Preston's Newest Book Group!

I'm sure we're all guilty of never reading enough.  The broadsheets take up all your weekend, the local rag's tittle tattle just happens to be nearby when you're on your coffee break.  The television seems comforting after a hard day at the office and all your friends are on Facebook at the same time.  STOP this madness!  It's time to read more. 

Or perhaps you read loads but from the same old genre and you need an excuse to try something new but you need some friendly encouragement?

I think all these reasons combined with missing uni is the reason I wanted to set up a book group.  My mum wants to make new friends and sometimes we just need a good excuse to get out of the house on a winter's evening.

It was easy to do, pick a place, pick a time and pick a book.  Text some friends the details and voila, book group up and running! 

We had our first meeting in December which wasn't the best time really, everyone had festive madness to contend with but a small number of us got together to talk about Susan Hill's latest novella, The Small Hand.  The first thing that attracted me to this book was the cover.  Before you slap me for being so naughty, my boyfriend saw me admiring it and told me he'd read the author's other work and said she could write some really scarey stories.  As this was a ghost story I was keen to find out more and so I chose it for our first book. 

I won't let on any details in case you plan to read it yourself but it wasn't quite what I thought it would be.  I still enjoyed it though and found Susan to be a beautiful writer. 

After discussing the book over drinks we caught up on each other's lives and went on to discuss other books.  We've all got a long list of stories we want to read and authors we want to try and genres we're yet to experience.  One member, my good friend, Christine has picked Phillip Pullman's Northern Lights.  Many people I know adore the Dark Materials collection and respect Mr Pullman himself.  I am yet to experience the 'delights' of his stories so I'm really looking forward to starting this.  First thing is first though, I must complete the Twilight Saga and read Christine's copy of the short second life of bree tanner before she thinks I've stolen it! 

Review of the books we read are to follow.