Welcome to Read the Classics

Read-alongs, recommendations and round-ups

Hello! And thank you for visiting Read the Classics – a place where we read and discuss the greatest books ever written.

I’m Henry and I’m an author and an editor. I am Classics Editor at Faber & Faber and I was Creative Editor of the Penguin Classics series for five years, where I hosted their podcast On the Road with Penguin Classics. I’ve written books including The Penguin Classics Book and Eliot’s Book of Bookish Lists. There’s a little more about me here.

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I would be thrilled if you wanted to subscribe to Read the Classics. If you do, you’ll receive:

• A new classics read-along each month. This is the heart of this Substack: we read the same book at the same time and there are opportunities to comment and discuss as we read along together. All the read-alongs are gathered here.

• Regular classics recommendations. I regularly recommend classics that might address a topical issue or suit that time of year or there might be a significant anniversary that week. You can browse my previous recommendations here.

• Regular round-ups of newly published classics and other lists, which you can browse here.

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Read the Classics is currently available for free, but there is the option to support my work for £5/month (or on an annual basis), for which I’d be very grateful.

Paid subscribers get two benefits:

• Monthly classic film watch-alongs. We watch the same film at the same time and discuss it in real-time over Substack chat. You can browse our watch-alongs here.

• Access to the full Read the Classics archive of read-along posts, round-ups and recommendations. Free subscriptions can access the last two months only.

Also, all the books we discuss on Read the Classics are linked to Bookshop.org. If you follow the link to buy a copy through Bookshop.org, you will not only be supporting UK independent bookshops, Read the Classics will also earn a 10% commission from your purchase. Thank you very much in advance for your support!

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Thanks again for visiting and I hope you will stay! Please do subscribe and I look forward to discussing a classic with you soon.