The Baileys Prize is celebrating the diversity of modern day book clubs and showcasing the power books and stories have to connect us with their launch of #ThisBookClub. Below, we feature a new guide for reading groups, an unofficial shortlist poll (who gets your vote?) and some celebrity readers pairs with stories to share, so read on…
Get the book lovers’ must-read
The Prize has published The Brilliant Woman’s Guide To A Very Modern Book Club to help you make the most of your book club and celebrate all the ways that novels can bring people together. With features from brilliant women writers including Kate Mosse, Grace Dent, Joanna Trollope and Helen Dunmore, and reading notes for the 2015 Baileys Prize shortlisted books this guide is for anyone who loves a good book. You can download it here.
Be inspired and share
The Baileys Prize invited three pairs of inspirational women – actress Emily Blunt and her sister, literary agent Felicity Blunt; writer Janet Ellis and her daughter, the singer-songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor; and brand consultant and TV presenter Mary Portas and her wife, fashion editor Melanie Rickey – to reveal the novels written by women they most want to share with one another. Their selections are designed to inspire book lovers across the nation to get together to talk about the books they would choose. Read what they shared.
Vote now!
Which is your favourite book on the shortlist for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2015? The poll closes on 1 June and we will announce our reading group ‘winner’ here and on social media. Will we get it right? Do you agree with the way the poll is going? Vote here:
Get involved
What do you think of the shortlisted titles? Who would you share your favourite novel with? Do you have any handy tips for a reading group that you would add to The Brilliant Woman’s Guide?
Share your thoughts with us on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter @ReadingAgency @BaileysPrize #ThisBookClub
Greenacre Writers
Greenacre Writers Book Club Rosie Canning
#The PayingGuests
This is the first Sarah Waters novel that I've read. I enjoyed being taken back in time and had no problem with the intensity of the relationship. I found the descriptions of paying guests arriving and living in the house and all that brings with it, like the loss of privacy very lifelike. It is almost as if Waters takes the traditional Lady and Servant roles and turns them up-side down. Lillian is the more bohemian, Frances scrubs floors without shame. I didn't enjoy the suspense of the murder trial, though I enjoyed the plot (if that makes sense). I did feel the author rather let the reader down by letting Frances and Lilian get away with it. I really wanted to know what they would have done had the boy been found guilty.