It's a group thing

READING is a solitary business. It makes no difference whether you are in a crowded train or on a packed beach: you alone inhabit the fictional world created by the paperback on your knee. This can be frustrating. Finish the best book you have ever read, and you want to tell the world. Struggle through the most clich-ridden trash your tired eyes ever glanced over, and you want to condemn the author as a cretin to all and sundry.

But you can't.

Unless, that is, you are a member of a reading group. Then you can berate and enthuse with abandon, knowing that the other people in the room share your love of literature and understand the passion it creates.

The first reading groups date back to the 1940s, but the phenomenon took off again in the Nineties. It was September, 1997 when Philippa Morris and Tim Curtis of the Little Apple bookshop in High Petergate, York, hosted their first reading group.

Fifty-seven books and 55 authors later, the group will meet again tonight at 7pm, for the fifth anniversary session. Under discussion will be Falling Angels, Tracy Chevalier's follow-up to her bestseller Girl With A Pearl Earring. Along with Ian McEwan and Sebastian Faulks, Chevalier is the only author to have had two of her books read by the group.

For a novel to be considered it must be contemporary, and out in paperback, to make it affordable to all. The group gets together at the bookshop, Philippa or Tim fires the starting gun and the debate begins.

Philippa said it is impossible to guess how a novel has been received until that moment. "It's fascinating. Some books really divide the group. You'll get some people who think it's the best thing they've ever read and others who absolutely hated it."

The titles which meet with universal approval are rare: The English Passengers by Matthew Kneale is one.

Disagreements are inevitable, and welcome, because the group is so diverse, she says. "It's really varied, apart from the fact it tends to be women - we have got about three chaps who come regularly.

"The age ranges from people who have just left school and take part during their gap year because they want to keep reading to retired people."

Afterwards the discussions continue, often at the Three Legged Mare pub next door.

"It is a social thing for most people," Philippa said. "A lot of people do not have friends or family who they can discuss books with, or who share the same areas of interest in literature."

Channel 4 recently screened The Book Group, a comedy drama series set around an Edinburgh reading group. Philippa said the Little Apple version was very different.

"In the first episode, apart from an American and a couple of blokes, everyone else was married to a footballer. Not one of our group is a footballer's wife - although they're welcome to join."

Pat Mollon is not married to a footballer. Her husband Keith is a chief surveyor at Ordnance Survey.

They moved to York from Newcastle when Keith's job brought him here. Pat kept commuting to Newcastle until she retired from her job as a school lab technician. Reading helped to pass the journey.

She was looking to meet new people in York and became a founder member of the Little Apple reading group after spotting the ad in the bookshop's window.

"I was frightened to open my mouth," she said of the first meeting. But soon the discussion - about Captain Corelli's Mandolin "before it was famous" - soon warmed up.

"One of the things we all noticed about it was that it was called Captain Corelli's Mandolin and yet the captain didn't appear until about page 92."

All the authors and books were new to Pat, now 63, as she had never previously read contemporary fiction.

"They always look to me to spot how many pages it takes before we get the F-word. That's modern literature. I'm a different generation from the F-generation. That's always been a bit of a joke."

The discussions do get heated. "Sometimes we end up talking on top of one another," she said. "It's very rude. There can be very interesting discussions and differences of opinion."

From the social point of view, she has not found a "bosom pal" but she does go for a coffee with another member of the group if they bump into one another in York.

The Little Apple Bookshop is supporting the visit to York Cemetery by Tracy Chevalier on October 13 at noon, in aide of York Cemetery Trust. Tickets, price £2.50, will be on sale from mid-September at the bookshop (01904 676103), Make Your Mark in Goodramgate (01904 637355) and York Cemetery Office (01904 610578).

Hits:

The Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

"We have had a few historical books which got really bogged down in the writer's research," said Philippa. "This book wasn't like that. It was a simple, pared-down story but left you feeling the writer knew about the period and the painter Vermeer."

The English Passengers by Matthew Kneale

The story of a Victorian mission to find the Garden of Eden in Australia "was one everybody seemed to enjoy," Philippa said.

Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling

"I would never have read it without the book group," said Pat. "But it is the only book apart from Wuthering Heights I have read four times. It was enchanting: the language and structure were good, the story excellent."

Misses:

Atonement by Ian McEwan

A prize winner, but not favoured by the Little Apple group. "It got a lot of rave reviews, but they were disappointed with it," said Philippa.

True History Of The Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

It won the Booker Prize last year, but received no garlands from Pat. "The only one I didn't actually finish. I couldn't be bothered with it. It went from bad to worse."

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Hit first novel, adapted for a major Channel 4 drama this autumn. Pat's verdict: "I detested it. Apart from the millions of F-words, I didn't enjoy its delving into the teenage sub-culture. Other people loved it, though."

Updated: 09:18 Wednesday, September 04, 2002