Reading was one of Paul Harris’ core pleasures. Evenings at Comely Bank, his home on Chicago’s South Side, he would read aloud from the novels of Charles Dickens, and his speeches and writings are peppered with quotations from poets Robert Burns, John Greenleaf Whittier, and James Russell Lowell, as well as allusions to New England transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau — fitting for a man who grew up in Vermont and loved the outdoors.

Today, in the spirit of its founder, Rotary fosters literacy, paired with education, as one of its six areas of focus. With an estimated 14 percent of the world’s adult population functionally illiterate, Rotarians work to open schools, promote proven teaching methods, and establish mentoring programs to help people improve their reading skills.  

Since reading is the gateway to literacy, this issue of The Rotarian offers a tutorial on how to read. We asked Chicago writer Graham Meyer to track down experts who would share their knowledge about reading as it relates to cuisine, the Bard, and the sport of kings. But there are types of literacy that transcend the printed page; acknowledging that, our specialists also explore “nonbook” realms, including astronomy, medicine, and soothsaying. 

Additionally, a champion poker player, who’s also — no bluff — an acclaimed novelist, poet, and writing professor, helps prepare you for your next Texas hold ’em tournament. And senior editor Geoffrey Johnson suggests several formidable tomes worth the weight. As Thoreau wrote, “Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”

Paging Paul Harris.

How to read big books

In size, rhetoric, and theme, a big book is weighty. Yet, paradoxically, the language, the ideas, even the heft of a big book can unburden readers willing to immerse themselves in a fully imagined world captured between two covers. Here’s how it’s done.

The first step is obvious: Pick a book you will like. Don’t feel obliged to choose a canonical work — though many esteemed books of great length are also vastly entertaining. Sticking to novels, here are some suggestions: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens or The Bonfire of the Vanities by his modern-day counterpart, Tom Wolfe. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is the great domestic novel; Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale features a fantastic love story and a flying horse.

Perhaps it’s time to rediscover a neglected classic — the U.S.A.trilogy by John Dos Passos — or polish off an underread gem, such as Leon Forrest’s Divine Days. Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections) identified William Gaddis’ 956-page novel, The Recognitions, as “the most difficult book I ever read voluntarily in its entirety.” But bear in mind Franzen’s final verdict: “I loved it.”

War and Peace, the paragon of a big book, clocks in at about 1,200 pages (depending on the edition). You’re not meant to devour the whole thing at one sitting. Fortunately, Tolstoy divided his book into five “volumes” comprising 17 sections — and from there he broke it into even smaller, more palatable portions, 361 to be precise. Now, rather than blanching at the prospect of consuming, or being consumed by, an indigestible tome, your appetite is whetted by an alluring spread of delicacies to savor at your leisure. The formidable has become reader-friendly.

Reading demands your full attention, so find a quiet, comfortable, well-lighted place. It may be an easy chair in a spare bedroom, a backyard hammock, a bower in a nearby park. Most of all, remember that this is supposed to be fun. If you don’t like a book, you can always put it down. But find the right book and ultimately you will find yourself reluctant to step away from this new world and all the people in it. 

As for me, Don DeLillo’s Underworld has sat unread on my shelves for 20 years. I’m starting it this weekend.