The Project Worker is required to set-up, establish and facilitate weekly shared reading groups in two London boroughs, as part of projects to improve well-being and mental health. The reading groups in Southwark will take place in a range of community settings, and in Kensington & Chelsea will be in community and in-patient mental health settings.  In addition, Project Workers are expected to take an active role and interest in the core business of TRO which includes training others in shared reading techniques, communicating the work of TRO effectively and fundraising.

The delivery of the reading groups will take place within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the London Borough of Southwark. The Project Worker will work closely with the Project Co-ordinator in each borough, and make links with a range of key organisations to promote the shared reading projects, recruit group members, enlist the support and collaboration of relevant staff and develop a culture of reading within the community and in-patient settings.

Deadline for applications: 9.00am Thursday 7th June

For more information and how to apply, please visit our website: http://thereader.org.uk/about-us/job-opportunities/

This week’s Recommended Read comes from Lois Walters, our Lambeth Get Into Reading Project Worker, who has returned again and again to W Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil.

I was a late comer to Somerset Maugham; perhaps wrongly thinking him a white male colonial writer, but The Painted Veil has converted me. His 1925 depiction of a woman’s journey from shallow social privilege to spiritual awakening and maturity took me on journey that reflected that of the woman, Kitty.  From South Kensington in London, through Hong Kong and the cholera ridden remote depths of mainland China Kitty and I, stumbling at times, discovered a world beyond our own.

The book’s title refers to Shelley’s sonnet ‘Lift Not The Painted Veil’ which suggests we should ‘lift not the painted veil’ of life for ‘behind, lurk Fear and Hope, twin destinies’.  At the start of the novel Kitty leads a vacuous and superficial life – her destiny defined by her social status and gender. The book cleverly mirrors Kitty’s intellectual and mental  state- starting with short, often mawkish chapters where the characters are given  physical descriptions and little depth, and then developing into longer deeper chapters as Kitty, often accidentally (or through destiny), is exposed to a world beyond privileged South Kensington between the wars.

The opening chapter is one of great tension before Maugham flashes back and forth between past and present explaining to the reader how Kitty comes to be caught in flagrante delicto in the opening pages. Even after several reads it still amazes me that the book was first published in 1925, and more amazingly that it was written by a man. As Maugham slowly lifts the painted veil of Kitty’s life we the readers are drawn into her world, as she, in the words of the poem ‘sought…things to love’. Kitty like most of the characters is not wholly likeable; she is vain, judgemental and selfish – or perhaps, real? We discover as the book opens up that behind the painted veil of her life do indeed lurk fear and hope; Kitty marries a man she doesn’t love, or even really know, out of fear that she will be ‘left on the shelf’- partly spurred on by the chance that her younger sister  will beat her to the altar. She then experiences hope when she falls in love with Charlie and starts an affair with him, only to then be sent back to fear as he lets her down and she is forced to travel to cholera ridded Mei-tan-fu with the husband she does not love.

Shelley’s poem refers to hope and fear as ‘twin destinies’ and throughout the book we see them juxtaposed. Not just for Kitty though. Her cold and calculating mother fears that Kitty, when she is still unmarried at 25 (again important to remember the book was written in 1925), will be a burden on the family. One of the parts of the book that I found most disturbing is when Kitty arrives in Mei-tan-fu, full of fear, and thinks of running away but then realises

It was out of the question. If she went where would she go? Not to her mother; her mother would make her see very plainly that, having married her off, she counted on being rid of her.

But there is still the hope that her lover Charlie may come to her rescue, for Kitty has not yet lifted the painted veil that she has draped over Charlie Townsend hiding the reality that he is also self serving and superficial.

One of the reasons I love the book is that although Kitty is selfish and vacuous, she is also a product of her environment. She is naive and sheltered, there to look pretty and support her husband – but as we see her thrown into situations she is unfamiliar with she shows as certain bravery and stoicism. She also matures and starts to see the world outside her very parochial upbringing. There is a very beautiful scene, when she has arrived in Mei-tan-fu and is miserable and missing Charlie. She awakes from dreaming about him and observes the morning mist slowly dispersing and;

suddenly from that white cloud a tall, grim bastion emerged. It seemed not merely to be made visible by the all-discovering sun but rather to rise out of nothing at the touch of a magic wand.

This vision moves Kitty to tears and is the start of her spiritual maturity (and I think the moment that the members of my Get Into Reading group started to empathise with her);

she had never felt so light of heart and it seemed to her as though her body were a shell that lay at her feet and she pure spirit. Here was Beauty. She took it as the believer takes in his mouth the wafer which is God

The novel opens up as Kitty opens her eyes to the outside world and Maugham subtly changes the structure of the writing. Kitty is still flawed and selfish, but she is also human, for which of us has not made mistakes and shown poor judgement at some point in our lives?

I have read the book now twice on my own and once with a Get Into Reading group and still find much to love about it. Sharing it with others, who admittedly at times struggled to see the advantage of reading it during the early chapters when it seemed to be a novel filled with privileged and shallow character, has made me cherish it more.

I would like to thank my Get Into Reading group members at the Lambeth Walk Group Practice for their inspiring reactions to the novel and their trust that it is a book worth sticking with. It is!

LIFT 2012 will also be playing host to the UK premiere of Gatz, a spellbinding and seductive word-for-word staging of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s modern classic The Great Gatsby.

One morning in the office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter on his desk. He starts to read it aloud and doesn’t stop.

Termed ‘the most remarkable achievement in theatre not only of this year but also of this decade’ by The New York Times, Gatz is an eight-hour event performed by New York’s Elevator Repair Service, spread over four parts to take the audience from early afternoon into the evening (including a long dining interval). Imagine your favourite book coming to life before your very eyes, losing yourself in the words as they are read aloud…this is the exciting and engaging prospect that Gatz offers its audience.

Gatz will be taking LIFT 2012 into the West End for 23 performances only – if you’re a Fitzgerald aficiando, you don’t want to miss out.

Gatz runs from Friday 8th June-Sunday 15th July 2012 at the Noël Coward Theatre in London. All performances start at 2.30pm and finish by 10.30pm, with tickets costing between £27.50-£77.50. Tickets are available through the Gatz London website or by calling 0844 482 5141.

Miranda Richardson (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1; The Young Victoria) will be reading The New Dress by Virginia Woolf,  Sonya Cassidy (star of stage versions of The Lion in Winter and Inherit The Wind) will read an extract from I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and Mathew Horne (Gavin and Stacey) will be reading extracts from Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith.

Stories Before Bedtime, held by the Criterion and in partnership with Vintage Books and The Reader Organisation, is a series of special late-night readings celebrating and championing the love of reading, transporting the audience back to a time when being read to aloud before bed was a fundamental part of life.

Stories Before Bedtime: Summer Time
Friday 1st June 2012, 10.30pm
Criterion Theatre, 218-223 Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, London, W1V 9LB

Tickets cost £12.50 (£10 GIR member/concessions) and are available from the Criterion Box Office or online.

“Read to Lead taught me more about reading than my MA in literature ever did.” – Shared Reading Facilitator

We are accepting applications for the final few places on the upcoming Read to Lead training course in London. Read to Lead equips you with the skills and understanding of a shared reading facilitator, and the ability to run shared reading groups inspired by The Reader Organisation’s ground-breaking Get Into Reading project. Read to Lead is a training course and a personal experience in its own right, the beginning of a journey developing the craft of shared reading, and a special way to get involved in the Reading Revolution.

Completion of the course also allows access to Day Two of The Reader Organisation’s forthcoming National Conference - Living to Read Well - exclusively designed for those who have completed Read to Lead and who wish to develop their practice as readers and facilitators. Taking place at the British Library on 18th May, you can find out more information and book your place here.

The course will run on 14th – 16th May at 8 Hop Gardens, off St Martin’s Lane, London WC2. The three-day course and 12-month access to The Reader Organisation’s CPD programme costs £750. Flexible payment options are available. Download your application form here or contact roisinhyland@thereader.org.uk for more information.

One of the official Olympic poets for 2012, Lemn is also associate artist at the Southbank Centre and was awarded an MBE in 2010. He recently became a patron of The Reader Organisation and will be appearing on the panel discussing ‘Literature and Children’s Wellbeing’ on Day One. As someone who spent 17 years growing up in the care system, Lemn is passionate about improving the lives of Looked After Children through initiatives such as our own Get Into Reading project.

He will also be appearing in conversation with TRO’s Jane Davis at Day Two of our conference, a day exclusively designed for those who have completed our Read to Lead training.

Here’s a preview of his thoughts:

What is the last book you read that moved you?

A Love Letter from a Stray Moon by Jay Griffiths

Why are you interested in what The Reader Organisation does?

The Reader Organisation releases the true life changing power of the intimate act of reading. 

To hear more from Lemn Sissay and our work with young people, book your place now for The Reader Organisation’s National Conference, 17th-18th May 2012, British Library, London. Visit our website to register and for more details about the programme.

To give you a little taster of what you can expect, we’ve asked some of our guest speakers and the TRO staff appearing alongside them to give us their thoughts on their current reading and the upcoming conference itself.

We’ll be posting their answers on the blog over the next few weeks, so keep your eyes peeled.

Our first is from Jonathan Rose, Professor of History at Drew University (New Jersey, USA) and author of The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. He’ll be appearing in conversation with TRO’s Director Jane Davis on Day One.

What is the last book you read that moved you?

Sex Before the Sexual Revolution: Intimate Life in England 1918-1963by Simon Szreter and Kate Fisher (Cambridge University Press). Using the methods of oral history, the authors persuaded the last surviving members of that generation to talk about a side of their lives that they had always considered deeply private. The resulting collective memoir is at once touching, surprising, and stunningly honest. It turns out that our grandparents were, in their own way, more loving than we ever imagined.

Why are you interested in what The Reader Organisation does?

I admire and support The Reader Organisation because it protects and nurtures an endangered species – the serious reader.

For more information about the programme and how to book your place, please visit our website.

The conference is always eagerly anticipated by staff, volunteers and those who have completed our training: this year, the support of our commissioners and patrons is also strongly in evidence. Our panel discussions (the full listings are available on our website for Day One and Day Two) will involve key people who are funding our work and patrons who passionately believe in the benefits of what we do, alongside our own staff who make it all happen, week in, week out.

To give you a sense of the range of voices on each panel, the “Why Shared Reading Works in Criminal Justice Settings” will involve one of TRO’s newest author-patrons, Erwin James, Dr Jude Robinson of the University of Liverpool, and commissioner Maggie Roy, alongside TRO staff Alexis McNay and Amanda Brown. Erwin James is a writer and Guardian columnist, for whom he began writing on criminal justice issues while a serving prisoner. While serving a twenty year sentence, he developed an interest in reading and education, which he credits with changing his life. Jude Robinson is Reader in the Anthropology of Health and Illness in the Dept of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology in the University of Liverpool. She is currently involved in a research project in HMP Low Newton on “Reading with Women in Prison”. Maggie Roy is a Service Manager with Central London Community Healthcare’s Offender Healthcare, based in HMP Wormwood Scrubs. Alexis McNay is TRO Reader-in-Residence in HMP Liverpool. He currently hosts Get into Reading groups in the healthcare and vulnerable prisoners’ wings; the session will be chaired by Amanda Brown, TRO’s Criminal Justice Manager.

Full details for each session will be available from Tuesday 3 April; in the meantime, booking information can be found on our website (cheque/invoice) and our dedicated Eventbrite site (online payment).

Tickets are now on sale for The Reader Organisation’s 3rd annual National Conference dedicated to sharing the message of our Reading Revolution: reading aloud together for pleasure.

Day One: Reading to Live Well
Thursday 17th May, 9am-5pm
Day Delegate Rate: £199

The first day of the conference is an information day aimed at commissioners, funders, and potential partners who want to understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ Get Into Reading works.

Highlights include:

• Dr Iona Heath, President of the Royal College of General Practioners, will be giving a keynote address on ‘Imagining the Patient: Literature and Medicine’
• Professor Jonathan Rose, a specialist historian on the book and reading at Drew University, in conversation with Jane Davis

More details about the programme and information about how to book your place are available on our website.

Day Two: Living to Read Well
Friday 18th May, 9.30am-5pm
Discounted day delegate rate: £99

*EXCLUSIVELY FOR SHARED READING FACILITATORS (those who have completed our Read to Lead training courses)*

This second (half price!) day is just for TRO trained facilitator. Highlights include:

• Award-winning poet Lemn Sissay in conversation with Jane Davis
• Practical sessions and masterclasses from TRO staff. 

More details about Day Two’s programme and how to book your place can be found on our website.

We’re starting some exciting new projects in London at the moment. In the next few weeks we will begin two weekly reading groups in Wormwood Scrubs prison, in partnership with Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust. This is our first criminal justice project in London and builds on our experience across the country. We will also start delivering eight shared reading groups for in-patients across the West London Mental Health NHS Trust, including two groups at Broadmoor high-secure hospital, which builds on the success of our work in mental health settings over the last three years.

Some of our existing work is expanding. We have been working with Idea Stores in Tower Hamlets for over three years: up to now  we have trained up ten of their staff and are increasing the number of groups across the borough. The projects in Kensington & Chelsea and Lambeth are also about to grow, as we’ll shortly train up staff from various health and community organisations to deliver groups themselves.

This means we’ll be delivering groups in Barnet, Camden, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets and Westminster boroughs, and will bring the number of groups delivered across London to 36. You can find out which open group is closest to you by checking the Get Into Reading London group map.