Today (Wednesday 25th November) they have a SECOND HAND BOOK SALE:

READ International are selling second hand fiction, non-fiction and educational books at dirt cheap prices in Liverpool Guild of Students between 10.30am and 4.30pm. Come along and buy some great books, many of which could be given as Christmas gifts! We will also be selling raffle tickets for our Christmas raffle at the stall so come and enter for the chance to win some great prizes.

If you are interested in joining READ it’s not too late! Please come to one of our weekly meetings at 5pm in the International Lounge, Liverpool Guild of Contacts every Monday! You can get involved in a number of ways, such collecting and sorting books, helping out at fundraising events, hosting presentations in local schools and raising awareness!

This announcement follows the publication of Duffy’s first official poem as Laureate: ‘Politics’, which sees her join the government expenses row. You can view the poem here, or for more information on reactions to ‘Politics’ follow this link to the Guardian article.

The Festival brochure will be distributed across Merseyside and Lancashire from Monday 22nd June. More details will be available shortly, but for now visit the official website for more information.

Other Stories is a blog about books and feminism, with added cat photos.

There’s even a snap of the snazzy new issue of The Reader! So, whether you’re a seasoned visitor to the blogosphere or just looking for online book discussion, you might be interested to have a mooch on Kirsty’s blog for yourself. You can find it here

Our autumn days have been a bit chilly of late but we think we’ve got just the thing to warm the cockles of your culturepool hearts & minds… and it’s all FREE. culturepool will be presenting music and theatre at the Atelier Bow Wow – Rockscape from 12pm. The Rockscape is an open air amphitheatre built as part of the Biennial in the heart of the city on the corner of Renshaw/Leece and Berry St (click her for map).

Mellowtone (who many of you will be familiar with from our birthday party) have organised for some of the best acoustic music in the city to play from 12pm. Then at 1pm L.A.X. Theatre Company will perform their production of the modern classic The Zoo Story, a one act play by one of America’s pre-eminent playwright Edward Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf) about the confrontation between two characters on a park bench in Central Park.

We’ll then follow the play with a discussion with actor and director Paul Fred Kelly and actor Reg Edwards. After that there’ll be more music and we’ll finish off with a philosophical discussion about Public Art organised by Liverpool’s own Philosophy In Pubs.

We hope you’ll all join us throughout the day to enjoy the melting pot of talent that will be bubbling in the city!

As always, if you’re not sure of details, or have any questions, drop us an email or give us a call 0151 236 0796. Full details can be found here.

By Vinny Lawrenson-Woods, culturepool

The turn-out on Saturday morning was fantastic! Once everyone had settled with coffee, croissants, and new acquaintances, Jane Davis kicked things off with an introductory chat before Clare read out an extract from her novel Poppy Shakespeare, which acted as the basis for group discussion about her work.   

After the informal group discussions, Book at Breakfasters had the opportunity to direct any questions or thoughts about the novel to Clare Allan: both audience questions and Clare’s answers providing more thought-provoking possibilities for discussion.  

Those attending were extremely impressed with what the morning had to offer, with most compliments focussing on the fact that the event ‘takes people out of their everyday lives to engage with stimulating discussions’; ‘makes people aware of mental health issues’; and, simply, how they were ‘inspired’, both by Clare Allan and by the lively discussions her presence initiated. 

A big thank-you to Clare for being part of our event, her honesty and good humour made for a thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating breakfast. Thanks also to all those who attended: you helped to ensure the morning was the huge success it turned out to be.

The first event of the Liverpool Literary Festival is on this Monday 3rd November at the Bluecoat at 12noon. Rebecca Goss is hosting a two hour workshop over lunchtime about women’s poetry, so bring a packed lunch and join other readers and writers to discuss poems that explore key stages in the life of women.

Rebecca and the group will read and discuss poems addressing key aspects in women’s lives, taking in the poignant and the pleasurable. This will lead to a writing exercise, drawing on sensory experience and nostalgia.  No previous writing experience is necessary. This workshop is limited to 20 places and we still have some seats left.

Rebecca Goss taught creative writing at Liverpool John Moores University and is now a full-time poet. She reads nationwide and has work published in The Reader, Mslexia and Ambit and forthcoming in anthologies, The Poet’s Perspective and In the Telling.

Rebecca recently appeared at the Chapter And Verse festival at the Bluecoat alongside Paul Durcan in a lively, entertaining and heartfelt event to a packed-out audience. Although their styles were very different, it was wonderful to see two poetry readings about personal experiences and moments brought to life in such a memorable way.

There are two other workshops at the festival:

Jorie Graham is appearing in a discussion group with poems submitted by workshop attendees, and we nearly have a full session already. Many people have submitted a wide range of poems and it is shaping up to be a very interesting group. Saturday 8th November at 10am at the Bluecoat.

Ailsa Cox will be leading a creative writing workshop on short stories, one of the most demanding and yet rewarding of forms. It’s not going to take as long as a novel but it is going to ask you to be succinct. Budding and experienced writers are invited to join Ailsa Cox for a workshop which will introduce some basic concepts and give you a chance to develop your skills. No experience necessary. Sunday 9th November at 4pm at the Bluecoat. Ailsa Cox teaches creative writing at Edge Hill University. Her stories have been published widely, and have been shortlisted twice for the Stand International Short Story competition, for the V.S. Pritchett award and The Bridport Prize. She is the author of Writing Short Stories.

Remember that students can £1 tickets for all events … please visit our website www.liverpoollitfest.org.uk.

By late Autumn this year many publishing houses will be putting ‘age bands’ on their children’s books, so in the future you could expect to see the shelves in bookshops and libraries stocked with books carrying recommended reading ages on them such as 7+, 9+, and 11+. The scheme is proposed as a way to help adults choose books for children, but is this really the best way of doing this? Bookstores and libraries already separate children’s literature into age ranges such as 9-12 and Teen to help us find appropriate books; printing ages on the front of books is unnecessary. The question we need to ask ourselves is what effect will age banding have on the young people reading the books? I believe in many cases it will have a negative effect; instead of boosting reading amongst young people, and increasing sales of books – as publishers hope – it will in fact do the opposite.

Why tell struggling and dyslexic readers that they are reading books aimed at much younger children? I work with a 13 year-old boy who is currently enjoying a book that publishers will probably label as 9+, how would he feel if he knew? He would probably feel deflated and embarrassed. What he had previously recognized as a great achievement would suddenly shrink because the book that he has come to love and respect would be telling him that he should have read it when he was 9. The boy’s new enthusiasm for reading could quickly be buried under feelings of shame and inadequacy.

J, foster carer of 5 young people said of the proposed age banding, ‘I think it is ridiculous, children are all different and read at different levels, it will destroy the confidence of struggling readers.’

Here at The Reader Organisation we see reading as socially inclusive, a book can bring people together and foster a sense of community. It is because of this belief in inclusion that I agree with Philip Pullman when he says: “Declaring that a book is for any group in particular means excluding every other group, and I don’t want to exclude anybody.” Do we want to divide our children so clinically into groups of readers by age or do we want to keep the pages of books open to them as they were to us?

Many writers, librarians, illustrators, teachers, and booksellers oppose this proposal and have joined together to form a petition led by Philip Pullman. Visit the wesbite to find out more.

Posted by Sam Shipman

Helen Tookey is a Liverpool-based writer and editor. Her collection of poetry, Telling the Fractures, a collaboration with photographer Alan Ward, was published in May 2008. The poems tell of love, death, and time, of childhood and the passing of generations. The poem ‘At Burscough, Lancashire,’ first appeared in The Reader, issue 27 and tells of West Lancashire’s ‘moss’, a flatland that was once a vast lake.

At Burscough, Lancashire

Lancashire’s Martin Mere was the largest lake in England when it was first drained to reclaim land for farming, in 1697.

Out on the ghost lake, what’s lost
is everywhere: murmuring in names
on the map, tasted in salt winds
that scour the topsoil, westerlies
that wrenched out oaks and pines, buried now
in choked black ranks, heads towards the east.
Cloudshadows ripple the grasses as the seines
rippled over the mere by night, fishervoices calling
across dark water. Underfoot, the flatlands’
black coffers lie rich with the drowned.