Give someone you love an hour of their own.
What most of us keep meaning to do: read a great book slowly, with a guide, among other readers. A weekend, a season, or a year. They can listen, follow the reading guide, or read every page with us, and go as deep as they like.
Choose a gift
Founding prices through November 9. A gift is priced the day you buy it.
Two afternoons
A weekend inside one great book
Two afternoons on Zoom, reading slowly with me. They choose one of three weekends: Dante beginning in a dark wood beside Alice falling down a rabbit hole (November), the eighty-one poems of the Tao Te Ching (December), or Rilke’s letters to a young poet beside Audre Lorde (January). Nothing to read beforehand.
The recipient chooses the weekend. Members already come to the seminars free, so this gift is for someone who is not yet a member.
For someone who would like to try it first.
Give a weekend inside a great book$150
Three months
A season of great books
Three months at the center of the week: a live class every day from Monday to Thursday, a Thursday Reading Group to talk it over, and every lecture saved for a walk or a quiet hour. Right now that means the Odyssey, Macbeth, and Dante’s Inferno from its first canto; then Sappho and The Tempest in December, and Joyce’s Ulysses in January.
For the reader who has always wanted a season of great books.
Give a season of great booksGive a season of great books$900, or $1,050 after November 9$1,050
Three months at the monthly rate.
Twelve months
A year of deep reading
Time enough for a long book to become part of a life. Over a year they can follow Dante from the dark wood to the stars, read the Odyssey and then Ulysses beside it, and come in the spring to Mrs Dalloway and the Russian writers, from Chekhov to Akhmatova. Every live class, every weekend seminar with a guest pass for each, the Thursday Reading Group, and every lecture to keep.
For someone ready to read seriously, at their own pace.
Give a year of deep readingGive a year of deep reading$2,700, or $3,150 after November 9$3,150
Three months free. Does not renew.
Or give a single month: one month of membership, $300 ($350 after November 9)one month of membership, $350. A month with a private one-hour tutorial with me is $450 ($500 after November 9)$500. To arrange a tutorial, or with any question about a gift, write to me.
Who do you have in mind?
Open the one who sounds like yours.
A young adultA weekend suits them.
They read a great deal in school and have not read that way since. They have a job and a phone and would love someone to talk to about a book. A weekend is enough to find out whether it is theirs. They can come to a class, listen to a lecture on a walk, or read the guide and say nothing at all. A weekend suits them.
A long-time readerA season suits them.
They have read all their life on their own and have always wondered what it would be like to read with a guide. Three months gives them a season of great books, and a Thursday Reading Group to talk them over with other readers. A season suits them.
A friend with a lunch breakA season or a year.
They would read if they had the time, and somewhere there is a big book, Tolstoy or Tolkien, they have always wanted to start. Classes are at noon Pacific, three o’clock Eastern, and every lecture is recorded, so they can listen at their desk or on a walk, on any day, at their own pace. A season or a year suits them.
Someone just beginningA season gives them time to find their feet.
They love books and have never studied literature, or studied it long ago, and would like to begin. Every lecture stands on its own, whether you know the book well or are meeting it for the first time. A season suits them.
A reader you have not metSponsor a reader.
Someone who would love to read with a guide and could not otherwise afford to. You do not need to know who. Sponsor a reader, from a month to a season.
What they get
I teach every class myself. A weekend is one seminar: two afternoons on Zoom, with a live lecture and questions, and the recording afterward. A season or a year of membership includes:
Every live class, Monday through Thursday at 12 p.m. Pacific, on Zoom.
The Thursday Reading Group, a live discussion of the week’s reading, and the weekend seminars, which are free for members.
The library: every lecture recorded, with a reading guide for each.
It ends when the time you gave is up. A season is three months and a year is twelve, and then the gift is finished. There is no card to enter and no automatic charge, so no one is billed afterward and no one has to cancel. If they would like to keep going, I write to them once and they decide. If you would like to add a private tutorial, write to me.
The day it arrivesYou choose the day. I write to them that day, with your note.
You choose. A weekend, a season, or a year, and the day the gift should arrive, with a note in your own words if you like.
I write to them that day. The email carries your note, a short welcome from me, and a link to choose their start date, so the gift never begins before they are ready. For a weekend, they choose which of the three seminars.
Before the first class they receive a short guide: the week’s classes and links, the reading guide for the week, and how to ask a question.
When a season or a year ends, I write once to ask whether they would like to continue, and they decide. They are never charged automatically.
A season or a year begins the day the gift arrives. A weekend gift can be used for any weekend seminar in the year after it arrives.