The Reader

The Bromley by Bow Centre in London is a unique community centre, charity and community research project that seeks to offer people a wide variety of services based on their individual needs – from medical help, to job support, meeting people or learning a new skill. The centre was a model and inspiration for The Reader’s own headquarters at Calderstones Mansion House in Liverpool. Rob Trimble is...

On 14th September 2023 Batsford Books will publish an handsome new anthology, A Poem to Read Aloud Every Day of the Year. This anthology has been compiled by Liz Ison who has volunteered or worked for The Reader for many years, running a variety of Shared Reading groups both in person and online. The Reader’s Director of Literature, Katie Clark, spoke to Liz about her reading life, how that’s been...

Episode 14 – Heritage and Literature  In this episode, staff from The Reader take us on an audio tour of The Reader’s Liverpool home, Calderstones Mansion House in Calderstones Park. We learn a little about the history of the Mansion and the ancient monument that gives the house and park its name, and listen to literature that brings those spaces and their former inhabitants to life.   This episod...

Isobel from The Reader meets Neil Griffiths, educational consultant, author and storyteller. Their conversation ranged over Neil’s childhood, growing up with a father who read bedtime stories every night, to his time as a head-teacher working hard to engage parents and teachers, and on to advising governments on education and the importance of reading. What shines through all is Neil’s passionate...

This episode will be released on 13th December, which is celebrated by some as St Lucy’s Day, a festival of light. On our ‘Light and Darkness’-themed Reader bookshelf this year is Katherine May’s Wintering, a compassionate, curious, wide-ranging book which describes a phase of life that comes to us all at some point, and shows what respite and renewal can be found even through the darkest times. K...

**This episode contains explicit language (swearing) and discussion of suicide throughout which some listeners may find distressing.**  In this episode we’ll hear from two events at Gravity and two different guests linked by their experiences of being on the frontline in responding to fellow humans in moments of crisis.  Tony Schumacher grew up in Huyton in Liverpool, and was a police officer for...

The author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce has been a patron and supporter of The Reader for over a decade. During the summer, after his first post-Covid tour of schools around the UK to talk about his new children’s book, Noah’s Gold, Frank met with Jane Davis, Founder and Director of Literature at The Reader, to talk about the huge differences he saw in the children he met. When Frank came...

  ‘Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it's much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!’ Neil Gaiman    If you need inspiration for the perfect bookish gift for a particular person, give this episode a listen. Whether it’s for someone who loves the great outdoors, or for someone who has cared for you this year, or for some brigh...

When our Young Person’s Mentor Greg spoke to BBC Radio 5 Live on 30 September about Shared Reading, many listeners wrote in to say it was the most inspiring thing they’d ever heard on the radio. We caught up with Greg for an extended conversation about his role at The Reader and to hear more about how Shared Reading fits into this and into Greg’s own story so far. We’ll also hear from another Read...

The Reader Podcast is back after an extended break with an episode about being bold, taking risks and keeping an eye out for the unexpected.  Gill Smith worked at The Reader’s Storybarn, our interactive play space for children and young people, when it opened in 2016. Since then, Gill’s gone on to enjoy success as an illustrator – her first collaboration, a picture book of Victoria Hislop’s Maria’...

What makes a poem great for Shared Reading? Again, we take a closer look at a single poem, this time Cecil Day Lewis’ ‘Walking Away’, and hear stories about how it what this poem has meant to group members who have read it together in a Shared Reading setting.    Walking Away  By Cecil Day-Lewis    For Sean    It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –  A sunny day with the leaves just turning,...

The title of this episode comes from a poem by award-winning poet, short-story writer, essayist and novelist Kei Miller. Kei was The Reader’s guest at an online event earlier this year to celebrate Sefton’s year as Liverpool’s Borough of Culture, when he read poems from his 2014 collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion, and spoke about the inspiration for this collection and his wide...

Over the years, staff and volunteers at The Reader have learned that there are five essential values or behaviours that are key to a great Shared Reading experience and one of them is: be kind. The Reader relies on the kindness of authors, who volunteer their time and allow us to use their work; we rely on the kindness of those who begin as strangers and become volunteers running Shared Reading gr...

This episode is part of the launch of The Reader’s 2021 ‘Bookshelf’ - a constellation of reading matter which will shape our programming, partnerships and Shared Reading this year. We look at two of the pieces of literature from the Bookshelf - ‘The Promise’, a picture book by Nicola Davies, and ‘The Sycamore’, a poem by Wendell Berry. Both the book and poem make us look afresh at our relationship...

What makes a poem great for Shared Reading? This episode takes a deep dive into a single poem, a sonnet by William Shakespeare, and tells stories from Shared Reading groups over the years who have read this old poem together and found that it moved them in unexpected ways. There’s an interview with Philip Davis who has witnessed and written about Shared Reading experiences of this sonnet, and ther...

The Reader dips its toes into the pool of podcasting, aiming to bring you a regular taste of what our Reading Revolution is all about. The Reader brings thousands of people together every week to read aloud from books and poems and talk about the shared experience of reading. Our first episode will give you a taste of Shared Reading as we listen in (thanks to National Prison Radio) to a small grou...