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In  North Ayrshire I try to stick to the Opening The Book thinking of newish authors, first novels, plus a definite bias towards Scotttish material since it is seldom promoted by publishers based in London.

I scan Orange, Booker,  BBC Big Read etc and I ask book group members for suggestions. I look for anything which seems likely to provoke a good discussion ("Not the end of the world" is a classic example). I buy multiple copies, usually 14.  Click here to view book list.

We now have ten groups 6 of them run by library staff. Since new groups keep appearing I have not got any books which all groups have read.  Exchanging sets with other authorities is an excellent idea but very difficult in practice.  I buy books once a year and all I aim for is a mixture.  I have quite deliberately bought just one or two examples of a particular genre such as SF, Chick Lit, Historical fiction etc.  Long and short, highish brow and lowbrow.  I am acutely aware of the very different people who attend the groups, some  would prefer us to do the complete works of Jane Austen whilst the Jill Mansell was bought in response to a request from a particular member who never seemed satisfied with what we had read.  I try not to buy the same author twice and I try not to buy, say, Wilbur Smith or Maeve Binchy not because I think they are good or bad but because almost everybody will either have read them or at least know of them.  None of my groups had heard of Alan Bissett and they were delighted to read him, some sought out everything by Michel Faber after we read "Under the skin," that sort of reaction is very pleasing.

This is definitely not a list of my favourite books, in almost all cases I have not read them before I order a set.  I loathe some of the titles I buy : "The corrections," "All families are psychotic," "With one lousy free packet of seed."   Nobody likes all the books but I have found that if people come for about six meetings then they will generally come forever because they then understand the nature of the game: they will like some and not others, and it is often great fun to tear into a book you really hated!  I think most of those who attended a few meetings and dropped out did so because thay are big readers who were invited to go to a group meeting by branch staff, but we then discivered that they read a lot,  but within a narrow range - anything as long as it is  a bit like Maeve Binchy/Ian Rankin etc.  Some are not keen on books without proper punctuation or with lots of swearing.

Evelyn Hood runs the West Kilbride group and she said that Christmas comes on the first Tuesday of every month when they open the box of books sent by me - it makes it all worthwhile!