Because the groups meet seven times a year and discuss two books at each session we need to buy 14 titles a year. We buy 9 copies of each title. Always in paperback. Assuming an average price of £7, this gives a total annual cost of £728. We always buy these quantities whether or not we have existing copies of the titles in stock. Any such additional copies may come in useful if things get a bit tight, but, on the whole, we keep the reading group books as a separate operation.

The books are put into their pairs, and a rota worked out so that there is always the next pair ready to be handed out to each group at the end of the meeting where they discussed the previous pair. Each member gets a copy of one of the two titles, and arranges a convenient time to swap with their 'reading partner' who will have been given the other title. This is why, buying 9 copies of each title, we can have a maximum of 18 members to a group.

It can prove a bit tight getting the sets of books to the groups on time after the previous group has finished with them. So far we have been able to accommodate new groups by re-using books which the original groups' read in the previous season. Of our nine reading groups, six are devoted to contemporary fiction and depend on these sets. It wouldn't be possible to service more than these six groups without investing in more than 14 titles a year - unless the new groups ran during the other half of the year: a summer reading group, for example.