I have always loved reading but usually without direction or purpose. While reading is a joy it can often be lonely so a few months ago I joined the Reading Rooms in Didsbury (led, guided and facilitated by the charming Mariana Casale O’Ryan) and the experience has been frankly amazing.
The online marketing announcement for the Reading Rooms states its members:
“Take part in a discussion of stories, plays and novels by a variety of writers in a beautiful venue, enjoying a cup of tea and cake, usually accompanied by art exhibitions or historical interest displays. We meet in the warm glow of the yellow room at the Old Parsonage to enjoy the multiplicity and richness of perspectives that emerge from sharing the reading experience in a group setting… they read, think, talk and share.”
A cup of tea, cake and a book discussion, Wow! How could I resist? So I went along for a first-taster. The group had been reading some short stories (taken from The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories edited by Kasia Boddy) for a couple of months but each meeting was what might be called a standalone and what I found refreshing was the way the discussions in the group were centred, not on a single interpretation or explication of the chosen story, but on close-reading the text, guided and structured by the insightful questions of our perceptive literary chaperon.
Currently, for our Autumn Read, we have been reading some short stories by Carson McCullers (mainly The Ballad of the Sad Café) and it has proved an inspiring reading experience. But it’s not just the stories or discussions that are stimulating; nor is it the prose form (short story) and sub-genre (Southern Gothic) – forms which seem to have slipped by me in the past. What has proved highly illuminating, in and out of the Reading Rooms, is the insights it has given me in more familiar literary forms and genres and it has even enhanced and stimulated an understanding of a whole range of other artistic disciplines.
Every community has at least one book or reading group but I think we are lucky in Didsbury in having such a fine one as the Reading Rooms in the Old Parsonage (run by Mariana Casale O’Ryan). Its superior ambience and lofty discussions are truly inspirational. Long may it continue.