Today’s guest recently completed a classics reading project, and now she really wants to keep up that momentum while also bringing more non-classics back into her reading life.
Sometimes I see a guest submission come across my screen and I think, “Oh, I know just the team member to have that conversation with”, and today we’re trying something new and inviting a team member alongside me to help tackle one reader-specific reading dilemma. As you’ll hear today, I couldn’t help but notice that guest Cheryl Drury’s tastes and her recent focus on the classics make me think of my friend and teammate, Ginger Horton.
Ginger is our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club community manager, and she has recently been immersed in the classics due to her current enrollment in a Great Books graduate study program. That’s why Ginger seems like exactly the right reader to bring along for this conversation with Cheryl.
Cheryl hails from Charleston, South Carolina. While she’s always been a reader, she’d never really dabbled much in classics or Great Books until 18 months ago, when she embarked on a challenge to read through a year-long list of more than 100 influential books. The project energized Cheryl’s reading life, but now she’s not quite sure where to go next in her approach to reading.
Cheryl shares many reading similarities with Ginger, and I cannot wait to hear Ginger’s ideas and offer my own for Cheryl’s reading quest today. We will talk about how Cheryl may retain some of the structure from her classics project because that served her well, but also where she can have more flexibility to follow where her reading whimsy takes her. Plus, we’ll offer some title ideas that hopefully will feel like just the right bridge between what Cheryl’s been reading lately and what she’d love more of in the months ahead.
We’d love to hear your ideas, too: please share your suggestions for Cheryl by leaving a comment below.


Connect with Cheryl on Substack and Instagram.
Celebrating 10 years of the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club
This year marks our 10th anniversary of Book Club. It has been so much fun along the way, and we’ve got great events queued up to celebrate this year. Plus, this is a wonderful time to join because it’s Summer Reading Guide season. For more from Ginger and more Book Club fun, join us at modernmrsdarcy.com/club.
Books mentioned in this episode:
• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
• The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis
❤ Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
❤ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
❤ A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
▵ Dead Wake by Erik Larson
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• On Photography by Susan Sontag
• Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
• World War Z by Max Brooks
• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
• A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• The Brothers K by David James Duncan
• 1000 Books to Read Before You Die by James Mustich
• Oranges by John McPhee
• 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
• Q’s Legacy by Helene Hanff
• Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
• The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff
❤: Guest favorite book
▵: A book they didn’t love
Also mentioned:
• MMD Book Club Class: How to Set Your Reading Intentions
• MMD Book Club Class: A Close Look at Great Books
• A 12-Month Immersive Course in Humanities
• WSIRN Ep 165: 1000 Books to read before you die
• Hogarth Shakespeare Series
• Please support our sponsors.