The Slow LOTR Read-Along!
The official details and reading plan for our adventure!
I want to invite you on an adventure…
If you haven’t heard or seen, I am starting a read-through of The Lord of the Rings with friends. This will be my fourth time reading through the book in the last six years and I wanted to do something different this time — not just slowing down to highlight and make notes in the book by myself, but read along with a small community of friends. The journey is always more rewarding with friends!
So far, we have people joining in who are deep Tolkien fans and people who are reading the books for the very first time! You don’t need to be an expert to join in. The Lord of the Rings can be an intimidating read to start — so it’s my hope that if you have ever had the desire to read it one day, this would help nudge you into the adventure!
If you want to join in, all you need to do is have a copy of LOTR and become a paid subscriber (link below) and you are all set. We start June 14th but you can join in anytime. For all those who are already paid subscribers, I will be including some helpful tips below for getting started, a sort of FAQ for this journey, as well as the downloadable reading plan I created!
What makes this read-along different?
Great question. The main difference is that this isn’t just about nerding out over deep lore and Middle-earth facts, though I’ll certainly be drawing on Professor Tolkien’s own insights along the way. My drive is something else entirely.
I want to be a guide for helping this story connect to our actual lives. Tolkien wrote that the power of myth and fairy-stories is that it helps us recover a way of seeing — it lifts the veil of familiarity so we can encounter the wild world again with awe and wonder, and therefore see ourselves within it more truly. Stories like his help us make sense of our own lives in profound ways as we begin to recognize ourselves in the different characters and situations. I want this experience to not just give you cool facts about the story, but real depth for your life that you can carry with you. That has happened for me, and I want to help you have that kind of meaningful experience as well.
What this journey will include:
A custom monthly reading plan (avg. 20 pages / week)
An exclusive paid-subscriber chat for sharing questions, quotes and meaningful moments
A monthly deep dive article from me on what we’re reading
Helpful questions and insights for understanding the story from Tolkien himself and other resources
Below you will find the official plan for this adventure and how to best engage…