When the local library starts up a reading group, Ed is the first to sign up. Left home alone with baby Georgia once too often, he's looking for something more stimulating than the latest draft of his tiresome thesis.

His fellow readers all have their own reasons for the weekly escape. Kate's social life is at a standstill and her quirky furniture shop barely breaks even. Zoe's self-esteem is regularly battered by her married lover. Semi-retired Bob, strongly encouraged by his wife, needs to get out of the house more. Donna, aged twenty-one and a mother of two, is desperate to feed her mind and catch up on her education. When English lecturer Gideon arrives, his literary certainties spark rivalries and emotions that no one expected. As the reading circle draws its members into an unlikely community, the plots become increasingly dramatic, and their lives grow ever more entwined ...