November’s Monthly Stories and Poems

Every month we create packs of literature recommended by The Reader staff and volunteers, to help Reader Leaders around the country with the regular task of finding things to read with their groups. These monthly packs are often grouped by a loose theme, usually tied into the main annual Reader Bookshelf theme, which for 2026 has been ‘The Home We Carry’. As the colder weather sends us inside, most of us into warmth and shelter, it seemed the right time to think about homelessness, lack of shelter and how it would feel to be without a home. In the extract from the novel Lila, the title character thinks about how it is to be without at home at the start of life:

 ‘Lila had seen children born. They were just as naked and strange as some bug you would dig up out of the ground. You would want to wash the child and wrap it up in something to hide it, out of pity.’

Meanwhile, the poet David Constantine challenges us to think about how it would be to face death alone and homeless, and how a sense of home or shelter is connected, as in Wendy Cope’s poem ‘Names’, with being known by someone. This month’s pack is full of characters to contemplate and walk with: travellers, refugees and those seeking a second chance.

These suggestions can be used in Shared Reading groups, as well as to read with friends, family and loved ones, or to read for yourself if you’re finding that your to-read list needs something new adding to it.

November’s selections are:

Stories and extracts:

‘Widows’ by Margaret Atwood

‘The End of a Long Journey’: an extract from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

‘Loose Change’ by Andrea Levy

An extract from The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham

An extract from Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Poetry:

‘Boy finds tramp dead’ by David Constantine

‘Names’ by Wendy Cope

‘November’ by Lucy Larcom

‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen

‘Security’ by William Stafford

By Frances Macmillan (Literature Engagement Lead at The Reader)