The Jilly Cooper Book Club was set up about a decade ago by two friends who’d had enough of book groups where someone would insist, ‘We really must do Dostoevsky this year.’ Members of the JCBC, in a co-founder’s words, just wanted to get together to ‘drink champagne and shriek about Jilly’.
‘Book clubs are basically Mean Girls for middle-class women’
For some time, I stalked key members on Twitter before managing to wangle an invitation. My first meeting was at a large townhouse in Clapham to discuss Rivals. There was a lot of champagne and a gaggle of smart, entertaining women. One was wearing a Vivienne Westwood corset dress; another had flown in from California. It was far more glamorous and fun than the usual cheap-wine-and-crisps affairs.
Dame Jilly got to hear of it and invited us to lunch at her house in Gloucestershire, twice. We were featured in a women’s magazine.
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