Find a group

What is Shared Reading?

Shared Reading is a unique experience that helps thousands of people to connect, feel good and live well.

Reading together means that everyone is involved in a shared experience. Group members are encouraged by a trained Reader Leader to respond personally, sharing feelings, thoughts and memories provoked by the reading. There is no pressure to talk or read aloud.

No other organisation makes use of literature in this way. Shared Reading helps us to understand our individual and collective inner lives, round the same table, at the same time.

What happens at a Shared Reading group?

A group of people, one of them a trained Reader Leader, reads a great novel, short story or poem aloud. You do not need to read anything in advance or prepare.

We stop and talk about what we have read. There is no need for group members to read aloud or speak – it’s fine to just listen. The idea is to create a space where people feel at ease.

Everyone experiences the text in their own way, but the literature provides a shared language that can help us to understand ourselves – and others – better.

Who is Shared Reading for?

Shared Reading is for everyone. Many people who come will be experiencing a transition – bereavement, retirement, a change in health, or within their social life. Shared Reading groups provide a warm environment that people want to keep coming back to.