By Richard Boon

I answer the door. Again. And again. And, yet again, it's a woman clutching in one hand a bottle of wine and, in the other, a book. It's the monthly meeting of my wife's reading group and it's our house's turn on the rota to play host. Yet another book group, contributing to the tide of such informal gatherings sweeping both the neighbourhood and, it would appear, the nation.

Whether prompted by such initiatives as the BBC's TV Big Read and Radio 4 Book Club programmes, New Labour's primary school curriculum Literacy Hour (there are local kids' book groups too), or else of old - but, remarkably, kept - New Year's resolutions, there's no doubt: more and more people are reading books and getting together to talk about them.

While mainly private affairs in domestic settings, the growth of such groups suggests an appetite for reading that, often, one group alone can barely satisfy (indeed, some of the women in my wife's group, for instance, are members of at least one other). But groups can also be found in more public spaces.

One such is the monthly gathering hosted at Church Street's Barracuda by facilitator Liz McShane. 'Those things you mentioned', she tells me, referring to all that BBC guff above, 'had nothing to do with it. Some friends and I thought we never really read enough, but drank too much, and mightn't it be fun to just meet and drink and talk about a book. Teng at Barracuda was happy to help.' Meeting at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon, with a small group of regulars, Liz's group is keen to welcome more.

'We're open to new members', she says, 'and we're not at all proscriptive.' So much so that her group are considering branching out from books into films as well, to be shown in the Barracuda basement and debated as keenly as any book.

Other public groups include those of Stoke Newington Library. With a long-established and now oversubscribed reading group - Jeff's group - which meets on the last Tuesday of the month, the library has recently added another - Richard's group (hey! that's mine!) - which meets on the first Tuesday of the month and is still open to new members. Both meet from 7-9pm on their respective days.

The library's reading groups work from specifically bought multiple copies of books recommended by their members, which are then also shared with the Tuesday afternoon group at Stamford Hill Library (from 2pm, first Tuesday of the month), and stock circulates between them in rotation (it can get a bit complicated to track a particular title).
However, the team at Stokey's local library are so keen to position themselves at the centre of hot local reading group action that, in the New Year (when readers make those resolutions, after all), some of the stock of previously selected books will be available to other neighbourhood reading groups as a bulk loan on a special membership. Further, in order to act as a focus for information about - and comments on - books from local groups, early in 2005 the library's pages within the Council website may well be expanded to act as a notice board for other groups. 'Under construction', as they say these days. Which means 'wait and see'.

Members of any local reading groups are welcome to contact the library for more information about its services and to use its current reading groups noticeboard in the foyer.
Meanwhile, appropriate mottos might be: Read on. Right on.
Contacts: 
Barracuda group: liz.m@jhp-design.co.uk.

Library groups: 
Stoke Newington: jeff.cotton@hackney.gov.uk , richard.boon@hackney.gov.uk  
Stamford Hill: sue.committi@hackney.gov.uk.

Slouching Towards Sunstone

by Saskia Little-Brown

OK: the induction didn't go smoothly - in fact, it didn't go anywhere much. My fault. I
should have taken notes to compensate for the short-term memory loss that ensured that all information imparted was immediately erased. Why is it that when I forget my shopping list, I can remember everything but the main ingredient, whereas after an hour of professional face-time with a proper qualified gym-type professional my mind wiped everything? I put it down to information overload. 

Structure was obviously needed - structure, instruction and close supervision. For the sake of the community at large, the safety of others and my self-esteem.

After extensive research - OK: Google and a couple of telephone calls to people who know about these things - I opted for Pilates. No sudden movements, lots of lying down, general reassurance that it would be fine for 'older people', and no bloody muzak thumping away in the background. Sounded good.

The first session looked promising: with two minutes to go, no one else had turned up and I was hoping that my blushes would be both spared and private. Soothing instructor, nice little mat that reminded me of infants school - and individual tuition. Perfect. Then the other buggers appeared.

I've got nothing against finely honed, blissfully slim, effortlessly groomed young things, but not in my Pilates backyard, if you please. I wanted imperfect beings of a certain age with bulges and breathing difficulties - and I get size 8 nymphettes. Insouciant nymphettes, too. And - crushingly, in a beginners' class - they knew what to do and how to do it. Why were they there?

Even worse, though, was the pedicure issue. I'd bought my trainers, after all, but Pilates
doesn't need trainers. You do it in bare feet. So toes that have suffered fifty years of benign neglect (alright: fifty-plus years) are suddenly and rudely exposed - in all their defiantly hideous glory - to public view. The toes to my right, I couldn't help noticing, as they were very close to my nose at one point in our class, had been buffed, polished and shaped to perfection. Mine? Well, my powers of description desert me - for purely humanitarian reasons, you understand.

Toe torture quickly gave way to a more immediate concern with breathing. Not the in and out stuff that we do without thinking - I can normally manage that unaided - but the sort of breathing exercises that I would more normally associate with childbirth, although in childbirth, the last time I checked, you aren't raising and lowering limbs and stretching toes, and curving your spine at the same time. Or not without drugs or the aid of a
birthing pool.

Instructor was gentle, encouraging and genuinely trying to be as positive about my efforts as possible. Difficult in the circumstances. But I made it to the end of the class, crawled home, and tried to convince myself that I really could feel it doing me good. Didn't work. 

I'd be back, I vowed. Failure was not an option. Yet.