Its been a long time since the last entry

…. Between a brush with Ye Plague, and large helping of Yuletide, the month seems to have flown by. I hope you had an enjoyable and bookish time, escaping from the turkey with a potboiler, dodging the knitted sweater with a bodice-ripper, etc.

Here at Rothley Crossroads, we have been allocating books to reading groups for 2008. Groups select six titles from a catalogue of several hundred, and let us know when they would like to receive their sets of ten. Between Christmas and New Year, my colleague Roy and I sit down with lists of books, months, and groups, and try to make it all hang together. It’s a book-based Rubik’s cube of shifting dates, titles and libraries. Each set is issued for six weeks, effectively meaning that it can be used six times a year… but the groups meet on different dates, and not necessarily every other month… I spent yesterday evening staring at the wall and whispering the phrase "replacement fiction title" to the winter evening.

The good news is that with nearly 100 reading groups supported by the library service, reading groups are in rude health in Leicestershire. If you’d like to get involved, there’s likely to be a group near you that you can join – just get in touch to find out. If there isn’t a group near you, we can support you in starting one – what more could you ask for?

Christmas also brings books: most of which I bought for other people and ended up reading instead of giving. Looking for books for other people can be much more surprising and revealing than going over your own familiar shelves. This year I reread Pam Thompson’s "Parting the Ghosts of Salt" – an ambitious but beautiful poetic sequence - before wrapping it for a friend. I discovered Ugandan poetry, as I searched for a present for someone who used to work there. My Dad received novels based on mediaeval France, so that I can borrow them later. I also have a history of English pub names, which I must flick through before it is sent to friends in France. Did you know there’s a pub in Glasgow called The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam? Of course you didn’t. Don’t ask me why, I haven’t got to ‘R’ in the book. If anyone knows of other hostelries with a literary link, then please let me know and I’ll mention them here next time.

Until then, stay warm and keep turning the pages.
K.