Inspired by a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, about a long-running reading group in which the members read books aloud -- 35 or so pages a meeting -- they've read Dickens, Milton, Tolstoy, Faulkner, the Brontes, Eliot, Austen. In addition to the book we're reading (our first is The Transit of Venus), we've begun meetings by reading other short pieces or poems.