It is well known that book clubs can have a positive impact on mental and emotional wellness. Reading has been shown to reduce stress, improve memory/cognitive function, and even boost self-esteem.

A book club experience is a social connection; it helps you to broaden your horizons, hear new perspectives. It is a great way to learn about the world and to get you outside your comfort zone and around people you may not have the opportunity to interact with otherwise. More than that, book clubs offer you an opportunity to develop your personal wellbeing.

By joining our book club sessions, you can reap these benefits while also engaging in meaningful conversations with others, which can help to combat feelings of stress and anxiety associated with work!

Detaching yourself from work, commitments, the hustle and bustle of daily life just for 30 minutes or an hour every couple of months and getting immersed in a friendly and healthy conversation on a book that you have read, or haven’t yet, is like breathing new air. It helps you decrease stress and increase your memory and attention level.

Our Book Club is open to OHFT staff and students. Every two months, we hold a couple of sessions between 1-3pm over MS teams.

Our next book is to be confirmed…

Autistic Voices Book Club

Thank you so much for those who expressed an interest in the Autistic Voices Book Club!

A huge thank you to all who attended our meetings! We loved the discussion and the thoughtful responses.

To those who were unable to join us, we missed you, and we hope to see you at the next one!

Chosen book for January 2025:

Drama Queen by Sara Gibbs!

This is available in paperback and audiobook, as well as through online second-hand retailers and public libraries. New copies of the paperback can be purchased for £10.

If anyone is unable to purchase a copy themselves and cannot get hold of it through a library, please do contact us through this email: AutisticVoicesBookClub@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk address so that we can see how we can support you.

We will be meeting every other month – the next meeting has been set for 12pm on Friday 10^th January, and a Teams link for this will be sent out shortly.

Please don’t worry if you can’t make this – we will continue to vary the days, and still encourage you to read the selected book and submit your rating and review nearer the time!

Is this Book Club for me?

Would you like to read and discuss books by autistic authors?

This Book Club has launched for all Oxford Health Staff, hosted by the Reasonable Adjustment Service, open to anyone who would like to learn and think more about neurodivergence from those with lived experience.

Based on initial feedback, we plan to:
o Alternative fiction and non-fiction books each time.
o Run book club meetings at lunchtime
o We will collate scores and reviews, so we can send an overall score to the group, as well as some of the reviews!

How to join:

If you are interested in joining us and want to be added to our email circulation list, please email us on: AutisticVoicesBookClub@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk

Once added to our email circulation list, you will also be sent an MS teams invite for any meetings!

This is a space for all staff in the trust to come together to read books related to nature, renewable energy, the environment and relevant memoirs to educate ourselves about the intersectional issues facing our planet and population.

This will give us the opportunity to learn on how to make the best use of our resources and protect the environment.

Meetings will be on MSTeams every two months.

If you would like to join our sustainability book club, email us to: library.enquiries@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk

Copies of the chosen title can be sourced by local libraries, be listened to on Audible, or purchased for around £10.

Women Support Group Book Club

Our Virtual Women Book Club is open to all women around the Trust, every two months we hold a session between 1-2pm over MS Teams.

We are the offspring of the most popular Women’s Staff Support Group, and our book club is committed to exploring unique female perspective, and it supports women’s voices, in a safe and inclusive space.

Exploring different narratives, promoting a cross-cultural point of view with stories from various backgrounds, and perspectives, and sharing personal experience, will help us to build a community that values empathy, and a deeper understanding for one another.

The printed copies requested are kindly funded by the women support group only for Oxford Health staff.

Our next read is: The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel

From a psychoanalyst’s couch, the narrator looks back on her bizarre childhood—in which she was born with a birth defect into a family intent on fixing it—having somehow survived the emotional havoc she went through. And survive she did, but not unscathed. This intimate narrative echoes the voice of the narrator’s younger self, a sharp, sensitive girl keen to life’s hardships.

With bare language and smart humor, both delicate and unafraid, the narrator strings a strand of touching moments together to create a portrait of an unconventional childhood that crushed her, scarred her, mended her, tore her apart and ultimately made her whole.

Can’t wait to meet you all again!

😊

If you are interested in joining the next Women’s Book Club, please see contact library.enquiries@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk .

Thank you!

Further Information about the women support group and the Gender Equality Staff Network. contact equalitynetworks@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk