Book Club programme. What to read before you die.

The nineteenth century, Shakespeare, and medieval fantasy

Upcoming books

A number of new paid subscribers have joined our ranks (welcome!) so I thought I would set out the plan for the Book Club over the next few months. We have been studying the nineteenth century, with essays and videos available about David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I also provide extra essays about the period, such as on Bleak House, Hazlitt and novelistic talent, and J.S. Mill. Later this week, a video and notes are coming about Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Bronte.

Book sessions are every six to eight weeks. As well as discussing the book and comparing our thoughts, I present a short slide show and give context, background, and some interpretation. The idea is to have a book club where you learn, as well as share your thoughts.

Additionally, at the request of some current subscribers, we are going to start having informal poetry sessions, where we meet to discuss one or two poems in detail. This is a great way to practise you close reading skills. And remember, there’s a student discount on subscription prices!

For nineteenth century poets, we will read Tennyson and Christina Rossetti. Tennyson in August, Rossetti late September. Two of my favourites.

So there are three levels of engagement for paid subscribers.

1. Watch the videos and read the essays.

2. Informal poetry discussion with close reading of one poem.

3. Book session focussed on a novel, play, or biography.

You can join some, all, or none of the groups. You’ll still get the notes. Poetry sessions require no prior reading. We’ll do a close reading on the call. Obviously it’s better to read the poem first but you don’t have to.

---

Why join the Book Club?

Like I said in How to Read the Canon recently, taste is real, life is short, and you ought to be finding as many books as possible that you can re-read every decade. The book club helps you do that. We read classic literature and learn its context. We see how books relate to each other in their period and build up our knowledge. The Book Club will give you a guide through English literature, giving you the information you need to make the most of your reading. Don’t die without reading this stuff properly. It’s not worth it.

Did I make my point yet? “Vanitas Still Life” by Pieter Claesz, 1630

---

Timetable

• August. Tennyson. Informal poetry group. We will focus on ‘Morte d’Arthur’. But I will provide a list of other poems to read, including one of the books of Idylls of the King, a truly tremendous work.

• early September. The Annotated Alice. This is a lovely book that annotates Alice in Wonderland to show all of its game-playing with maths and philosophy. Lots of fun.

• late September. Rossetti. Informal poetry group. We will focus on ‘A Birthday’, with a longer reading list for those who want it.

• October. Autobiography of John Stuart Mill. An essential nineteenth century book—and we’ll be talking about Harriet Taylor.

At that point, we plan to leave the nineteenth century and read Shakespeare. While we’re in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we shall read poets like Donne and Herbert. And Walton’s Life of Donne and his Life of Herbert to go with them. The Shakespeare will definitely include The Tempest and Hamlet. I also recommend Twelfth Night and/or King Lear but am open to ideas.

I’ll also run a session on Shakespeare’s verse, where we look at a few passages from different plays and think about his poetry and how to read it,—maybe even how to read it out loud!

After that, we might venture into some of the medieval literature that inspires fantasy fiction—King Arthur and all that jazz.

Or we can jump ship to the American nineteenth century of Melville, Harriet Jacobs, and Walt Whitman, or twentieth century poetry, or Romanticism, or Diana Wynne Jones, or whatever else we want to… there’s a lot to read out there.