The Earth Will Shake online reading group announced

A few weeks ago, I floated the idea of doing an online reading group for the Historical Illuminatus! books, and reaction was good.

So let's do it. Let's have a reading group for The Earth Will Shake, and go on from there.

I suggest starting on Feb. 25; as with other online reading groups, there will be a posting every Monday, giving everyone the rest of the week to post comments.

I've had some guest bloggers leading many recent online reading groups. I'm inclined to take this one myself, although if there were a volunteer eager to lead the discussion, I certainly would listen.

If you are new to the blog, you can sample other online reading groups on the right side of this page, but the basic idea is this: A weekly blog posting is put up, and then everyone else is invited to weigh in using the comments. I have had to institute comment moderation to block all of the hire-a-prostitute-in-India spam posts, but I try to check for comments regularly and try to approve anything legitimate.  If you choose to participate by putting up a post at your own blog, I will link to you.

I figure Feb. 25 gives everyone time to hunt up a copy (preferably the canonical Hilaritas Press edition, but do what you can afford) and to wrap up whatever other current reading project is on your plate.

What pace makes sense? The Masks of the Illuminati reading group did about 35 pages a week, and covered the book in 10 weeks. The Hilaritas Press edition of The Earth Will Shake lists it at 398 pages. Would about 40 pages a week to cover it in 10 weeks make sense? I don't want to dawdle but I don't want to overwhelm people with an unreasonably fast pace, either.