An Iliad Reading Group

I'm leading my first ever local book group. Here's the plan...

I started a local reading group last night where 15 of us will be reading through the Iliad over the next nine weeks. It’s my favorite book and yet this time last year, I had never read it. That all changed in September 2023 when I read Emily Wilson’s brand new translation and was first introduced to the epic. Since then, I’ve read it a second time (the Fitzgerald translation), have discussed it in a Catherine Project tutorial, and have read ancillary books to help me better understand this amazing work.

The reading group will be meeting at a local bookstore, Landmark Booksellers, where I’m the business manager. It’s a good mix of people with some who have read the Iliad multiple times and others who are reading it for the first time. I stated the following during our first meeting:

• Homer is our teacher.

• Our focus is on the Iliad. I don’t want to hear what Freud thinks about Homer.

• Don’t be afraid to share. I expect some of the best observations to come from first-time readers.

I’m also assigning homework each week. I’m creating a Google Folder where each participant will be required to write one paragraph about the one thing that stuck out to them during that week’s reading. This has been a requirement for groups I’ve been a part of and it’s helped me have ideas prepared for the meeting. I’ve also found that it’s helped me remember what I read.

We’re using the Robert Fagles translation and I encouraged the participants to savagely mark up their books with a pen. I want them to ask questions in the margins, write notes in the back, and underline ideas and situations that stick out.

I’m using this as a test of sorts. I want to gain experience in facilitating reading groups. If successful, I want to take this to local schools. I want to lead students through the Iliad and other great works. Schools are moving away from some of these Great Books and I want to be sure our young people are being exposed to them.

I can’t wait to see what happens over the next few months.

For more details about the reading group, visit this page - https://books.booksoftitans.com/iliad-reading-group/