In the 14 years we've been gathering as the Browsers Book Group, the first meeting of the year has always been popular, and it's been particularly encouraging to see that this is once more the case. The interest has been so great, in fact, that there's only room for a couple more to join us!
If you had hoped to come along please let me know before 10am tomorrow and I'll send you the details of this month's meeting. I'm afraid only those people who have registered with me by email will be allowed entry due to the high numbers and the restrictions in our current situation. But if you're unlucky this time, there's always next month! I'll have details of February's title next week and if you'd like to look back on all the past titles we've discussed click here.
Of course if we were still meeting on Zoom we wouldn't have this restriction on numbers! There are pros and cons with everything aren't there?!
Although online meetings were very different from chatting in person, everyone who took part agreed that we got to know each other a little better through the common experience of lockdown - and with our names clearly printed underneath our faces!
Now that we're meeting in person again, I thought perhaps we might build on this by sharing something of ourselves through our reading experience. This is what I've called Read Me Like a Book.
You may have seen a similar format in the Guardian each Saturday as The Books That Made Me, or as an item on the BBC2 book club programme Between the Covers. We'll see how much we can find out about each other when we answer questions such as 'my earliest reading memory', for example, or 'the last book that made me laugh', 'the book I'll never give away', or 'the book I read every year'. What would your answers say about you?
Thank you for reading.