are arranging a Reading Group Nite to fill up vacancies across the book groups formed from this website, and possibly set up a fifth. As per tradition, this will take place over wine and nibbles at Smithy’s Wine Bar in Kings Cross, on one of the following evenings TBC:
* Thu 19 Mar
* Mon 23 Mar
* Tues 24 Mar
* Wed 25 Mar
* Thu 26 Mar
* Mon 30 Mar
* Tues 31 Mar
* Wed 1 Apr
If you are interested in coming along, please get in touch.
