Talk about English - The Reading Group - Part 6 | Текст песни

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• Talk about English
• The Reading Group - Part 6

This is not an accurate word-for-word transcript of the programme.
Группа Learning English
http://vkontakte.ru/club17650165
Продолжение транскрипта:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/webcast/readinggroup_prog6.pdf

ANNOUNCER:
You’re listening to The Reading Group from the BBC World Service. In this series we bring
together listeners, students of English, literature teachers and other contributors from the
world of books to share their enthusiasm for reading. We hope that following this series will
encourage your own interest in reading books in English as a foreign language.
Gary: Hello. In The Reading Group today, we visit one of the most famous places
for reading in the world – the Reading Room of The British Museum in
London. Who used to study there? And what kind of library is it today? We
send a Reading Group reporter from Argentina to find out.
Well, later in the programme, in the last of our talks about the reader as a
detective, author Gillian Lazar offers help on understanding the themes of a
novel.
But first: an update on reading groups. You might be wondering why to join
one – reading is after all very much a private pleasure. Well, our studio guest
today has done a survey of 350 reading groups in the UK and she can tell us
what makes them tick. Jenny Hartley is the author of The Reading Groups
Book, published by Oxford University Press. Jenny, welcome.
Jenny: Hello. I’m from Roehampton University in Surrey where I’ve been teaching
English literature and women’s writing in particular for many years.
Gary: Jenny, how do you explain the growing number of reading groups?
Jenny: Well, it does seem to me that people have always read in groups, more so
before the days of cheap printing and the spread of literacy. And for many of
us, reading does start as a group experience, if you think back to your past and
you think of sharing books with your parents and perhaps with your brother and
sister, and usually that's a very good memory.
Gary: It's true that books are often read to us when we are young and it's a group
activity, but reading is also thought of as a solitary activity, one person
described it as the lone voyage.
Jenny: Yes, and some people hate the idea of sharing books with each other and they
do see it as something you do on your own in private. But I think there's also a
growing recognition that people have always shared books as well, and that
reading can be a collective experience.
Gary: So, in some senses the reading group phenomenon is not a new one.
Jenny: Oh, definitely not. It goes right back. There is a wonderful carving on a
cathedral in Spain of the apostles sharing their bibles with each other, so a sense
there of arguing with each other and talking and discussing what they are
reading.
Gary: You did a survey of about 350 reading groups. What did you ask them? What
were you trying to find out?
Jenny: Who's in the groups, what kind of people join reading groups, and we wanted to
find out about the books. What are they reading, what is it that makes a good or
bad book for a reading group?
Gary: Where do these reading groups happen?
Jenny: Anywhere you can think of. Mostly they happen in people's houses. Bookshops
as well are quite a good place, but of course it's got to be quite a big bookshop.
Some groups prefer to meet in a wine bar or a cafe. I've come across groups all
over the place. There's one in a dentist's waiting room, after hours, and I think
that's a great use of the space. There's a group that meet in the zoo because they
are reading stories about animals.
Gary: So, people are reading everywhere. What exactly are they reading?
The top books that people read mainly are literary fiction or modern fiction,
books that are being produced now. Though reading groups often would like
to vary what they read so perhaps they'll decide to read...

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