Sneak preview – our next read-alongs
Defoe, Jansson, Kafka, Lewis, Mishima & Joyce
Dear classics readers,
I have loved our read-alongs this year! Three are still ongoing, Anna Karenina, The Old Curiosity Shop and The Counterfeiters – I really enjoyed Persuasion and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – and we have Mrs Dalloway to look forward to next month!
Today I’m writing to give you a sneak preview of the read-alongs I’ll be hosting in the second half of this year . . . I hope you’ll be able to join me for one or more of them!
July 2025
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
The original castaway narrative - Crusoe washes up on a desert island near Trinidad without food, shelter or clothes. Defoe based his bestselling novel on the genuine experiences of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who spent four years on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific with nothing but a musket, a hatchet, a knife, a cooking pot, a Bible and some bedding. Defoe’s book was so popular and so influential that the term ‘Robinsonade’ has been coined for the wealth of literature, film and television it has inspired.
How we’ll read it: over four weeks, July 2025
My edition: Oxford World’s Classics | 384 pages | introduced by Thomas Keymer | co-annotated by James Kelley [UK / US]
August 2025
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (1972)
In this gorgeous, slim modern classic, Tove Jansson, the author of the Moomins, describes a golden summer spent by an elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. It is humorous, wise and moving - the perfect book to read in August.
How we’ll read it: over two weeks, August 2025
My edition: Sort of Books | 160 pages | translated by Thomas Heal | foreword by Esther Freud | afterword by Sophia Jansson [UK / US]
September 2025
The Trial by Franz Kafka (written 1914-15, pub. 1925)
‘It is the fate and perhaps the greatness of The Trial,’ said Albert Camus, ‘that it offers everything and confirms nothing.’ Kafka’s legendary, nightmarish, unfinished novel about Josef K. - the bank cashier who is arrested in bed on the morning of his 30th birthday - was first published posthumously in 1925, 100 years ago.
How we’ll read it: over three weeks, September 2025
My edition: Penguin Modern Classics | 208 pages | translated by Idris Parry [UK / US]
October 2025
The Monk by Matthew Lewis (1796)
This horrifying, highly influential Gothic novel tells the story of Father Ambrosio, a 16th-century Capuchin monk, who yields to the temptations of the flesh, engaging in increasingly depraved acts of sorcery, incest, torture and murder. It acquired an instant reputation for both profanity and obscenity but also for its dark and disturbing creativity. ‘The author everywhere discovers an imagination rich, powerful, and fervid,’ said Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
How we’ll read it: over six weeks, October - November 2025
My edition: Penguin Classics | 416 pages | introduced by Christopher MacLachlan [UK / US]
November 2025
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (1949)
Mishima was born 100 years ago this year. This novel – his second – was the publication that made him a literary celebrity. Our narrator is the teenage Kochan, who loves his male classmate and masturbates over images of Saint Sebastian, but finds himself unable to reveal his true desires, hiding behind a mask of conformity. We will finish reading on the anniversary of Mishima’s suicide by ritual seppuku.
How we’ll read it: over two weeks, November 2025
My edition: Penguin Modern Classics | 176 pages | translated by Meredith Weatherby [UK / US]
December 2025
Dubliners by James Joyce (1914)
‘I always write about Dublin,’ said Joyce, ‘because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world.’ Over these fifteen exquisite short stories, the middle-class Dublin protagonists become gradually older. Each tale revolves around an epiphany, a moment of ‘sudden spiritual transformation’ as Joyce put it. The last, longest and greatest of the stories, ‘The Dead’, is set at Christmastime, at a Twelfth Night party.
How we’ll read it: over four weeks, December 2025
My edition: Oxford World’s Classics | 352 pages | introduced by Jeri Johnson [UK / US]
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I am super excited about these upcoming books. I am so glad I have joined you on all the read alongs this year and read some of the books you mentioned on the side - enchanted April, the great gatsby and now I am reading painted veil. Let’s just say I have missed reading classics and didn’t know where to begin and you gave me a distinct wonderful path to follow.
Hi, I will certainly join you for the read of The Mask by Mishima: it was one of my late son's favourite novels but I have yet to read it. I would also like to read Mrs Dalloway again and will do if time allows. I notice that you plan to undertake a four- week long group - read of Dubliners by Joyce later this year. However, might I point out that I have just begun a slow, close reading of Dubliners myself (ongoing for the next few months), and after that I intend to lead slow close readings of A Portrait of The Artist As A Young Man (late 2025) and then Ulysses (in 2026)