📚 Read with Us in October!
In October, our monthly theme is The Unknown, so over the next four weeks, starting this Saturday, we’ll be diving into the mysteries, fears, unseen forces and spaces, and ambiguous figures that pervade the books we’ll read and the drafts we’ll write.
Our weeks for reading books and posts run Saturday–Friday.
✨Week 1 (Mystery):
Sat., Oct. 3 —Fri., Oct. 9
✨Week 2 (Fear):
Sat., Oct. 10 —Fri., Oct. 16
✨Week 3 (Invisible Worlds):
Sat., Oct. 17 —Fri., Oct. 23
✨Week 4 (Shadowy Characters):
Sat., Oct. 24 —Fri., Oct. 30
Whether you read one book, all four, or one of your own books in between some of our reading selections, I hope this month’s selections give you plenty to think about, and plenty to talk about with us.
ℹ️ HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR READING SCHEDULE
This book club is designed to fit your personal reading pace and schedule.
Here’s an overview of the suggested reading schedule options to choose from, to make joining this book club fit into your existing schedule and reading goals. Though you can, of course, always read whatever you want, however you want, whenever you want!
Feel free to adjust the option you want to follow based on whatever you’re reading outside the club, as well as what we’re reading and covering this month in other posts. There is no ‘right’ way to read with us, only the way that works best for you and your life in any given week or month.
👥OPTION 1: One Book Per Week Reader
Read with us week-by-week by reading one book per week. This schedule will align best with Tuesday’s check-in posts, in which we’ll cover our initial thoughts on the book we’re reading for that week and introduce any questions and topics worth exploring further as we continue reading the book.
This option is best for those who want to take their time exploring and discussing each book in tandem with the focus of other posts and conversations happening on Daily Drafts & Dialogues.
📚OPTION 2: The Poly Mood Reader
Weave all four books together throughout the month so that you can read two or more books at the same time while still staying close to the sequence of discussions we’ll have about each book on Tuesdays.
This is a great option if you want to alternate between denser prose and faster-paced plots in the same week, listen to one book on audio while reading another in print, or simply follow your reading mood from day to day. It offers greater flexibility while still allowing you to join the weekly discussions by meeting the weekly benchmarks.
☀️OPTION 3: Daily Page Goal Reader
Keep a steady 28-day schedule for the whole bookstack by following a daily page goal of approximately 43 pages per day, or approximately one hour worth of reading per day, depending on the book and your chosen reading mediums. This option is great if you just want to set your stack in order and focus on the number of pages or minutes you read each day. It is great for those who are building a reading routine, as well as those who already have an allotted hour or so dedicated to reading each day— those who read with their morning coffee, right before bed, during their lunch hour, or while they commute, etc.
⏳OPTION 4: One Book Per Month Reader
Choose just one specific book to read at a slower pace over the entire month with us. This option is also great for building a reading routine that will stick, and is great for those readers who have a few other non-book-club books they want to read over the course of the month as well. You can choose the book that interests you the most and use the weekly targets below to give yourself plenty of room to read, reflect, reread, and participate in your selected book’s discussion.
🗣️ How to Join Book Discussions
You are welcome to tackle the entire list or jump into book discussions for individual picks.
👥 Each book selection will have a Buddy Read available. All Buddy Reads will be hosted in the Storygraph app. This Buddy Read feature helps ensure you don’t encounter spoilers and never feel rushed, so you can read at your own pace.
Every Buddy Read will remain accessible in Storygraph past its designated end date as long as you join it in the app before its designated end date, the end of our October reading cycle on Friday, October 30. This means you can continue logging your thoughts and chatting about the book at your own pace, no matter which reading schedule you choose or whether you’re following the Tuesday check-in posts here on Daily Drafts & Dialogues.
💬 You’ll also have the opportunity to discuss each book in the comments of Tuesday check-in posts and in chat threads in upcoming Daily Drafts & Dialogues Books posts.
📚 OUR 4 MAIN SELECTIONS FOR OCTOBER: THE UNKNOWN
Our October reading journey moves from a mystery steeped in Shakespearean drama to a memoir about finding freedom and one’s unique voice to a surreal world where memory itself is disappearing, and finally to one of literature’s most unsettling, haunted houses.
📕Popular Pick:
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
📗Real World Application Pick:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
📘Diverse Perspectives Pick:
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
📙Literary Dive Pick:
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
📅 OCTOBER READING SCHEDULE OPTIONS
👥 OPTION 1: The Weekly Buddy Read Schedule for Tuesday Reading Notes and Check-Ins
Use this reading schedule breakdown if you join us each week to read all four books, one book at a time, one book per week. Or if you want to read one or more of these books closely as we discuss them in tandem with other Daily Drafts & Dialogues posts in any given week. Every Tuesday, a dedicated community check-in post will go live to complement that week’s main selection, featuring reading notes and discussion questions for a deep-dive analysis of the book’s specific angle on The Unknown.
A note about page counts: Page counts below use readily available editions as a planning reference. Your edition may have a different page count, so feel free to use chapter/section progress rather than exact page numbers whenever necessary.
📕Week 1: If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (~358 pages)
Seven young Shakespearean actors at an elite conservatory become consumed by the roles they play onstage, and by the rivalries, friendships, ambitions, and obsessions developing offstage. When something dramatic and life-altering happens to one of their own, the other actors are left to reckon with what really happened and how much of themselves they brought into the tragedy.
📆 Daily Target: October 3–9 — approximately 51 pages/day to finish in one week.
🔔 Tuesday Check-In Post: October 6
This week’s post dives into: Mystery. We’ll look at how uncertainty is established and built through unreliable perspectives, theatrical performance, buried motives, and the question of whether we can ever completely know another person, or even ourselves.
💬 Possible Discussion Questions:
How does the structure or experience of a mystery change when the characters in it are also trained performers?
Which characters seem the most different when they are ‘performing’ versus when they believe they are being themselves?
How does the novel use Shakespearean tragedy to make us question what we think we know about its central mystery?
📗Week 2: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (~289 pages)
In this landmark memoir, Maya Angelou recounts her childhood and adolescence in the American South and her later life in California, exploring family, racism, trauma, identity, language, and the gradual discovery of her own voice. Her story follows the complicated movement from vulnerability and fear toward self-knowledge, resilience, and freedom.
📆 Daily Target: October 10–16 — approximately 42 pages/day to finish in one week.
🔔 Tuesday Check-In Post: October 13
This week’s post dives into: Fear. We’ll consider the different spaces and forms in which fear arises and exists (personal, social, and cultural) and examine how Angelou writes about the process of finding agency and her authentic voice within circumstances that can feel overwhelmingly beyond one’s control.
💬 Possible Discussion Questions:
What different kinds of fear does Angelou encounter, and how do they shape her understanding of the world and herself?
How does language via reading, writing, poetry, and storytelling become connected to freedom?
Where and how do we see fear transformed into courage, resistance, or self-determination?
📘Week 3: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (~288 pages)
On an unnamed island, ordinary objects begin disappearing, and then… memories themselves begin disappearing. While most inhabitants accept these disappearances, a young writer discovers that some people can still remember what has been lost and attempts to protect one of them from the mysterious Memory Police.
📆 Daily Target: October 17–23 — approximately 41 pages/day to finish in one week.
🔔 Tuesday Check-In Post: October 20
This week’s post dives into: Invisible Worlds. We’ll explore memory, disappearances, language, imagination, and the unseen structures that shape reality, asking what happens when something can no longer be seen, named, remembered, or collectively acknowledged.
💬 Possible Discussion Questions:
What makes something ‘real’ in a world where people can collectively forget that it ever existed?
How does the novel connect memory with identity, creativity, and resistance?
What invisible forces (social, political, emotional, or psychological) seem to govern the island?
📙Week 4: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (~182 pages)
Four people arrive at the notoriously unsettling Hill House to investigate its strange history, but the house seems to have its own intentions. As the boundaries between the supernatural, the psychological, and the characters’ own fears begin to blur, Hill House becomes a place where it is increasingly difficult to determine who, or what, is truly haunting whom.
📆 Daily Target: October 24–30 — approximately 26 pages/day to finish in one week.
🔔 Tuesday Check-In Post: October 27
This week’s post dives into: Shadowy Characters. We’ll explore ambiguity, unreliable perceptions, psychological projections, and the way the narrative keeps both characters and readers uncertain about what is actually happening inside Hill House.
💬 Possible Discussion Questions:
Which characters remain the most difficult to understand, and what makes them so elusive?
How does the narrative blur the distinction between an external haunting and an internal one?
Does knowing what a character fears make that character easier to understand, or more mysterious?
📚 OPTION 2: The Month-Long Poly Reader Schedule with Weekly Benchmarks
If you’re reading two or more selections simultaneously but prefer to weave them together over the course of the full month rather than reading one book at a time, aim for these weekly benchmarks:
📕 End of Week 1 — Friday, October 9: Finish If We Were Villains
📗 End of Week 2 — Friday, October 16: Finish I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
📘 End of Week 3 — Friday, October 23: Finish The Memory Police
📙 End of Week 4 — Friday, October 30: Finish The Haunting of Hill House
Reminder: The goal with this option isn’t to read only one book each week, but to reach the corresponding benchmark highlighted above by the end of each reading week. This way, if you’d rather read 20 pages of one book in the morning and 40 pages of another at night, you can do what works best for both your schedule and mood!
☀️ OPTION 3: The Daily Reading Schedule
Use this option if you want to finish all four books across our full 28-day reading period while maintaining a steady, structured reading rhythm. Rather than worrying about finishing one book each week, simply aim for your daily page goal and move through the stack in order.
✅ Your Daily Commitment: Aim for approximately 40-45 pages per day on average.
📑 Your Complete Monthly Roadmap:
📕October 3–11: Focus on If We Were Villains
📗October 12–19: Pivot to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
📘October 20–26: Dive into The Memory Police
📙October 27–30: Shift to The Haunting of Hill House
Reminder: Your goal is to read your daily pages and keep moving forward. If you read more one day and less the next, that’s completely fine. Just think of 40–45 pages as your average daily target rather than a hard rule to keep, especially if it ends up stressing you out.
⏳OPTION 4: The Monthly Schedule (Pick ONE Book for the Whole Month)
Do you want to focus on just one specific book for the entire duration of October that explores The Unknown? If so, use these relaxed weekly targets to space your chosen book across all four weeks and give yourself plenty of time to unpack all it has to offer.
📕 If reading ONLY If We Were Villains: Read ~90 pages/week or ~13 pages/day
📗 If reading ONLY I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Read ~73 pages/week or ~11 pages/day
📘 If reading ONLY The Memory Police: Read ~71 pages/week or ~10 pages/day
📙 If reading ONLY The Haunting of Hill House: Read ~46 pages/week or ~7 pages/day
Note: This plan is based on the editions referenced above, so use your own edition’s page count if it differs.
🏛️ Library & Reading Notes
There is no prize for finishing all four books, or a penalty for reading only one. You can read ahead. You can fall behind. You can switch schedules halfway through the month. You can listen to the audiobook versions while reading the ebook versions, annotate every page in your printed copy, read in tiny bursts, or spend an entire afternoon disappearing into one of these books.
However you decide to read with us, the point is not to turn reading into another obligation. It’s to make space for the stories that allow us to explore the unknown.
So, pick the schedule that makes you want to open a book, then come talk to us about what you find there when you can. 📚✨
All book selections should be available through your local library. It will be incredibly rare that we have a book selection that is not available there. So, please support and use your library. That’s what they’re there for— free books! And the lovely librarians there will make it easy for you to get your card if you don’t already have one.
Check your physical library branch for copies of the books we’re reading. Or use the Libby app (which is linked to your library card) to secure your copies or place holds early!
💬Drop a comment below to let us know which reading schedule and book(s) you are choosing this month!
✨Stay tuned for Tuesday’s check-in post, which will include reading notes and discussion questions for If We Were Villains. And don’t forget to join The Daily Drafts & Dialogues Book Club in Storygraph so you can join Buddy Reads!
I can’t wait to read with you in October and see how what we’re reading deepens our discussions!