Rainbow Reading Group logoRainbow Reading Group

The Rainbow Reading Group is an LGBT Reading Group, organised by Croydon Area Gay Society (CAGS) in conjunction with Croydon Library.

We meet at 2:30pm in Croydon Central Library, Katharine Street (Level One) on the last Thursday of each month (in December it's the second Thursday). See dates below.

Each month we discuss the book we've been reading, and take away copies of the next month's book (chosen by the group).


Official opening

We were delighted that Issy Festing came in person to our official opening on Thursday the 24th of February 2011. Our picture shows her with Ray, one of the organisers of the Rainbow Reading Group. More pictures on the LGBT Croydon website.

Ray of the Rainbow Reading Group with Issy Festing

Our selections for 2019:

  • The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (31 January)
  • The Final Retreat by Stephen Hough (28 February)
  • Patience & Sarah by Isabel Miller(28 March)
  • God in Pink by Hasan Namir (25 April)
  • My Animals and Other Family by Clare Balding (30 May)
  • Speak no Evil by Uzodinma Iwela (27 June)
  • Gentleman Jack: a Biography of Anne Lister by Angela Steidele (25 July)
  • End of Eddy by Edouard Louis (29 August)
  • Natalie and Romaine by Diana Souhami (26 September)
  • Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime by Val McDermid (31 October)
  • The Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe Hall (28 November)
  • Genet: Biography of Janet Flanner by Brenda Wineapple (12 December)

We've already read:

  • Blood Relatives by Stevan Alcock
  • The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al Aswany
  • Giovanni's Room, Go Tell it on the Mountain and Just Above My Head by James Baldwin
  • Mr Clive & Mr Page and Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall by Neil Barlett
  • Days without End by Sebastian Barry
  • Gay Berlin - Birthplace of a Modern Identity by Robert Beachey
  • The Gulf between us by Geraldine Bedell
  • Leaving Tangiers by Tahar Ben Jelloun
  • Smut by Alan Bennett
  • Ruby Fruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
  • Shameless by Paul Burston
  • The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
  • Love is where it Falls by Simon Callow
  • Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
  • Briefs Encountered by Julian Clary
  • Retreat from Love by Colette
  • The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp
  • Not my Father's Son by Alan Cumming
  • The Hours by Michael Cunningham
  • A Boxful of Ideas: Poetry & Prose by LGBT Writers edited by John Dixon and Jeffrey Doorn
  • Astray by Emma Donoghue
  • In A Hidden Room by Stella Duffy
  • James Miranda Barry by Patricia Duncker
  • Justine by Lawrence Durrell
  • Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
  • In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi
  • The Bird Keeper by Issy Festing
  • Over the Rainbow: Money Class & Homophobia by Nicola Field
  • Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg
  • Maurice by E M Forster
  • Rough Music, A Place Called Winter and Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale
  • Arctic Summer and In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut
  • Carrington: A Life by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
  • Black and Gay in the UK: An Anthology by John R Gordon
  • Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller
  • The Lost Boy by Stevie Henden
  • Carol by Patricia Highsmith
  • Speak my Language and other stories edited by Torsen Højer
  • The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
  • Goodbye to Berlin, and A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
  • Trumpet, and The Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay
  • Mr Foote's Other Leg by Ian Kelly
  • The Rainbow by D H Lawrence
  • The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
  • Tales of the City, Michael Tolliver Lives, and The Days of Anna Madrigal by Armistead Maupin
  • A Darker Domain by Val McDermid
  • Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
  • At my Mother's Knee and Other Low Joints by Paul O'Grady
  • Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
  • Lord Cucumber & the Boy Hairdresser by Joe Orton
  • The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett
  • Spectacles by Sue Perkins
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  • Twenty-Two Eighty-Four by Christopher Preston
  • Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
  • The Friendly Young Ladies and The Persian Boy by Mary Renault
  • The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
  • A Stone's Throw, and Tell it to the Bees by Fiona Shaw
  • Mrs Keppel and her Daughter and Gluck by Diana Souhami
  • The City of Devi by Manil Suri
  • Lies we tell Ourselves by Robin Talley
  • Valentine Grey by Sandi Toksvig
  • Sacred Country by Rose Tremain
  • The Death of Lucy Kyte by Nicola Upson
  • Myra Breckenridge by Gore Vidal
  • The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
  • Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh
  • Affinity, Fingersmith, The Night Watch, Tipping the Velvet and The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
  • Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
  • My Lives by Edmund White
  • The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde
  • Alexander McQueen : Beneath the Skin by Andrew Wilson
  • Oranges are not the only Fruit, Written on the Body, and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
  • Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

Interested in reading, discussing books, and making new friends?

Come along!


CAGS logoCroydon Council logo
Contact Ray, 020 8777 0107
or e-mail info@rainbowreadinggroup.org.uk

for other events in Croydon, see www.lgbt-croydon.org.uk/events