On Readers and Reading

In January 2004, daytime television presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan launched their book club and sparked debate about the way people in Britain, from the general reader to publishers to the literati, thought about books and reading. The Richard & Judy Book Club Reader engages with the book club as an element within a variety of communal reading practices, and as part of the literary economy. Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan are recognized and experienced daytime television presenters known for their ordinariness, their willingness to represent the everyday, the average person, and had not until recently been associated with literature or publishing. By considering the readers who both reject and embrace this method of marketing and recommendation, the different modes of interpretation both traditional and established and those newer models being developed by the rise of reading as a popular leisure activity.