Meet our final six Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction reading groups. They will be shadowing the judges as they read through the six shortlisted 2016 titles. You can follow them on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as they discuss their titles and chat with each other over the coming weeks leading up to the Prize announcement on Wednesday 8 June.
Haggerston Book Group are a local women’s 
book club in Haggerston, East London reading all kinds of fiction in kitchens, living rooms and bars while our children have been growing up. We meet monthly and take it in turns to choose our reads. Over the past year some of our favourites have been Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. We also organise book-related events, such as seeing Brooklyn at our local cinema and going to hear authors reading from their work, most recently Amy Liptrot reading from The Outrun. We have several members who have moved away but still read the books and stay in touch. Our title is The Portable Veblen.
Hillingdon Libraries Staff Reading Group are a group of library staff 
with an eclectic taste in books all working for the library service in the London Borough of Hillingdon. A few of us have been involved in running reading groups in our libraries over the last few years but we made the decision a few months ago that we wanted our own staff reading group. We currently have 10 core members who meet on a monthly basis to talk about books & reading plus there is normally a cocktail or two drunk at our meetings. We are really excited to be given the opportunity to shadow the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction and looking forward to discussing our shortlisted title, The Improbability of Love.
The Boozy Book Club are a relatively new reading 
group, set up in 2016 and located in East Kilbride, near Glasgow. We are a group of busy mums who love reading, but never seemed to have the time to dedicate to it. We decided to set up the book club to give us an outlet for chatting about our favourite reads in a relaxed environment (away from the children!) We meet every 4-6 weeks (depending on our hectic schedules!) to discuss our chosen book – usually over a glass of wine…hence the name of our book club! We read all genres and try to mix genera between meetings so we read a wide range of literature. Our discussions are usually lively as we all have such different reading styles, which always make for a fun night. We are over the moon to be chosen to shadow the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016 and look forward to sharing our views on Ruby with you all.
Issie’s Book Group 
has been going for 14 years. We work in teaching, IT, publishing, charity, corporate and journalism and we all share a love of books, and we also share a lot of fun. We meet once a month to discuss a book, which we pick in turn. At the end of the year we celebrate with a book of the year and hard-fought awards such as: best character, best cover, least likeable character, author most likely to read again etc. We like to go on outings to stage and film versions of books we have read and we all did the Moonwalk last year in memory of one of the founders of the book club. We’ve been to the Hay Literary Festival and appeared on a TV magic show with Katherine Mills, using one of our book club books. We read classics as well as new publications and, while we don’t always agree, we enjoy lively discussions, punctuated with a glass or two of Prosecco. The Glorious Heresies is our shadowing title.
Daubeney Reads are a group of housemates and ex-housemates from all over Europe who meet at our house in Hackney to discuss books and share food. We’re really excited about being part of the Baileys Prize shadowing and can’t wait to read A Little Life.
Gloucestershire Lit Lovers and Yummy Scrummy Pudding Clubare a group of 10 women living in rural Gloucestershire. We have been the Glos Lit Lovers for over 4 years now and meet monthly. We mostly read modern fiction, and we mostly cook and eat pudding. (Although we are also partial to a decent cheese board.) We loved shadowing the Bailey’s Prize in 2015 and can’t believe our luck that we will be doing it again this year. It is a fantastic opportunity to read and review some of the best new books available. Find us on Twitter @glos_litlovers where we’ll be discussing The Green Road.
Get involved
Find out all about the other six reading groups here.
Tell us which book do you think should win this year’s prize. Share your thoughts using #BaileysPrize or comment below. Don’t forget to leave your reviews on the books.
Keep up with the latest news on the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction website and join in the conversation and share your pictures on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using #BaileysPrize
