STARTING A READING GROUP

Read about the different experiences of two British Council offices when they decided to start Reading Groups.

• Reading Nomads

Discover how the reading club at the British Council in Kazakhstan was set up. They called themselves Reading Nomads just to show that they live in a country belonging to nomadic people and that they enjoy travelling in the world of books. They were not quite sure about how to begin the Reading Group, how to choose the books that would meet the everybody’s interests or how to run the discussion. These are the questions that every newly established Reading Group might ask. Almost at the same time the BBC began the country-wide discussion of  books and voting for the Big Read 100 top titles. This was a great help to us in selecting our first reading list for a year...

Find out more about the Reading Nomads.

• Life in Your Hands

The British Council in the Czech Republic has been running a series of seminars and other events to encourage the establishment of Reading Groups in the Czech Republic. The Life in Your Hands project has been running for three years. It includes:
* Training of British centres partner library managers - audience development and promotion of contemporary British fiction  

* Organizing the Animating Literature seminars across the country, 70 to March 2005; building up the audience of readers and indicating multipliers

* Training of library managers together with teachers of English to be facilitators of Readers Groups and reader-centered activities. 

Find out more about Life in Your Hands.