This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, one of the major poets of the 20th century.
To mark the centenary, we teamed up with Orion, who are reissuing his complete collection, to offer eight reading groups the opportunity to take part in the celebrations by reading a selection of Thomas’s works and sharing their opinions on Reading Groups for Everyone.
Whitegrove Library Reading Group
Whitegrove Library Book Club has been running for seven years, meeting monthly in the heart of the community at Warfield in the unitary of Bracknell Forest. There is a buzz within the group for being part of the project as some members are life-long fans of his life and work, while others can’t wait to read Dylan for the first time. The group feels honoured and at least some, elated in being chosen to be part of this celebration of Dylan Thomas in his centenary year.
Between the Lines
A newly formed group in 2014, we came together because we wanted a place to be able to discuss the books we love and nothing was currently available locally for us to do this, so we set up our own group. We are only a small group at the moment, just five members but we hope to find some new members to join us as time goes on. We are really excited to be taking part in the Dylan Thomas Project especially as most of us have not read any of his work before so it will be a learning journey to expand our reading at the same time.
Sophisticated Ladies of Barry
We are five women aged between 29 and nearly 50 who meet every month to discuss books, eat cake and drink wine. We take turns to make suggestions and read a diverse selection of books. At the moment we are reading The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson, a contrast to the Ernest Hemingway we’ve just finished. We have busy, changing lives but book club is a constant; a place we relax and discuss and laugh and support each other. Reading books together is a bonding experience, and one we intend to continue with for years to come. This book club has inspired one of our members to set up book clubs with isolated elderly people in the community and another to set up a book club for year 6 children in the school in which she works. Eat, sleep, read!
