NEW WRITING / BOOK TALK / NEWS AND REVIEWS

THE

READER

Published by The University o Liverpool School o English.Supported by:

No. 30 SUMMER 2008

This edition o The Reader magazine is oeredree or download. You are welcome to share itbut please respect the rights o the contributorsand do not republish any o the content withoutasking and being granted permission. Pleaseconsider making a donation to help und the out-reach work o The Reader Organisation at http:// thereader.co.uk/index.php?pid=341.You can buy a copy o the current print edition o the magazine, or subscribe here: http://thereader.co.uk.

Printed and bound in the European Union by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow

EDITOR

Philip Davis

DEPUTY EDITOR

Sarah Coley

CO-EDITORS

Angela MacmillanBrian Nellist Christopher RoutledgeJohn Scrivener Jen Tomkins

NEW YORK EDITOR

Enid Stubin

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Les Murray

ADDRESS

The Reader 19 Abercromby SquareLiverpool L69 7ZG

readers@liverpool.ac.uk

WEBSITE

www.thereader.co.uk

SUBMISSIONS

See p. 9

SUBSCRIPTIONS AND DISTRIBUTION

See p.124

ISBN

978-0-9551168-9-6

ABOUT THE READER ORGANISATION

Jane Davis, Director, The Reader Organisation

The Reader Organisation is a group o people or whom literature is a key way tounderstand and relate to the world. Through our strands o activity, we want tobring about a reading revolution, and put books at the heart o lie:

GET INTO READING

is our fagship social outreach programme, building commu-nity through shared reading. Groups meet weekly and books are read aloud.

THE READER MAGAZINE

addresses those or whom literature is already a much-loved activity, urging them to read more deeply, widely, or more demandingly.

READER EVENTS

bring readers – old hands and absolute beginners – together innew ways, rom a Food or Thought working lunch to the Christmas Party that is The Penny Readings.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

helps us to improve what we do, or to prove its value. We hope to create new ways o writing about reading and its eect on readers.In this issue I write about a new Reader adventure, Wirral Community Shakespeare(see page 97).

OUR UNIVERSITY CONNECTION

The Reader has operated within the School o English at the University o Liver-pool since 1997. But in March 2008 the organisation constituted a legal entity inits own right: we have spun out! We now have legal independence, but the Univer-sity remains our biggest supporter and continues to provide our Liverpool o ices, inancial support, and lots o creative connections. The English Subject Centre, or example, has unded a project between theSchool o English and The Reader, training undergraduates to develop reading groups in community settings as part o Get Into Reading. The Reader Organisation’s Research Director, Dr Josie Billington, who alsoteaches in the School o English, is running ‘Remedies or Lie: a literature courseor Medics’ in Liverpool’s School o Medicine. We want to develop many more crea-tive projects which will connect literature to the rest o the University.

THE FUTURE

‘People are dying – it is no metaphor – or lack o something real to carryhome when day is done.’ Saul Bellow,

Herzog

We used this quotation in 1997 in the very  irst issue o

The Reader

. We believe that we have something real to oer the UK and we are seeking investment and support at a national level or our vision o a new large-scale social unction or literature. The Reader Organisation is committed to making sure that this precious untappedresource (old stu, classics, poetry, the great unread) gets out o the university andinto the hands o people or whom it might be humanly valuable. This is a reading revolution!