What we're reading in 2025

I've planned a full year of slow reads...

Last year, I had the time of my life reading The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence with readers here. The fall syllabus was also so much fun—especially when we read “The Yellow Wall-Paper” together as we entered spooky season.

Since then I have very much missed reading deeply with you all. I love the pace and depth of slower reads, where we take in specific parts of novels over the course of weeks or months at a time.

So: bring on 2025! A full year of slow reads awaits us…

We’ll start things off, as promised, with Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, the most requested book by far from those who read Wharton’s novels with me last year.

And then, as I was brainstorming what else we could read together in 2025, I thought: what if we focused on class this year? After all, Pride and Prejudice is full of tensions between social classes. (“Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?!”)

My selections for the year, all by classic women authors, examine social class structures and how individuals move throughout those structures.

In the novels I’ve selected are examinations of marriage, family, work, society, city and rural boundaries, economics, and so much more.

Here is what I have slated for us in the next year.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen — 10 weeks

We’ll be closely reading this classic and beloved novel together January 20th through March 24th

*All chapter guides are now available here!

Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis — 1 week

We’ll read this short story, which inspired our next novel on the list in just one week, from April 7 through April 14.

Yonnondio by Tillie Olsen — 4 weeks

We’ll read this remarkable modernist novella about the working class, set in 1920s Wyoming, from April 14 through May 5.

Middlemarch by George Eliot — 12 weeks

I have never read this masterpiece and I can’t wait to take it on with you as our summer read. More scheduling info coming soon — I am estimating mid-May to end of July for this one. (Because it’s such a long novel, I may tack on a few extra reading weeks for us!)

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton — 10 weeks

At the end of the summer, we’ll read Wharton’s 1913 novel, which rounds out her “Big Three.” We read two of her major novels last year; we’ll get to the third in 2025. I’m targeting early August to early October here.

If you missed last year’s slow reads of Wharton’s The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, upgrade to a paid subscription to access all the read-a-long content and take the book at your own pace this year!

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler — 10 weeks

We’ll end the year by flying forward on multiple timelines and reading a speculative fiction novel together—Butler’s famous Parable of the Sower, which I have not read but have wanted to for years! This one should take us from October through December.

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Recommended editions

While I’m a biiiiiig fan of using your local library for read-a-long activities, our Closely Reading Book Club emphasizes the annotation and note-taking process. If you’d like to work on how you annotate or mark-up books as you read in 2025, I very much recommend getting your own copy of these novels. I also recommend having a hard copy for the slow read process, over listening to an audiobook, because the hard copy can become a valuable place for you to collect thoughts and track themes on the page.

Many of these books will be available at your local bookstore or used book shop, or you can find them online easily.

If you’d like, you can shop my recommended editions of all of these reads on my Bookshop.org page, where I earn a portion of each sale.

A note on access

Last year, because our Edith Wharton read-a-longs were 100% free to all readers, we were able to have open and lively discussion of the novels every week with anyone who wanted to participate.

I’d love to keep that model going!

If you’re able to upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll receive a bonus post at the end of each reading with additional insights, links, and ways to learn more about the text you’ve just read. I really appreciate the support!

Through the end of this month, I’m offering 25% off the annual subscription cost (bringing it down to just under $34 for the entire year)!

If you’re not ready or able to become a paid subscriber, you can always make a one-time contribution and buy me a coffee!

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Ready for 2025?

Tell me what you’re most excited to read together!