Readers Guild

Becoming an engaged reader requires commitment and intellectual curiosity, but the rewards are great.

The IAM Readers Guild is designed to allow readers to interact with others in their own community as well as the wider IAM global community, and to learn a “deeper empathy” through experiencing great writing that wrestles with big ideas in many cultural contexts.

Each month, groups around the world will meet to discuss the book of the month, beginning with a list of questions that will be sent to all groups and welcoming spontaneous discussions as they arise. A member of each group will take notes and blog a brief summary of the group discussion after the meeting, allowing all the readers a wider experience of the book.

“Deeply engaged reading leads to perceptual awakening, stimulation of the core of the intuitive and experiential . . . What reading and writing can teach us is a deeper empathy that leads us to desire the best for others who are entirely different from us, and to long to communicate with them.”

- Makoto Fujimura, “Refractions #26: The Epistle of Van Gogh”

Start Your Own Group!

Sign up for IAM Connect and visit the IAM Forum for tips and best practice on starting and hosting a group. Then drop your pin on the map letting people know when and where you’ll be digging in.

2013 Readers Guild Selections

Here they are! The literally, long-awaited list of literature for 2013. Dig in.

Discussion guides will be available month to month. If you’re interested in getting ahead and writing the guides for any month, we’re happy to have you contribute. Contact meaghan@iamny.org with any questions.

January: The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller

February: Our Town by Thornton Wilder

March: The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day

April: Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner

May: A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr

June: The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

July: Marriette in Ecstasy by Ron Hanson

August: Volt by Alan Heathcock

September: The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy

October: Divine Comedy  as translated by Allen Mandelbaum

November: Beautiful Unbroken by Mary Jane Nealon

December: Thirst by Mary Oliver

 

Past Lists and Blog

Readers Guild Lists

RG 2012

January: Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow – Daniel Nayeri

February:  Parts of a World: A Novel  – A.G. Mojtabai

March: The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

April: Miracle’s Boys – Jacqueline Woodson

May:  A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail – Bill Bryson

June:  Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

July: Empire Falls  – Richard Russo

August: Four Quartets (Burnt Norton & East Coker) – T.S. Eliot 

September: Four Quartets ( The Dry Salavegs & Little Gidding) – T.S. Eliot

October: The Moviegoer – Walker Percy

November: Tinkers – Paul Hardin

December Mystery & Manners – Flannery O’Connor

RG 2011

January: The End of the Affair – Graham Greene

February: Blankets – Craig Thompson

March: Amusing Ourselves to Death – Neil Postman

April: Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

May: Where I Was From – Joan Didion

June: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work – Alain de Botton

July: Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather

August: Phantastes – George McDonald

September: Arcadia – Tom Stoppard

October:
 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers

November: The Death of Adam – Marilynne Robinson

December: The Long Home – Christian Wiman

RG 2010

January: Silence – Shusaku Endo

February: The Supper of the Lamb – Robert Farrar Capon

March: The Violent Bear It Away – Flannery O’Connor

April: Hannah Coulter – Wendell Berry

May: Till We Have Faces – C.S. Lewis

June: Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe

July: Dark Water – Robert Clark

August: Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri

September: Gilead – Marilynne Robinson

October: Shop Class as Soulcraft – Matthew B. Crawford

November: Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino

December: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek – Annie Dillard