Read and Discuss Classic Books Online at the New York Times

October 31st, 2007 by John WesleyPrint This Post Print This Post

Found via Open Culture, the New York Times has created a new section that allows readers to read and discuss classic books online:

Earlier this month, The New York Times Book Review launched an online Reading Room that lets readers tackle great books with the help of “an all-star cast of panelists from various backgrounds—authors, reviewers, scholars and journalists.” The first reading starts with Leo Tolstoy’s 1200+ page epic, War and Peace (1865-69), and it’s led by book review editor Sam Tanenhaus and a supporting crew consisting of Bill Keller (executive editor of The Times), Stephen Kotkin (a Russian history professor at Princeton), Francine Prose (author of Reading Like a Writer), and Liesl Schillinger (a regular reviewer for the Book Review).

It’s great to see the classics breaking through into a mainstream media outlet, and I’m interested to see how the discussion group with “all-star panelists” works out. I would have loved something like this when I was reading 2000 page novels in my pre-blogging days.

On a related note, for those of you who enjoyed PickTheBrain’s free audio book and podcast resource collection, Open Culture has a some free audio educational resources that might be of interest:

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2 Comments

  1. Thank you very much! And I’m really enjoying the links you gave in the previous post for free audiobooks. Brilliant!

  2. […] Read the rest of this great post here […]

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