Could Your Reading Group Discuss ONE Book for 18 Years?

[Ken, Moderator]

This one does -- at the rate of 1 1/2 pages per meeting:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/...

[Doug]

Got to add that to my list now. I wonder if I will be able to afford the extra razors or just let it grow...

[Carol]

Come on guys, I'll do it. Pretty positive I won't make eighteen years though, but we can start. Hahahahaha!!!

[Ken, Moderator]

I wonder how that would work online. I started a thread on it over at CR, too. Mixed responses.

Most people use an apostrophe in the title (Finnegans Wake). One of those things....

[Doug]

CR is what?

[Carol]

It is another group we belong to here on Goodreads, it is called Constant Readers.

[Carol]

NE , we did a mini version for Moby Dick. That worked out well, but don't know about this one, and would it be worth it.

[Ken, Moderator]

Only with enough people. I'd say 20 min. And I mean participating people. Like you said, we'd probably get through 30 pages in a few years. Ha!

[Carol]

I might live to 96.

[Doug]

what kind of rules would it have?

[Ken, Moderator]

One and a half pages every ______________. There's the rub. How often, I mean. Plus you could never dig up 20 people here on the L&G site. I don't think you'd get it on CR, either. The book intimidates.

That said, this approach would work with any cryptic-as-hell book, of which more than a few exist.

[Doug]

Perhaps something simpler like "The Rune Poem" one stanza (3 lines) each Sunday. It is so beautifully cryptic yet many see it as nursery lessons or admonishments. Compiled over a few hundred years guessing 500 to 1000 AD, could be covered in about a year.

[Ken, Moderator]

Never heard of it. But bringing up poetry creates all manner of candidates. How many giant, impossibly cryptic poems are there? Too many to list, I'd wager!

[Doug]

Yes, but it's been said, "less is more" (sometimes). It is hidden meaning I call cryptic. Some poets' fear of being ostracized.

Rune Poem
ISBN 0-81181136-0 (bc)
Didactic Poetry, English (old)

Translation by Jim Paul