This is done by library staff, aided by a great number of suggestions from group members. We go for titles which have been published in the last twenty years, which are available in paperback, which tend to be under 300 pages long, which have some challenging dimension to them, which deal with current issues and concerns from a wide variety of viewpoints. We try to select books which have narrative force and which our members will get their teeth into, but not feel that they're being fed a diet of what somebody else feels is good for them. We don't force them into pairs, but work from a larger number of titles than we intend to buy, then pick the ones we really want to go for, and see what might then work with which.

Discussing two books at a time not only allows a group of 18 to operate with 9 copies (when buying 18 copies of each title might prove a hard sell), but also adds a dynamic to the discussion. Even when the connection is tenuous - and we certainly never get into "compare and contrast" mode - it is surprising how often it leads to interesting and revealing talking points: the way in which the author of one book is more successful at creating characters which the reader sympathises with, for example, like Barry Unsworth in "Morality Play" as opposed to the almost disposable people who inhabit "Our Lady of the Potatoes" by Duncan Sprott. (These were two novels with historical settings we recently put together.) And let's face it, you can't expect everyone to enjoy every book, so the chance of a second book is welcome. Although even here it is surprising how often it is the very books which people say that they didn't enjoy which open up the most stimulating discussions.