WANT to join a book club? There’s only six weeks left until Read Around Canberra and Read Around Canberra Classics book clubs begin and book lovers are urged to register before it’s too late.

“Read Around Canberra will celebrate its 10th year in 2012, and Canberra writer and creative-writing teacher Susan Hampton will lead the seven reading groups over 10 sessions in a series of literary discussions,” Libraries ACT director Vanessa Little said.

“Susan has selected a varied collection of books including Kim Mahood’s ‘Craft for a Dry Lake’, Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’, Don Watson’s ‘Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: Paul Keating PM’ and Tim Flannery’s ‘The Weathermakers’.

“Susan is a teacher, writer and freelance editor who lives in Canberra. She has written seven books including poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and her work is collected in many anthologies.

“Several of her books have won national awards, and ‘The Kindly Ones’ won the 2006 Judith Wright Poetry Award administered by artsACT.”

Ms Little said Canberra author, poet and teacher Charlotte Clutterbuck will lead the Read Around Canberra Classics groups.

These groups, for lovers of classic literature, will explore a range of crimes, sins and transgressions and their consequences.

It will also explore themes such as punishment, self-destruction and in some cases, redemption and triumph.

The books for discussion include Sophocles’ “Antigone”, Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, John Donne’s “Divine Poems” and Antony Beevor’s “Stalingrad”.

Both programs commence in March 2012, with booking essential. More information at www.library.act.gov.au.