The Reading Group: A Novel
Elizabeth Noble, 2003
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060760441
Summary
A bestseller in the UK, The Reading Group is about a group of women who meet regularly to read and discuss books, and how their lives become intertwined, both with the books they read and with each other's lives.
What starts out as a good idea born from a glass of wine and the need to socialize, turns into much more. Over the span of a year, Clare, Harriet, Nicole, Polly and Susan—five women of different ages, backgrounds and contrasting dilemmas — transform themselves through the shared community of a book group.
Their reading group becomes a forum for each of the women's views, expressed initially by the book they're reading and increasingly openly as the bonds of friendship cement. As the months pass, these women's lives become more and more intertwined.
In the The Reading Group, Nobel reveals the many complicated paths in life we all face as well as the power and importance of friendship. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 22, 1968
• Where—High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England
• Education—B.A., Oxford University
• Currently—Wonersh, Guildford, Surrey, England
Elizabeth Noble was born in Buckinghamshire, England. She was educated in England and Canada, where the family lived for several years in Toronto.
In 1990 she graduated from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford University, with a B.A. (Honors) in English language and literature. But it was the diploma (Intensive Secretarial) that she was awarded by the typing school above the Italian café in Covent Garden that got her into her chosen career— publishing. Over a six year period she worked in the editorial, marketing, publicity, and sales departments of several big publishing houses—moving every couple of years, once she had made a big enough mess in the filing (note to bewildered successors: check under "m" for miscellaneous). This makes her a tricky author. She speaks fluent publishing.
She took a career break — she called it "retired" — to have her two daughters, after her marriage in 1996. When her youngest daughter was ready to go to nursery school, and real work beckoned, she decided to try what she had been threatening to do for years, and wrote a hundred pages of The Reading Group.
Then it took her nine months to work up the courage to send it to an agent. The Reading Group was published in the UK in January 2004 and went straight to the number-one position in (London's) Sunday Times's Fiction Bestseller list. She was supposed to be signing stock in London bookshops the day the chart was announced, but she had grown bored and was trying on trousers—they didn't fit—in a ladies' clothing store when the call came. So she was literally caught with her pants down.
The book has since sold almost a quarter of a million copies in the UK. But the other day her elder daughter, Tallulah, told her she would rather she got a job in a chicken plucking factory because then she would be at home more, so she doesn't think there is much danger of her getting conceited.
She has recently finished her second novel— there were no vacancies at the chicken plucking factory—and begun her third.
She lives with her husband and their ungrateful children in a haunted vicarage in "the safest village in Surrey," England. They obviously don't know about the ghost.
Extras
From a 2005 interview with Barnes & Noble:
• Researching my novels has changed my life. This year alone, in the name of research, I have abseiled 100 feet off of a viaduct, learnt how to gamble, and danced on stage in a Las Vegas show. At the ripe old age of 36, I've finally realized that you are only here once, and I'm never going to say no to a new experience again (so long as its legal!).
• I am perpetually engaged in a quest to be thinner, fitter, have better hair, and look more stylish. I'm usually losing.
• Each morning, I pump up the volume on the stereo and dance about the living room with my five- and seven-year-old daughters. It's the best ten minutes of every day.
• I am incredibly close to my parents and siblings. We have gone in very different directions—my brother teaches mathematics in France, and my sister is a midwife—but we all have a strong sense of family.
• My friends are hugely important to me, and spending time with them is a precious part of my life.
• I like chocolate, floral white wines, cinema, and being lazy. I love U.S. import TV—Sex and the City, The West Wing, Desperate Housewives, and Six Feet Under (God bless HBO!).
• I dislike almost all politicians, pushy parents, and bad manners. And I hate, hate, hate cell phones, and the fact that they mean you can never be ‘unavailable.'
• I unwind in a hot bath with a big glass of wine, and my ultimate luxury would be 12 hours sleep a night (but my children do not agree).
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here's her answer:
A thousand books have influenced my life as a writer...but since you're making me, I'm going to name the classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which I read as a girl and remember as the first novel that gripped me and made me say, as I reluctantly got to the end, "I want to write one day." I absolutely loved, and felt for, Francie Nolan.
(Author bio from Barnes & Noble and the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Tremendous amounts of female bonding, some witty byplay and very well-considered characters.
Seattle Times
A hot, soapy bubble bath of a novel. Go ahead and sink in.
Entertainment Weekly
Noble keeps engagement high as her characters connect and interconnect. Since the Briticisms are usually decipherable in context, this entertaining read is very accessible for Americans. —Whitney Scott
Booklist
Perfect indulgence for the eponymous set-or pandering to an anticipated audience? Or maybe both? As the London Evening Standard put it, The blurb has [the author] down as a simple Surrey housewife who knocked this out between the Hoovering and the hot sex, but further investigation reveals her to be a veteran of book marketing married to the head of Time Warner UK. Go figure! Well, either way, this U.K. bestseller is a frothy page-turner that dissects the relationships, desires and discoveries of five English women, all members of a book club. Over the course of a year, the women read 12 novels (including Atonement, Rebecca and The Alchemist) and, through their playful but intimate discussions (few of which revolve around the books), they bond closely while coping with such matters as a philandering husband, a mother with dementia, a pregnant but unmarried daughter, an infertility crisis, a wedding and a funeral. It's a testament to Noble's characterizations and plotting that the novel is not overwhelming, despite its numerous (perhaps too many) points of view, complicated backstories and interweaving contemporary crises. Light but never flip, this is funny, contemplative and touching reading, and the group's familiar book choices allow readers to feel as if they're part of the gang, too, as they race to the end, eager to find out what happens, why it does and what it all means.
Publishers Weekly
When five women get together to start a book group, they never envision how their lives will change, become intertwined, and be reflected in their books of choice. Their meetings draw them into a surprising sisterhood as they work through a year of caring for an aging parent, unexpectedly becoming a grandmother, marital infidelity, a marriage gone stale, and infertility. Each chapter opens with the group's reading pick and uses it to frame the chapter, mirroring the plot and character development along a particular theme. Fast paced and funny, this is women's fiction worth staying up past your bedtime for. Noble's portrayal of each character remains steady throughout, and readers will readily relate to these women. Highly recommended for all libraries. —Amy Brozio-Andrews, Albany P.L., NY
Library Journal
British chick-lit bestseller hits all the right marketing buttons. Uplifting, interconnected stories of women in a reading club overcoming crises? Check. Twelve months' worth of mini book reviews? Check. And first-novelist Noble packages it so neatly, outlining the books and characters for reference before her story even begins. Harriet and Nicole are stay-at-home moms in their 30s whose husbands work "in the City." Harriet doubts she still loves sweet, upright Tim; Nicole loves philandering Gavin too much. Polly and Susan are a decade older. Polly, a divorced paralegal with a teenaged son and a college-aged daughter, has just accepted a marriage proposal from dashing lawyer Jack. Susan runs a soft-goods business; she and perfect husband Roger, a doctor, are dealing with her beloved mother's suddenly failing health. The club's fifth and most expendable member is Claire, the deeply depressed daughter of Susan's employee. A midwife who can't have children, Claire has withdrawn from long-suffering husband Elliot. Each month's chapter begins with a club meeting at which lightweight intellectual discussion takes place (hot for Heartburn, cool to Atonement), then follows the women's evolving situations. Harriet pulls back from the brink of adultery and wakes up to her real love for Tim once he threatens to walk. Catching Gavin in the act, Nicole finally finds the gumption to throw him out. When Polly's daughter Cressida announces that she's pregnant and doesn't want to marry the father, Polly decides to keep the child for her so that Cressida can finish her education. Jack balks at first, but the baby's charms win him over. Their mother's death brings together Susan and her bitter, long-absent older sister after they realize that Susan was actually adopted. Shocked to learn that Elliot is the father of Cressida's child, Claire finds her calling as a nurse in Romania. Bound to be a hit, but depressingly adept at perfecting the formula.
Kirkus Reviews
Book Club Discussion Questions
1. Consider the epigraph by Margaret Atwood: "the real, hidden subject of a book group discussion is the book members themselves." What does each member reveal by her book selection and contribution to the discussion every month? Is it possible to read a novel objectively, without filtering it through the prism of one's own life experiences?
2. As a reader, Harriet says, "I care so much more about the characters women create. And if I don't care, really care, by about page fifty, forget it." If Harriet judges a book by the emotional bonds she forms with the characters, what criteria do the other reading group members use in evaluating a good book? Consider the Harriet-led conversations on male authors, and on discerning a novel's timelessness. Do you agree with Harriet that, when reading classic literature, "you have to be able to apply what you call modern values to it and still find something relevant and pertinent in it?"
3. At the meeting to discuss The Alchemist, Harriet critiques the book saying, "I've heard the same points made more succinctly by Hallmark." As the women argue and analyze the book's relevance to their own lives, do they convince Harriet of the profundity inherent in simple truths?
4. When Polly, Susan, Harriet, and Nicole discuss Clare's infertility, what do they reveal about changing cultural attitudes toward pregnancy?
5. Compare Tim and Harriet's marriage to Jack and Polly's relationship. Are the crises that arise in each pairing similar? What happens when Tim acts on the lyrics, "If you love someone, set them free?" Does Polly do the same? How is Tim and Polly's situation different from Nicole's? How is it possible to differentiate between a love that needs to be set free, and a love that has to end?
6. Why does Susan think of motherhood as, "the steel ribbons that bind us — Mary and Clare, me and Mum, Polly and Cressida, Cressida and her unborn baby?" How is the strength of each woman's bond tested? What does Susan mean when she says, "we're all mothers, aren't we? Different stages maybe, different problems, but the love is the same. The instinct for self-sacrifice is the same." Do you agree that motherhood is intrinsic to each stage of womanhood?
7. Why does Rob become uncomfortable and embarrassed when Tim reveals the details of his marriage? Why does he think, "It might be okay for women to talk about that stuff?" What seems to be missing from the male characters' relationships with each other? As a "man's woman" with not a "single girlfriend left from school or university," do you think Nicole was handicapped in her relationship with Gavin? How has the "feminine cocoon" of The Reading Group strengthened Nicole? Where, do you suppose, the author might stand on the nature vs. nurture debate on gender and emotional bonding?
8. How would you describe Susan's relationship with her sister Margaret? Are the ties that bind real sisters more prone to jealousy and misunderstanding of female friendship? How does the revelation of Alice's enormous act of generosity and sister-love affect Susan and Margaret?
9. When Jack picks up baby Spencer for the first time, he felt, "something instinctive, quite beyond his control." And when Spencer smiles, Jack "felt as if he'd won first prize. He wanted to make him smile again." Cressida's pregnancy seriously jeopardized her future, almost destroyed Polly's chance for marriage and love a second time around, and leaves Polly with a baby to raise during her retirement years. But in the face of these massive complications what simple, powerful truth does baby Spencer represent? Conversely, was Nicole's decision to deny the truth an act of courage or selfishness, given her changed circumstances?
10. As a member of the "sandwich generation," Susan cares for her children as well as for her Alzheimers afflicted mother. Polly raised her daughter Cressida to maturity, but now cares for her daughter's child, as well. Alice rescues her sister, and keeps her secret to her grave. Are all the women in The Reading Group caretakers, of one sort or another? Where does their unhesitating instinct for self-sacrifice come from? How does the reading group help the women sort through their complicated lives?
11. How does Elizabeth Noble's fictional reading group resemble your own? Has your group become more friendly over book discussions?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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