Is It a Good Idea for Everyone to Read the Same Book?

Even though Oprah's Book Club has ended, other reading groups continue to spring up, with many cities and states picking books for their residents to read. In Chicago, the choice was To Kill a Mockingbird; Missourians read Farewell to Manzanar. Can a solitary activity like reading accomplish a civic good?

Elizabeth Long, associate professor of sociology at Rice University and author of Women Reading Together: Book Groups and the Fashioning of Subjectivity (University of Chicago

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