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Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Ken for London Legend

What about Big Ken for London Legend?. Guess what's his next big idea: Get London Reading.

Someone behind all this has chosen 12 books set in London as a kind of core reading list. There doesn't seem to be a proper Get London Reading book club blog set up, but there is a comment section. Lucy M. from Islington's certainly keen! All are welcome at the launch in Canary Wharf at lunchtime on Monday 23 February (if you turn up early enough - properly early - you might get a Get London Reading 'goody bag').

Does everyone read these days? There was I thinking we were part of something quite exclusive. This Monday's Standard even had a review of a book about book clubs, The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble.

"Each chapter revolves around one of the club's meets and the novel discussed. January means Heartburn by Nora Ephron, November The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. But don't worry. You needn't have read them, nor indeed any sort of book before - Noble helpfully explains the whole 'fiction' concept for the uninitiated ('Nicole was absorbed by the made-up lives of the pretend people')."

Catherine Shoard's review finishes: "Clubs are always more about exclusion than inclusion. Book clubs may sound classy, but they are really no different." Good job we've got Big Ken to knock down the barriers of exclusivity and privilege, extend opportunity to all and ensure that reading's something every Londoner can enjoy. I say vote Ken for London Legend!

Posted by Jon @ 21:52 GMT
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A reading group, well an exclusive book club blog really, for connoisseurs of fine literature, books, clubs and blogs.


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Boris Vian, L’Écome des Jours, 1947, Translated by Stanley Chapman as 'Froth on the Daydream'1967, 1970, 1988

Current Book Club Book on the Back Burner

Herman Melvills's 'Moby Dick

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Previous Book Club Books

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Patrick Bateman is Harvard-educated and intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom - doing impermissible things to women. He is living his own American Dream.

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