The first lines of this week’s chapters are:

• Chapter Thirteen: “May came, and its first hot days immediately burst…”

• Chapter Fourteen: “The night of May ninth, Lieutenant Grange slept…”

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The first lines of this week’s chapters are:

• Chapter Ten: “Often, back in his room, he found on his desk the mail…”

• Chapter Eleven: “Toward the middle of January, after snowfalls…”

• Chapter Twelve: “Toward the winter’s end, Grange’s leave came up.”

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The first lines of this week’s chapters are:

• Chapter Eight: “The Autumn lingered on the heights of Les Falizes much longer…”

• Chapter Nine: “It was toward the end of December that the first snow fell…”

(both chapters have page breaks, so Kindle and ebook readers, watch out for those)

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To combat the (slightly troublesome) lack of chapter numbers, here are the first few words of this week’s chapters:

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• Week 1: Chapters 1 - 5

• Week 2: Chapter 6 - 7

• Week 3: Chapters 8 - 9

• Week 4: Chapters 10 - 12

• Week 5: Chapter 13 - 14

• Week 6: Chapters 15 - 18

• Week 7 (Final): Chapters 19 - 21

If this schedule is too fast or too slow, please let me know! I’ve tried to break it into manageable pieces (in my copy this breakdown represents roughly 25-35 pages per week).

In my copy, the chapters aren’t numbered, so I’ve counted them and checked it twice. I’m reasonably sure I’ve got the count correct.

Thank you again for joining The Book Club, I look forward to reading this book with you!

Without further ado:

Some notes on the historical context:

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Thank you all for the enthusiastic response to The Book Club! I’m excited to begin, but I want to give everyone sufficient time to acquire the book. Therefore:

Starting Date:

I have decided on Wednesday April 1st as the official first day of The Book Club. (I promise it isn’t an April Fool’s joke)

On that day I will send out a members-only post introducing…

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I have begun hosting a book club here on my substack for paid subscribers. We will be reading, at a leisurely pace, some slightly lesser known selections of exceptional literature: books that I have thoroughly enjoyed and would love to share with as many people as I can.

What To Expect:

As we all, no doubt, are very busy people I would like to keep the reading schedule manageable and accessible. For shorter books we will keep to roughly 3-4 chapters per week. For longer, more challenging books we might read no more than 1-2 chapters per week.

• Every week or every other week (depending on the book) I will publish a discussion post for paid subscribers only. These will include suggested topics for analysis with the comments open for discussion.

• There will also be a private chat for the book club.

Hosting a book club in a digital space is new territory for me, so I think some of the details beyond those listed above will have to be addressed as they’re encountered.

Our first Book Club read, (the current book) is the beautiful World War II novel Balcony In the Forest by Julien Gracq.

If you are a member of The Book Club, you can read the introductory post about this book here:

Hilary Layne

Balcony In the Forest - Week One

Week 1: Chapters 1 - 5…

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a month ago · 24 likes · 32 comments · Hilary Layne

A Note Regarding Paid Subscriptions

The Book Club will be available to anyone who has subscribed to any paid plan, monthly or annual.

When I first started my substack I knew very little about how it functioned and didn’t realize that there were set prices in the “Pledge” section. When I turned on paid subscriptions I just kept the prices at their default settings.

However, I want to make sure The Book Club is accessible to as many people as possible, so starting today I am lowering the monthly subscription price to $5.00 and the annual price to $50.00