ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on theoretical frameworks from cultural studies to explore some of the ways in which the book club might be understood to frame and classify the processes and practices of reading. It posits that categories of reading are challenged by both the emergence of new literacies in digital spaces with their attendant obscuring of boundaries and by the hosting of a book club by Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan two star-texts firmly rooted in the world of popular culture, their meanings being so grounded in daytime television. The chapter explores the versions of being a reader that are at work in and around the Richard and Judy Book Club and is informed by various theories of power, knowledge and culture. It presents the dual presence of the book club on television and online and how the latter provides a peer sharing context for the social functions of the reading experience.
