The Reader Online

Dorling Kindersley publishers are looking for members of the public to submit unique objects with incredible stories. The winning entry will be published in our new book All This Makes Life Worth Living. This book of wonders, published later this year features a vast array of astonishing items that add something to the world we live in, from Jimi Hendrix’s burnt guitar to Edison’s lightbulb.

About the book…

At a massive 1000 pages, the book will be the largest project DK have ever taken on, and it aims to cover everything in this world that makes life worth living. Featuring images of the world’s most amazing and unique objects, each spread will feature an item that will have a story behind it.

A mangled, burnt out guitar is actually the guitar that belonged to Hendrix who used to set fire to his guitar on stage using lighter fluid; an old door lock turns out to be the object that kept Mandela in prison for 27 years during the South African apartheid. What may just appear to be some random object will actually have a significant tale to tell that has contributed to the world we live in today.

Competition

This is your chance to be part of the project. Do you own a rare, interesting, unseen, inspirational or amazing object that represents what makes your life worth living? It could be anything from a one-off piece of art to a ticket stub from the greatest gig you ever went to.

To enter you need to email AllThisBook@uk.dk.com with an image of your object and a maximum of 100 words on what makes it so worthy of a place in the book. The most unique and inspirational objects will be shortlisted and then an ultimate winner will feature within the book when it’s published.

You can find out more on the website.  The competition closes at Midnight, Friday 30th January.

From the nineteenth century, right into the second half of the twentieth, hundreds  ships carried coal from North East England down the East coast of England to the southern ports. During World War II they fed the armaments factories and kept fires in domestic hearths in London and the South East. The men who sailed on the colliers were known as “The Coal-Scuttle Brigade” and during the war they suffered terrible losses in the North Sea. This little poem is about counting the lighthouses and lightships from just south of the Humber to the mouth of the Tyne. It is a simple thing, but it is all about isolation, the end of a journey, and the promise of home.

Coasters’ song

First the Dudgeon, then the Spurn,
Flamborough Head is next in turn,
Filey Brig as you pass by
Whitby Light bears northerly.
Huntley Cliff the great highland
Is five and twenty from Sunderland;
Our Old Man says, if wind holds right,
With luck we’ll be in Shields tonight.

Posted by Chris Routledge

The Reading Cure: A Conversation
Literature: Medicine Chest of the Soul

On Wednesday 14th January, The Reader Organisation and The Lancet hosted an event at the Wellcome Collection, London to open up a discussion about the relationship between reading and health. You can read about the event, see the photographs and download an audio recording on our website.

We have had some post-event thoughts and feel that we need to discuss the importance of reading aloud further.

“A difficulty is a light”, Valéry.

We can’t stress enough how important the reading aloud aspect of Get Into Reading is!

When a book, or poem, is read aloud, it comes to life as a physical presence in the group. This coming to life allows people to engage with the text more readily: it is opened up and shared. Even if the text is difficult or not everyone in the group decides to read aloud, everyone is together on the same page, at the same time and assisting one another to get through it. This makes the experience not only a social one but it also turns a scary challenge into an enjoyable, shared one.

We would like to discuss this further – we are in the process of setting up a wiki for this purpose, we’ll notify you when this is up and running – and hope that within the next few months we will be able to host a further seminar specifically on the subject of reading aloud and its importance for health and wellbeing.

Please let us know if this would be of interest to you. If there are any further issues around reading and health that you would like to see investigated in greater depth, we would welcome your suggestions for other seminars in the future.

Interested in becoming a Get Into Reading facilitator? Visit our Read to Lead Training pages to find out how.

New Year is oviously a time for resolutions and for many of us – it is to read more. On 16th January, the Telegraph ran an article about 100 Novels Everyone Should Read.  Not to be outdone, the Guardian is running a seven day series: 1000 Novels Everyone MUST Read; these are broken down into the categories of Love, Crime, Comedy, Family & Self, State of the Nation, Science Fiction & Fantasty, and War & Travel.

The Telegraph’s list sparked a lively discussion amongst readers, many of whom did not truly agree with the Telegraph’s choices. Where was DH Lawrence, Thackeray, Hemingway, Kafka, Voltaire – to name but a few? These lists are obviously a little subjective as they are based on undefined criteria, however, the value of them needn’t be overlooked – there are some brilliant reading suggestions. After any initial outrage and hurumphing about what’s not there, reading through the list again leads to obtaining some really useful ideas about what to read next.

The Guardian’s list is obviously far more comprehensive – it’s also broken down in a more structured way – but again it does not mean that we will all concur with their selection, or how they have been categorised. Again though, it’s food for thought and encourages some interesting discussions.

Why not tell us your thoughts on the lists, and recommend some of your top books of all time?

The Reader Organisation has launched its 2009 Read to Lead Training programme, sharing our expertise so that together we can get the whole nation to enjoy and engage with literature.

The first Read to Lead Accredited Training course of 2009 is underway this week, with twenty keen students from all over the country hoping to become accredited Get Into Reading facilitators and spread the Reading Revolution around the UK. We’re hoping that the course will build on the success of last September’s residential, which inspired comments such as these from our trainees:

100% better than any professional course I have ever attended.

I have gained so much from this course – most importantly INSPIRATION!

We deliver a varity of training courses and consultancy services throughout the UK, which are open to people from all professional and social backgrounds: a love of books, a belief in the social value of reading, and a passion to share this vision are our criteria.

This course has been brilliant – other professional courses pale in comparison. This is the first time I have ever felt so enthused after a training course, with a real sense that I have learnt something which can make a difference.

Our next Masterclass: Half-day School will be held in Liverpool on 28th January and the next Read to Lead: One-day Workshop will be held in Birmingham on 25th February, so there’s no time to lose! Visit our training pages for a list of upcoming courses, training information and booking details, or contact Casi Dylan, Training Manager.

Why not make becoming a part of our Reading Revolution the New Year resolution that actually lasts?

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) was a prominent figure of the Renaissance period, gaining fame not only from his poetry but from his position as a soldier and courtier. The poem below is taken from the sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella, a title which derives from two Greek words: ‘aster’, meaning star, ‘phil’, meaning lover, and the Latin word ’stella’ meaning star. Astrophel is the ‘Star-Lover’ of the poem, Stella his ‘Star’. Many choose to read this poem in an auto-biographical way, and believe Sidney himself to be the character of Astrophel, pining for Penelope Deveraux (or Stella), later Penelope Rich, whom he loved. Love stories aside, this poem also deals with the act of writing itself, and the struggle for inspiration. As we see in this verse, Sidney’s ‘Muse’ volunteers the advice from which the poem is able to begin: ‘look in thy heart and write’.

Taken from: Astrophel and Stella

Canto 1

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others’ leaves to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay,
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
‘Fool’ said my Muse to me, ‘look in thy heart and write.’

Posted by Claire Speer

Friday 6^th February 2009, 2.00 – 5.00pm, Room 1.15, 126 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool

In 2008 the School of English at the University of Liverpool, in collaboration with The Reader Organisation, was awarded funding by the English Subject Centre to deliver a ‘Reading in Practice’ project. The project places undergraduates as reading-group leaders in the Merseyside community, as part of the Get into Reading project. So far, the ‘Reading in Practice’ project has placed students in Get Into Reading groups in settings as diverse as homeless hostels, dementia care homes, mental health day centres and drug rehabilitation units.

We’re looking for new recruits – vibrant, thinking individuals who care about books to take part in this flourishing project – to build on the success of the student volunteer project and take it forward into 2009. This is a wonderful opportunity for students wishing to extend their minds, their reading, their usefulness to the community and the ‘work-related experience’ sections of their CV. Come and hear about it from students who are already devotees!

Click here to view the Reading in Practice Student Conference programme.

The conference is likely to appeal most to first or second year students of English or related subjects (Classics, Irish Literature, Latin American Studies, Modern Languages); it may also appeal to medical students interested in reading and health. To guarantee a place at the conference, or for further information, please contact Dr Josie Billington.

Liverpool Poetry Café has now moved from Costa in Bold Street to The Hub in the Bluecoat, School Lane. On the fourth Thursday of each month from 7.00-9.00pm, Liverpool Poetry Café will feature established and up-and-coming poets. Drinks and food available from the Upstairs at the Bluecoat restaurant. Come to our launch event on Thursday 22nd January. Tickets to all events free from the Bluecoat box office (0151 702 5324).Poets featured in the first quarter of 2009 include:

January 22 Deryn Rees-Jones, Michael Murphy, John Redmond – following Liverpool Poetry Café @ The Bluecoat launch, by Catherine Marcangeli (Adrian Henri’s partner)

February 26 Jo Shapcott, William Park, Cynthia Kitchen

March 26 Carol Ann Duffy, Janette Stowell

Liverpool Poetry Café programme can be found here.

A cold, snowy day in Manchester and twelve Get Into Reading members made the trip to The Library Theatre to see Roger Haines’ fabulously innovative production of Great Expectations. Neil Bartlett’s adaptation was clear and concise. Initially, I was intrigued as to how anyone could manage to adapt this lengthy novel into two and half hours and how in fact, it would be staged.

The play flowed easily, but not so fast as to leave the audience wondering what was going on. This play was in no way a pure narrative, this version unlocked Dickens’ imagery with a fabulously innovative set. Pip speaks of the pressure to contain the compromising aspects of his past behind “many hundreds of doors”, and the exceedingly clever set design included all of them, suggesting tombstones, prison cells and various locations in London. Where there are doors, there are also eavesdroppers: each point in Pip’s journey is witnessed by a whispering chorus peering through keyholes. The presence of these portals created a striking metaphor for the hero’s inability to unlock the truth about his own background.

Dickens’ weird and wonderful characters appeared from behind these doors and popped up from trap doors in the floor with props and furniture, in a series of choreographed movements.The hard-working cast appeared as several characters including Pip’s cruel sister and the lovable Joe Gargery. Richard Heap was a magnificent Magwitch, Claire Redcliffe provided the love interest as the fickle Estella, while Helen Ryan was a chillingly heartless Miss Havisham.

I went with no expectations and returned entranced.

Posted by Alison Walters

In his book, Christina Rossetti in Context, author Antony H. Harrison discusses the poet’s work and the “dominant tensions upon which it is constructed: between beauty and death; between love of man and love of God; between the ephemeral and the eternal; between the sensory and the transcendent.” ‘Remember’ is very much concerned with these tensions, especially those between the ephemeral, or short-lived, and the eternal and between beauty and death, which the poet seems often to confuse in her work as well as in her life.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Rossetti, 1849

How many times have we thought about lost love in the way put forward in these last two lines? It is so eloquently and succinctly put, and not only that, it reminds us to live in the present and not regret things past.