The Literary Quest Thread (Back Catalogue Book Discussion) (Patreon)

Dear Book Club Readers —

It’s been wonderful to see many of you exploring the back catalogue reads. Great books like Ulysses, Don Quixote, Middlemarch, and Moby Dick. Some readers are even banding together in fellowships to quest through these great works together.

So I would love to offer you a discussion thread that aims to make your conversations around these Big Reads more visible. Keeping with the quest analogy, you might consider this thread to be like a tavern or a check-point where you can rest and discuss these specific works with your fellow travellers.

Many readers have also expressed interest in doing comparative studies of these great books. So this will be a fantastic place to see multiple Big Reads side-by-side. I’m positive overlapping themes and commonalities will emerge from this cross-pollination. Let's get these writers talking with one another.

This thread is different from our general reading discussion, which is always an exciting place to discover tons of fascinating new reads. This thread is specific to the things you want to discuss related to your current back catalogue read in a more visible way. You may even wish to put the kind of comments you would leave under specific lectures here too.

Simple format:

• Put the title of the work you’re discussing at the start of a new comment (e.g. Ulysses, Middlemarch, Moby Dick, Anna Karenina).
• Indicate your location in the book if applicable. A chapter or page number would be appropriate enough. This signposts spoilers for those who may not have read that far, but also helps fellow readers of the same work get their bearings and understand what part of the narrative you’re referring to.
• Then let us know your insights, thoughts, questions, meditations, things you loved, things you want clarification on, passages you appreciate, and so on.
• Enjoy the conversation :)

You might wish to listen to my elaboration in the audio above. This is a bit of a quirky idea, but it will work well to get some comparisons between these works going, and allow our appreciation of the back catalogue reads to be seen.

This will also be a great way to see the readers joining you on your reading quest and gives you a place to find each other.

Let us know:

What back catalogue book are you exploring at the moment?

Happy reading, folks!