Janet Christie's Mum's the Word - Between the covers

What book groups get up to is another story

Janet Christie's Mum's the Word. Pic: J Christie

“Yours is the only book group I know who read the book,” says a friend and laughs, as I tell her about our latest meeting while we’re tramping our way to Edin’s Hall Broch near Abbey St Bathan’s in the Borders, snatching some daylight before winter’s gloomy embrace claims us once more.

“What do other book groups do?” I ask. Surely we’re not the only ones who do what it says on the spine.

“Drink and talk and have a laugh.”

“We do that too. We’re not freaks,” I tell her. “And we’ve been to Skye and Orkney and watched loads of film adaptations, from Apocalypse Now (Heart of Darkness) to Colette, but I want to read books,” I say as we reach sanctuary inside the ancient stone dyke circles of the broch.

We look out over the valley and I feast my screen-blasted eyes on the green rolling hills dotted with fluffy white sheep whose neon tup marks herald the approach of lambing season, prompting me to scan the slopes for a capable Gabriel Oak type and plan a re-read of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd after catching Carey Mulligan’s performance.

I’m not against the screen, especially if it’s based on a book. Recent recommendations during interviews I’ve done include - cue name drop - the likes of Ambika Mod with David Nicholls’ bestseller One Day and Tony Curran or Martin Compston with Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies and now his new Netflix series Mary and George.

“It’s based on Benjamin Woolley’s novel, The King’s Assassin,” says Curran and I add both series and book to my list, along with a re-read of A Town Like Alice because my book group decided on it but also Irvine Welsh told me he’d gone walkabout there on a solo holiday - now that’s an experience I’d love to read about.

I’m also with Michael (Just One Thing and another and another) Moseley when he recommends reading to get to sleep, especially fiction, which he says also creates new neural pathways in the brain, as I tell my friend the insomniac.

“No,” she says, “I prefer a box set on my laptop and a bag of Aero chocolate bubbles. Although we often wake up smeared in chocolate.”

Which gives me an idea. I’m going to re-read Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate and save myself the boil wash.

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