🔎 join our final read of 2025: Parable of the Sower

plus, get a code for 25% on all hats, stickers, and mugs!

Welcome to the Closely Reading book club, where we closely read classic literature together and discuss assigned chapters each week. Our next read is Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and it’s our last read of the year! Join us.

Paid subscribers help fund the time + energy I put into developing each week’s guide, and you can join for as low as $15 a year! See your options at the bottom of today’s newsletter.

Hello, fellow reader.

I’m so excited to share the schedule for our next read-a-long. It’s our final one of 2025. Can you believe it?!

We’ll be reading Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel, Parable of the Sower.

This novel is a major departure from the other novels we’ve read this year, in particular, the classics of Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, and The Custom of the Country.

And yet it shares meaningful similarities to these works:

• Our main protagonist is a young woman, searching for her place in the wide and ever-changing world.

• The story concerns a rapidly devolving social system, in which many individuals struggle to understand and articulate what is happening around them.

Earlier this year, we also read some keen works of working class literature, with which Butler’s novel shares affinities:

• Ruminations on the way economics and class define personal lives (from Life in the Iron-Mills and Yonnondio through The Custom of the Country, we’ve read a lot of fiction that deals with economics, wealth disparity, and working class individuals this year).

• Developments of personal philosophies for having or not having a certain class, social, or wealth status.

And yet, clearly, Parable of the Sower also brings some important distinctions to the rest of our assigned readings this year. Namely:

• This is our first truly dystopian novel we’ve ever read together.

• Octavia Butler is the first Black writer we’ve read together this year.

• Parable of the Sower sits squarely in the realm of speculative fiction, which is a genre we haven’t explored much together, yet.

How it works

My goal is for this to feel like you’re in a literature class again.

Every Monday, I’ll post a brief summary of the previous week’s assigned chapters, a close reading of something from those chapters, and remind you what to read during the week.

We’ll also spend a week with some recommended academic articles from yours truly. (All recommended academic articles will be publicly available via JSTOR or another open access publication.)

Here’s our reading schedule

We’re moving a bit faster with this novel, so we can finish by the end of the year and make time for the academic readings. We’re reading just about 85 pages per week.

Week 1: Monday, November 17
By this date, read Chapter 1

Week 2: Monday, November 24
By this date, read Chapters 2-7

Week 3: Monday, December 1
By this date, read Chapters 8-13

Week 4: Monday, December 8
By this date, read Chapters 14-19

Week 5: Monday, December 15
By this date, read Chapters 20-25 (end of novel)

Week 6: Monday, December 22
By this date, read the recommended academic articles

Academic articles, available on JSTOR

• Octavia Butler’s “Parable” Novels and the “Boomerang” of African American History by Marlene D. Allen | Published in Callaloo, Vol. 32, No. 4, Middle Eastern & North African Writers (Winter, 2009), pp. 1353-1365 (13 pages)

• Post-Apocalyptic Memory Sites: Damaged Space, Nostalgia, and Refuge in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower by Paula Barba Guerrero | Published in Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1, SF and Nostalgia (March 2021), pp. 29-45 (17 pages)

Paid subscribers will receive a full bibliography of academic recommendations from JSTOR upon the completion of our read-a-long together.

---

Get ready to read!

1. Procure a copy of the novel | You can find The Custom of the Country in all kinds of formats: new, used, libraries, audiobook. You can also buy it at Bookshop.org in my little storefront. No specific edition is required.

2. Add tabs | If you’re reading a physical copy of the novel, take time in the next week or two to tab each reading section in the above schedule—so you can physically see the pacing of the novel and what pages you’re assigned to read each week. I recommend these tabs or making your own out of bookish washi tape. (this one is so pretty!)

3. Test some pens | If you’re going to be writing in your novel as we closely read together, I highly recommend testing out a few pen options. I love a simple ballpoint pen to make most of my marks. Highlighters also work great. (I love these!) You can also use crayons or colored pencils. Experiment to find what works for you. I find that using the empty extra pages at the back of your book are good test pages for which pens will feel best to use.

4. Invest in a 6-inch ruler | I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I love a ruler when I’m closely reading. A simple, plastic 6-inch ruler plays two key roles: it makes a fantastic bookmark and allows you to make incredibly tidy lines as you underline favorite scenes and quotes. These look perfect. I’ve also had luck finding these in university bookstores and stationery shops.

5. Pick a time | Rather than hold yourself to the same exact reading window each week (which is hard when life gets busy, especially during the holidays!) I like to plan my week, and find dedicated time each week. Maybe the best option for a busy week is to read the entire assigned section in one sitting; maybe the next week, you’ll have 3 or 4 sessions you can break the reading into.

6. Find your pace | While 15 pages may take you 15 minutes to read most of the time…the point of a slow reading is not just to break the novel down into weekly bits, but also to read more slowly as you read each section. During week 1, we’re only reading about 5 pages. How can you slow yourself down, give yourself space to explore new annotation styles, and set yourself up for the rest of the novel?

Remember: if your goal is to closely read the novel and have a great experience, then getting the reading done is best. You may read ahead or slow down, as you need.

---

Become a closer reader

I have some hopes for me and for you, as we embark on another reading journey together:

• that we’ll notice things we may not have noticed before.

• that we’ll encounter patterns we’ve seen in other stories, and know how to analyze them.

• that we’ll come together in community, much in the same way our protagonist will hope to do in her own world.

• that in the end, we’ll focus on academic readings of the novel to assess some of the larger themes of the novel.

Overall, we’re doing this reading together so we can experience the story in a slightly deeper or more memorable way than we would have without our reading group.

…And along the way, I hope you’ll find that you’re unlocking wholly new reading habits and abilities for yourself. Maybe you’ll even surprise yourself with your desire to engage with great stories in a deeper and more dedicated way.

🕯️ This winter, make time for deeper attention and reading

Join Closely Reading for close-reading guides, access to the full archive, and book-club discussions:

💌 $15/year: Thoughtful support
📚 $25/year: The classic close reader (Most popular!)
🪴$50/year : The sustaining member (Supports new projects!)
✨$100/year: The patron of the literary arts

Treat yourself (or your favorite reader!) — enjoy 25% off everything in the Closely Reading Etsy shop all month long with code PEPPERMINTMOCHA. Perfect for cozy, bookish gifts and reading-season treasures.

📚 ‘Til next time, happy reading…