The Reader Online

Earlier this month, Rana Dasgupta won the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize for his novel Solo. We are delighted by this – we published an extract of Solo in The Reader 33 - Dasgupta, it would seem, is less pleased.

In an article written in today’s Guardian, Dasgupta has confessed that he found his victory “very depressing”:

“I had loads of people emailing me, asking ‘Can I post this to the discussion?’,” he says. “A lot of people were immensely irate about the whole thing – I was amazed by the passion it raised. I was mostly saying ‘Please don’t post anything’.” A user with the postername John Self posted an invitation Dasgupta had sent via Facebook for friends to come and vote on the Not the Booker thread, and at that point “anything that was said about my book was a conspiracy,” Dasgupta continues, “and people were saying that I was behind it all.” It reached a point where Dasgupta felt there was “no way of arguing with any of this”, and posted on the thread himself to withdraw from the competition.

Dr Dave Fearnley, Medical Director and Deputy Chief of Mersey Care NHS Trust, who earlier this month was named Psychiatrist of the Year by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, runs his own Get Into Reading group at Ashworth Hospital in Liverpool.

Dr Fearnley, who is also a member of The Reader Organisation’s Research Team, has written about his experience reading with patients weekly in this secure unit, and why he thinks it is so important, in The Reader issue 34, which you can download for free here, or buy your copy of the magazine here if the ‘real thing’ is more your thing.

Last few days to see images by Dave McKean from The Savage at the Bluecoat (School Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BX) until 1st November 2009.

This exhibition features a selection of original artwork from this year’s Liverpool Reads book The Savage including the original front cover from the hard back edition which is both intriguing and chilling.

Dave McKean has illustrated several award-winning comics including Arkham Asylum with author/playwright Grant Morrison, Signal to Noise and Mr. Punch with author Neil Gaiman. He has written as well as illustrated two books (Cages and Pictures That Tick) released four different collections of his photography (Black and White Lies, Option:Click, The Particle Tarot: The Major Arcana and The Particle Tarot: The Minor Arcana) and has created hundreds of comic and book covers including the hugely popular Sandman series.

Multi-talented, Dave has created ad campaigns and over 150 CD packages for Michael Nyman, Tori Amos, Counting Crows and Alice Cooper amongst others. He has worked on a variety of book and film projects with John Cale, The Rolling Stones, Milcho Manchevski, Stephen King, Lars Von Trier and Iain Sinclair. He is currently directing and designing films including the recent Jim Henson Studios produced Mirrormask and character design on the Harry Potter movie franchise. He also jointly oversees the running of the jazz record label Feral.

The Bluecoat is delighted to host an exhibition featuring a selection of original artwork by Dave McKean from The Savage. The exhibition starts outside the bar (press 2 in the lift) and continues on the floor above. It is open from 10.00am until 10.00pm Tuesday to Saturday and 10.00am until 6.00pm on Sundays and Mondays.

The images displayed are courtesy of the artist Dave McKean with support from Walker Books and David Almond.

Written by Vanessa Chellembron, audience member at the Bluecoat

Brian Keenan with Vanessa

Brian Keenan is best known for being taken hostage in Beirut in 1985, a strange thing to be know for, but nonetheless, the reason we know him – this and An Evil Cradling, his account of the time taken from him.

An Evil Cradling is not just an account of being held hostage, it is a profoundly moving book, a story of one man’s emotional journey through the turbulence; the harshness and depravity is there, but along with it is a wondrous humour and vitality. It is a story of the intense connection with his fellow captive John McCarthy, they shared a hilarity and love which fed their spirits and spurred them on in spite of the worst imaginable circumstances.

It is an extraordinary account of humanity, humility and humour, a remarkable book which has helped me in my life. Quite frankly Brian Keenan is one of my heroes, so when I heard he was doing a reading at the Bluecoat (Friday 16th Oct), I knew I had to go.

He read from his new book I’ll Tell Me Ma, not so much an autobiography as a collection of memories from his childhood. Memories that for him led on to stranger and long-forgotten memories, thoughts of a young boy now interpreted by an adult mind, connections made as skeletons gently revealed their secrets.

Brian Keenan was rather sweetly nervous at the beginning, saying that the audience were more threatening than a bunch of Arab terrorists(!), but relaxed as he read to us, then happily answered questions from Jane Davis and the audience.

He is a charming man and spoke from his heart, he said that his emotions are always close to the surface, he lives through them – a lesson to us all.

He did a book signing after the event, and took time for everyone. He very kindly agreed when my friend asked if I could have my photo taken with him (I was too in awe of him to ask!), and seemed delighted to show his human and rather mischievous side.

Whoever said that you should never meet your heroes was wrong. It was an honour to meet Brian Keenan, he is a truly lovely man.

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Jane Davis, Director of The Reader Organisation, hosted this event with Brian Keenan and she says this of her experience:

Anyone who has read An Evil Cradling will know that Brian Keenan has written  one of the most extraordinary books of the twentieth century, giving voice to key experiences and fears of our time. The book is a moving testament to a courage and resilience which seems to arise from but also be greater than the individual.

I’ll Tell Me Ma, his new memoir (not at all miserable)  is an account, to use an old fashioned phrase, of the development of a soul, the soul that became the man who survived the brutal captivity described in the first book. The book is a series of vivid memories and meditations, a rather Wordsworthian account of a lonely and deeply felt childhood.

Reading and rereading the books was my prep for the Chapter and Verse event at Bluecoat last week, and they helped, but nothing had prepared me for the depth of feeling, wit, gentleness and deeply individual creature that  is Brian Keenan. I felt I was meeting someone who utterly become himself, crystallised, absolute. It was a great pleasure and an experience that will stay with me, and I think many members of the audience, for a long time.

Jane Davis will take part in Cafe Culture, discussions and debate cafe style in Newcastle, next Monday evening (7-9pm):

The Reader Organisation pioneers new approaches to reading, reaching people across the community from children who don’ t attend school to older people with dementia.

We know that reading fiction and poetry is good for us, but just how good? Can reading poetry help people with neurological dysfunctions, can reading Dickens cure depression? Jane has also developed innovative read-aloud and personal response models which are at the heart of these approaches.

Events are from 7pm prompt until 9pm and are held at the Urban Café, Dance City, Temple Street, NE1 4BR.

Further details about Cafe Culture can be found here.

In addition to the Get Into Reading Project Worker job advertised last week, there is another job opportunity available at The Reader Organisation (TRO):

TRO Business Manager

Please follow this link for details on how to apply and for further information about the job.

The deadline for applications is 5pm, Monday 9th November.

Reminder: The deadline for the Get Into Reading Project Worker job is next Monday (2nd November). If you’d like to apply, please click here for full details about the job and how to apply.

Lisa Spurgin, a recent graduate of the University of Liverpool, has just started a Communications Internship with The Reader Organisation.

Imagination – it’s a wonderful thing. We all possess it, can access it at any time we wish, it costs nothing unlike many other objects we use to give ourselves a emotional boost and the ‘fix’ it gives us lasts far longer than a mug of coffee or a chunk of chocolate (even the really good stuff). It’s also significant in creating the pleasure each of us get out of reading – once we really engage with a book or a poem, our imaginations are sparked and we can embark on all sorts of journeys and adventures – big and small – that we may never find time to do in reality.

A number of Emily Bronte’s poems capture and celebrate the dreamy, delicious state of imagining but To Imagination, as its title suggests, stands as a love letter or a triumphant toast to the inner world. For Bronte, imagination appears to be simultaneously within and separate from ourselves – its presence leaps from something we can merely appreciate, such as “a bright unsullied sky”, to an actual being, someone we know and who is always there for us in times of happiness or sorrow…a true friend. As the poem concludes, things step up a gear as it is declared “sure solacer of human cares”, the comforting and even healing power of imagination is fully revealed.

As someone whose mind has always been filled with near on a thousand different thoughts a day, this poem really sums up my feelings on just how precious the imagination is. I admit, having an over-active one is a hindrance at certain times but all in all, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

To Imagination

When weary with the long day’s care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost, and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again
O my true friend, I am not lone
While thou canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without,
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world where guile and hate and doubt
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou and I and Liberty
Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it that all around
Danger and grief and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom’s bound
We hold a bright unsullied sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason indeed may oft complain
For Nature’s sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy newly blown.

But thou art ever there to bring
The hovering visions back and breathe
New glories o’er the blighted spring
And call a lovelier life from death,
And whisper with a voice divine
Of real worlds as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet still in evening’s quiet hour
With never-failing thankfulness I
welcome thee, benignant power,
Sure solacer of human cares
And brighter hope when hope despairs.

Emily Bronte (1818-1848)

Baines has a growing obsession with a Peter Eames – an architect in the 1860’s who had a flourishing career until deciding to take on a venture of a rather grand FREE library to be built not in the well to do area of Liverpool but of all things in the poor section! Reading may have been thought of as something only people with money do! What fascinated Baines was Eames’ short tragic life – his body found in Blundell Sands in suspicious circumstances.

Baines being a fellow architect took a great interest in Eames’s thoughts which he obtained from William Brown Street in the form of his diaries – wanting to know more, what a better place to look than a diary which hopefully holds a person’s innermost thoughts? I think you should never judge a person by his outer shell but his inner being (sorry becoming a philosopher now!) The group started thinking about diaries and how personal they can be, and how peculiar it can be to look back at an event from years ago and how it seemed a big upheaval when originally written but now totally insignificant

Eames appeared to have lots of forward thinking about architecture which did not come to fruition – maybe because of lack of money or people who made the final discussions were backward thinking instead of forward. Over the last few years Liverpool has represented a building site – especially running up to the year of culture 08 – at times it seemed like a marathon to get things ready rather than a sprint. It was quite amusing though to realise that things were just as chaotic here in Liverpool in 1861 – Peter Eames also describing the city as a construction site!

In the book the other day Baines met up with a photographer called Tanquerary who he felt an instant bond with – funny in life how we sometimes instantly bond with someone or maybe have an instant dislike for no apparent reason. Strangely, very strangely I was in Slater Street the other day and a shiver went down my spine as there was a photography van there!!! Sleep Well!

READ International will be holding a fiction/non-fiction book sale on 25th November in the University of Liverpool’s Guild of Students in order to raise funds towards our annual £7,500 target and we really need your help.

DONATE YOUR UNWANTED BOOKS AT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING DROP OFF POINTS:

• THE BASE, LIVERPOOL GUILD OF STUDENTS – University of Liverpool

• LJMU UNION (THE HAIGH BUILDING)

• SYDNEY JONES LIBRARY (Tues 20th Oct – Sun 25th Oct) – University of Liverpool

• HAROLD COHEN LIBRARY (Mon 26th Oct – Sun 31st Oct) – University of Liverpool

• THE LAW BUILDING – University of Liverpool

• ELEANOR RATHBONE BUILDING – University of Liverpool

• CYPRESS BUILDING – University of Liverpool

CDs, DVDs etc. also welcome!

You can also donate at our weekly meetings – every Monday at 5pm in the International Lounge, in the Guild (and if you want to become a volunteer, please feel free to come along!).

Do you already know about READ’s great work?

Find us on Facebook: ‘Read International Book Project Liverpool 2009/10’. Check us out at: www.readinternational.org.uk

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Here is some information about our project and other ways you can help:

Profit driven book companies in the UK produce 6th, 7th and 8th editions of textbooks every year, which schools are forced to buy in order to maintain an image of being up to date. This results in an abundance of disused, high-quality textbooks gathering dust in UK secondary school cupboards. The aim of Read International Book Projects is to collect these books and send them to secondary schools in Tanzania, where the syllabus is almost identical and is taught in English.

In Tanzania, the government gives each child 30p per year to spend on textbooks, which, if they buy new, will cost them £11 per textbook. We can ship the books to Tanzania for no more than 50p each. Of course, we only take the most useful and up to date books, and any books that are not appropriate, such as politics or religion, are sold online or recycled to generate funding.

We have some huge targets to meet and this is why we need your help! So far, READ has shipped over half a million textbooks to Tanzanian schools. This year, out Liverpool Book Project aims to send another 25,000 books, and will need to raise £7500 by June 2010 in order to fund this target. Whether you want to get involved in contacting schools, picking up books and sorting through them, raising awareness and funds or simply supporting by coming to our weekly meetings, READ is open to everyone and is a great opportunity.

Some of the benefits the READ offers YOU include training in delivering Think Global workshops to Key Stage 3 students focusing on active global citizenship, the opportunity to earn your V50 certificate if you volunteer more than 50 hours of your time, which looks great on your C.V., the chance to actually go to Tanzania yourself in the summer of 2010 and redistribute the books we collect this year, and, of course, a lot of fun!

This is one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty in Africa.

Hon Margaret Sitta MP, Minister for Education (Tz)

Any questions do not hesitate to contact us at liverpool@bookproject.org.uk

The Mind Hacks blog reports on a study showing that literacy has a measurable physical effect on the structure of the brain. From the post:

The researchers, led by neuroscientist Manuel Carreiras, recruited a group of ex-paramilitaries who could read less than five simple words on a Spanish reading and writing test, and compared them to a similar group who learnt to read and write from an early age.

The research team use MRI scans to compare differences in brain structure between the two groups to allow an insight into how brain anatomy changes to accommodate reading and writing.

While it is possible to do this with children, it is almost impossible to separate out which are the brain changes due specifically to acquiring literacy and which are just part of the massive changes that constantly take place as children develop.

Here’s the link.

Posted by Chris Routledge