Announcing a Slow Read

My library is overflowing with book groups.  In addition to the one I facilitate, mixed fiction and non-fiction chosen by the regular attendees, and the non-fiction one that's been around awhile, there will be a new Classics Pageturners.  Rather than staff facilitating this one, regular attendees will volunteer to facilitate.  As I have been wanting this particular book group for a long time, I plan to attend regularly, even though it will always meet on the third Sunday, and the group I facilitate always meets on the third Tuesday.  I will have to take care to plan my book-reading.

One book I have been intending to read for a loooooong time...ever since I heard it has been on my alma mater's reading list, but wasn't when I attended Santa Fe, is Middlemarch by George Eliot.  The Classics Pageturners group will be reading it for October, and I've volunteered to facilitate.  (and I'll be a good example)  You know, don't you, that Middlemarch is a gazillion pages long?  This is perfect for a slow read with blogging, as it will take a long time to read anyway, and I would have to reflect and write notes just in self-defense in any case.

It has 1088 pages, is broken up into 8 books, and 86 chapters.  I will read a book a week, starting next week.  I hope there will be people inclined to join me in the slow read, whether you live in Portland and plan to attend the book group, or are a fellow alumn, or just because you've always meant to read it too.  Reading it slow reduces the pressure of a thick book, and great books like this are better savored, and shared.  It's available free for the Kindle and online thanks to Project Gutenberg.

• August 14-20: Prelude, and Book One: Miss Brooke
• August 21-27: Book Two: Old and Young
• August 28-September 3: Book Three: Waiting for Death
• September 4-10: Book Four: Three Love Problems
• September 11-17: Book Five: The Dead Hand
• September 18-24: Book Six: The Widow and the Wife
• September 25-October 1: Book Seven: Two Temptations
• October 2-8: Book Eight: Sunset and Sunrise; and Finale

Incidentally, I will also be doing another slow read of sorts...I will be co-leading a class with my friend and Buddhist priest Domyo, on Soto Zen, a book by our Zen Center's founding father, Keido Chisan. The first class will be September 14.  Domyo and I need to get cracking on our planning.  Free pdf here.