[Vwoolf] Online book launch: 'Recommended! The writers who changed how we read' July 15 4pm UK

[Nicola Wilson]

Dear colleagues,

I would like to invite you to the online launch of my forthcoming book on The Book Society (1929-68). https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://research.reading.ac.uk/centre-for-book-cultures-and-publishing/event/book-launch-nicola-wilsons-recommended-the-influencers-who-changed-how-we-read/__;!!KGKeukY!2NQTdHHEwlDdsR2biNIKixnFk96ozSsp8wmKPGb44LSSVvbcDSIMDPNZds2Jgdy_eOTTR-ga06KHLczVR7XtSwQgOkhk$ 

This project was partly inspired by my work in the archives of the Hogarth Press and realising how excited the Woolfs' were to work with Hugh Walpole and the Book Society - something I wrote about in my very first academic article for Literature and History back n 2012!...

I will be in discussion with Dr Claire Battershill and it would be lovely if you are able to attend. Hope to see some of you there.
Ab
Nicola



Book launch: Nicola Wilson’s Recommended! The influencers who changed how we read (Holland House Books, 2025)

July 15 2025, 4pm - 5pm UK time

This event is free & open to all. To join us via MS Teams, please register here<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tickettailor.com/events/centreforbooksculturesandpublishing/1615122__;!!KGKeukY!2NQTdHHEwlDdsR2biNIKixnFk96ozSsp8wmKPGb44LSSVvbcDSIMDPNZds2Jgdy_eOTTR-ga06KHLczVR7XtSxxpxbKm$ >.



Before Reese Witherspoon and Zoella’s Book Clubs, there was Oprah Winfrey and Richard and Judy. And before them, there was Hugh Walpole and the Book Society. This is the story of Britain’s first celebrity book club and the judges who changed how we read.

For forty years between 1929-1969, the Book Society chose from the best of world literature to mail out one book a month – fiction, history, travel, or biography – to subscribers in over thirty countries. The judges established what a good ‘book club book’ looked like: well-written, entertaining, informative; worth investing your time and money in, not too highbrow nor obscure. Making book-buying easier, they started a revolution. And the legacy of their taste is still with us on bookshelves today.

Hugh Walpole, J. B. Priestley, Sylvia Lynd, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Edmund Blunden were the literary influencers of their day; household names whose personal lives, affairs, and politics informed their recommendations, mixing the personal and professional; social history with the domestic; love, disappointment, and war. They made global bestsellers with books that saw readers through Empire and the growth of fascism and antisemitism, the Great Depression, Spanish Civil War, and World War Two.

Recommended! explores how a group of writers shook up the interwar book world, changing forever how we buy and think about books.


“A deeply researched, stylishly written piece of narrative history, full of detail and telling vignettes. The organisation – around the five characters at the heart of the Book Society – works wonderfully, giving an emotional richness to the story. An enormous pleasure to read, while also deepening immeasurably my understanding of the literary business of the interwar period out beyond the well-walked squares of Bloomsbury.”

Dennis Duncan, Index, A History of the








Dr Nicola Wilson
Associate Professor in Book and Publishing Studies
English Literature, School of Humanities, Edith Morley, Whiteknights, PO Box 218, Reading, RG6 6AA


Co-director of the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://research.reading.ac.uk/centre-for-book-cultures-and-publishing/__;!!KGKeukY!2NQTdHHEwlDdsR2biNIKixnFk96ozSsp8wmKPGb44LSSVvbcDSIMDPNZds2Jgdy_eOTTR-ga06KHLczVR7XtS7LSTlVZ$ > : Co-director of the Modernist Archives Publishing Project<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.modernistarchives.com/__;!!KGKeukY!2NQTdHHEwlDdsR2biNIKixnFk96ozSsp8wmKPGb44LSSVvbcDSIMDPNZds2Jgdy_eOTTR-ga06KHLczVR7XtSx4469Qa$ >


Please note I work 0.8 FTE. My working days are Monday-Thursday inclusive.


New book: Recommended! The influencers who changed how we read<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://research.reading.ac.uk/thebooksociety/book-society-choices/judges/__;!!KGKeukY!2NQTdHHEwlDdsR2biNIKixnFk96ozSsp8wmKPGb44LSSVvbcDSIMDPNZds2Jgdy_eOTTR-ga06KHLczVR7XtS7oRXbXv$ > (2025): Project website The Book Society 1929-69<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://research.reading.ac.uk/thebooksociety/__;!!KGKeukY!2NQTdHHEwlDdsR2biNIKixnFk96ozSsp8wmKPGb44LSSVvbcDSIMDPNZds2Jgdy_eOTTR-ga06KHLczVR7XtS4iBoUqx$ >


My most recent publications are: Project MUSE - The British Book Society and the American Book-of-the-Month Club, 1929–1949: Joint Choices and Transatlantic Connections (jhu.edu)<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://muse.jhu.edu/article/929576__;!!KGKeukY!2NQTdHHEwlDdsR2biNIKixnFk96ozSsp8wmKPGb44LSSVvbcDSIMDPNZds2Jgdy_eOTTR-ga06KHLczVR7XtSw8lTbdd$ >


The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900–2020<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edinburgh-companion-to-women-in-publishing-1900-2020.html__;!!KGKeukY!2NQTdHHEwlDdsR2biNIKixnFk96ozSsp8wmKPGb44LSSVvbcDSIMDPNZds2Jgdy_eOTTR-ga06KHLczVR7XtSxGu3lrK$ >


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