The Reader To Host Series of Shared Reading Events To Celebrate Wirral Borough of Culture 2024

Award-winning Cumbrian-born author Sarah Hall and inspirational Pakistani-born British poet Imtiaz Dharker are the first special guests announced for a trilogy of Shared Reading events from The Reader, celebrating Wirral Borough of Culture 2024.

National charity The Reader is hosting a trilogy of Shared Reading events with special guest writers to celebrate Wirral Borough of Culture 2024.

Sarah Hall is the first author to join the organisation for an afternoon of Shared Reading at Birkenhead Central Library on Tuesday 27 August, 12.45pm – 4pm, to talk about her fifth novel, The Wolf Border. This award-winning story explores environmental and human concerns about rewilding wolves in the Lake District, rebirth and renewal.

These events are a chance to enjoy Shared Reading with a difference. Shared Reading differs from conventional book groups in that, in most groups, people read a book and come together to talk about it. In Shared Reading The Reader uses stories and poems to help people connect and share thoughts, feelings and experiences.

This time, though, the author will join the group to hear people’s responses and answer questions. There is no pressure to talk or read aloud.

Sarah has written short fiction and novels including The Carhullan Army, How to Paint a Dead Man and The Electric Michelangelo. Twice nominated for the Man Booker Prize, she is the award-winning author of six novels and three short-story collections: The Beautiful Indifference, which won the Edge Hill and Portico prizes, Madame Zero, winner of the East Anglian Book Award, and Sudden Traveller, shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. 

She is also Professor of Practice at the University of Cumbria and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

Sarah said: “As a writer you always hope for readers to connect personally with your work and find in it thoughtful and emotional resonance. 

“It’s fantastic to be part of an event where exactly this connection is being explored and talked about. I can’t think of a better format.”

At An Afternoon with The Reader and special guest Sarah Hall, there will be a chance to take part in a one-hour Shared Reading session exploring a section of her The Wolf Border, listen to a reading by Sarah Hall and take part in a Q&A with the author

The Wolf Border was shortlisted for The Southbank Sky Arts Awards and the James Tate Memorial Black prize, and it won the 2015 Cumbria Life Culture Awards Writer of the Year prize.  

Set in Cumbria, it is told from central character Rachel’s point of view. After living a nomadic life abroad as a zoologist her life changes fundamentally as she returns to her native English Lake District, reconnects with her estranged family, deals with being pregnant, and leads a project to reintroduce grey wolves to the North of England.

Andrew Forster-Holland, Shared Reading Partnerships and Programme Manager at The Reader, said: “This is a phenomenal award-winning contemporary novel by an author from the North West.

“Sarah also completely gets Shared Reading and we’re delighted to be spending an afternoon with her for our first live ‘Afternoon with The Reader’ event.”

The Wolf Border and other books by Sarah Hall will be available to purchase on the day and she is happy to sign copies. Best suited for ages 16+. Tickets are available to book here.

The Reader’s second Shared Reading event with Imtiaz Dharker, who poet Jackie Kay described as one of the best British BAME writers (Guardian, 2019), will take place at the New Brighton Floral Pavilion on Monday 14 October and a third Shared Reading event with another special guest is due to be announced shortly for November.

The Reader held similar online events for Sefton’s Borough of Culture year in 2020 during the pandemic, with special guests including Chocolat author Joanne Harris, Jamaican poet Kei Miller and author Max Porter, best known for his debut novel, Grief is the Thing with Feathers.

For further information about The Reader visit thereader.org.uk.