☰JUNE 2026

The joy of reading socially

Last night I dropped into a brilliant reading group in a pub in Monkseaton, close to where I live. I only knew it existed because I was out for a pint with friends last weekend, the landlord recognized me and told me the reading group would be celebrating its first birthday. Would I call in to help them mark the occasion? The beer would be on him.

I wasn't sure what to expect. The pub - the Crafty Wilson - is small. Perhaps they had a separate room, or it would be a meeting of a couple of friends and an informal chat. In fact, the group took over most of the space, and regular drinkers knew they'd have to perch at the bar. I was told that some months thirty people turn out for the discussion. This was a women's group, of all ages. One remembered that she'd missed the first ever meeting because she'd been in labour, but she'd come the following month and had been back ever since. Some are grandmothers.

I only intended to stay for half an hour to wish them happy birthday, but in the end, I stayed while they discussed their chosen book City of Thieves by David Benioff, set in Leningrad at the time of the German occupation. As always, there was disagreement. Not everyone could finish it. One member read it in a day and rated it in her top three favourites. People might have come for the friendship, the wine and the beer, but the discussion was taken seriously. Was the novel as witty and engaging as described in the blurb? What did people make of the two main characters? And the ending? Was that as heart-breaking as some of the group thought?

At a time when our world seems more polarized, this polite disagreement is a model for civilized debate. The women listened to alternative opinions and sometimes were persuaded to change their opinion, to see the book in a fresh light. It can take courage to stand against a majority view. As our Reading for Wellbeing groups have proved, membership of a reading group is a great boost to confidence!

Towards the end of the meeting, I was asked questions about my own work. Because of the local setting, Vera provoked most interest. There is still a great affection here for the TV show. Almost everyone had come across the filming at some point. I explained how the series grew out of a chance purchase of a copy of The Crow Trap, the first Vera novel, in an Oxfam shop in North London. Elaine Collins, books executive for ITV Studios, was looking for a good read to take on holiday. A miraculous piece of luck for me.

There is great affection too for Brenda Blethyn, the actor who made the detective her own. Talking to the Crafty Wilson group, I explained that I didn't feel the need to interfere with the making of the show. I knew that Elaine was a reader and that she understood the woman. Brenda is a reader too and she always went through the books as well as the scripts. In July, she and I will be on stage together at the Theakston's Crime-Writing Festival in Harrogate. We'll be looking back at fourteen series of the drama.

Vera Stanhope has been on my mind recently, because I've been working on the last novel in which she will feature. It's been hard to decide on an ending for a character I know so well, that when I write her it's as if it's from memory not imagination. I hope that I've done her justice.