Word-of-mouth success gets reading group vote
http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329547317-99819,00.html
Richard Lea
Monday August 7, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Khaled Hosseini's bestselling story of a boy growing up in 1970s Kabul, The
Kite Runner, has been voted this year's reading group book of the year.
Hosseini's first novel headed a list of 60 titles submitted by entrants to
the Penguin/Orange Reading Group prize, whose shortlist is also announced
today.
Hosseini said he was "thrilled" to top the poll, and "honoured that of all
the distinguished novels out there, The Kite Runner has most resonated with
[book groups]."
"Reading groups are a celebration of books and reading," he explained, "so to
receive an award from people who are constantly in the flow of books and who
have so many to choose from means a lot to me."
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger came in second place, with
Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin and Andrea Levy's Small Island
tied in third place.
Harper Lee's classic deep south coming-of-age novel, To Kill a Mockingbird,
took fifth place, with Marina Lewycka in sixth with her first novel, A Short
History of Tractors in Ukrainian.
Professor Jenny Hartley, one of the judges of the Reading Group prize, was
intrigued by Hosseini's victory. "Although several books chosen have won or
were shortlisted for the Orange prize for fiction," she said, "it's
interesting to see the winner is a first novel that was published three years
ago, and which has won no literary prizes at all. This demonstrates that the
great reading group dynamo of word-of-mouth is still as strong as ever."
The shortlist for this year's Reading Group prize includes only one mixed-sex
group, the Essex-based Wivenhoe Bookshop Reading Group. They are joined by
five all-female groups: The Bretton Book Group (Cambridgeshire), the Parish
Reading Group (Leicestershire), the Bredhurst Women's Institute Reading Group
(Kent), the Litronauts (East Sussex) and the Willerby and Kirkella NWR Book
Group (East Yorkshire).
The group that wins the prize, now in its fifth year, will receive a
selection of Penguin titles as well as an invitation to spend the day at
Penguin's London offices, where they will have lunch with an author and then
have a reading group session on that author's book.
The winning group will be announced later this month.
Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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