Refugee Boy (London: Bloomsbury. 2001) and Mary Hoffman’s Amazing Grace
(London: Frances Lincoln, 1991). Both books deal with issues of racism and/or the
i experiences of immigrants and asylum seekers in the UK, although in different
I historical periods from Levy’s novel. All three books were adopted by the four cities
i m the Small Island Read project but the selections for younger readers were more
heavily promoted by ‘Liverpool Reads’ on their website, and through many events
aimed at young people and school children.
10. See, for example, Elizabeth Long, Book CliihsiWomen and the Uses of Readina in Everyday
Life (Chicago: Chicago UP, 2003); Elizabeth McHenry, Forgotten Readers: Recovering the
Lost History of African American Literary Societies (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2002),
Heather Murray, Come, Bright IinprovenienttThe Literary Societies of l∖rineteenth-Centnry
Ontario (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002).
11. See, for example, DeNel Rehberg Sedo, ‘Readers m Reading Groups: An On-Line
Survey of Face-Co-Face And Virtual Book Clubs’, Convergence, 1:9 (2003) 66-90.
12. See, for example. Long’s discussion of the 'color line’m reading groups, Book Clubs, p.
xv.
13. Small Island Read was planned to coincide with the Abolition of the SlaveTrade
bicentennial m 2007.
14. Melame KellydSmall Island Read 2007': Emluation Report, p. 2.
<http://www.smallislandread.com/default.asp> accessed 09.10.07.
15. Melanie Kelly, p. 7.The event was sponsored primarily by Arts Council England and
the Heritage Lottery Fund.
16. Photographs can be found on various pages at:
<http://www.bristolreads.com/small_island_read/index.htnil>
17. As Mette Hjort defines it ‘corporate multiculturalism is motivated, not by notions of
dignity or worth, but by a set of economic concerns. A certain form of multicultural
literacy - the ability to speak a foreign tongue and to grasp the self-understandings
of members of certain groups - may be sought for purely self-interested reasons’. In
Adam Muller, ed., Concepts of Culture (Calgary: U of Calgary P. 2005), p. 137
18. Paul Gilroy, After Empire: Multiciilture or Postcolonial Melancholia (London: Routledge,
2004).
19. ‘Beyond the Book’ participant focus group (5), Liverpool, 21 February 2007.
20. Long, Book Chιhs, p. 176.
21. ‘Devolving Diasporas’ reading group, Liverpool, 8 May 2007.
22. While Liverpool, Hull, Glasgow and Bristol were the hubs for Small Island Read 2007,
the event radiated outwards to include areas of South West England (e.g. Penzance)
and Wales (e.g. Chepstow).
23. ‘Devolving Diasporas' reading group, Chepstow, 6 June 2007.
24. ‘Beyond the Book’ participant and non-participant focus group (6), 22 February 2007.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Long, Book Clubs,]]. 186.
28. ‘Devolving Diasporas’ reading group, Chepstow, 6 June 2007.
29. 'Beyond the Book’participant focus group (2), 17 February 2007.
30. Jenny Hartley, Reading Groups (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), p. 42.
40
Region I Writing / Home
SHAMSHAD KHAN
Manchester Snow
I. street by street
can I get into your dreams
the way you get into mine?
a see-through glass ball
filled with, a handful of water and glitter
1 shake the ball in the future
will I dream you or will you dream me?
I get to know Hiyselfbetter
every time you answer
and every time my mind goes blank
Manchester everything I love about you now
I loved about you then
fake gothic promises
straight talking red bricks
choose me they said choose me
and I did
you were honest
openly pretending to be what you weren’t
not as big as London
you mocked me
close enough to Leeds
let’s see if a rose can change colour
moving wortds 9.1
41