Expectations & Experiences
As this final month of 2025 is getting underway and I’m enjoying as much of the holiday season as I can, I’m also looking ahead to the new year. I’ll be doing something new in 2026, and I’m excited about it. Not only does it involve one of my favorite pastimes—reading—I’ll be doing it with Mother Nerd.
We’ve decided that, in 2026, we’re tackling a re-read of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens together as it was originally published. In other words, we’ll be reading it slowly, chapter by chapter, as it was serialized back in the day. Neither of us has done this before with a text, and I know I’m curious about experiencing a story this way.
The serialization of stories is a matter that pops into my mind kind of often, though not randomly. It’s due to a project I’ve been working on since 2019. I call it my “Classics Project” and, essentially, I’m reading, rating, and reviewing a long list of books considered to be “classics.” One of my biggest reading pet peeves is when someone tells me to pick up a book because it’s a “classic.” No. Enough with that. So many titles under that umbrella are undeserving of being there and are a waste of my time.
The thing is, I want to be able to have a conversation about why I think a book is undeserving of that recognition—or be able to rise in defense of it—and can only do that if I’m widely-read in that category. Hence, the project and even the scoring rubric I came up with for my rating system.
Some of the books I’ve gotten into for this project Mother Nerd has either been interested in, too, or felt compelled to give a shot. Like me, she’s found there are too many lacking in quality. Unlike me because of my self-imposed rules, she can pull the plug mid-read, which she’s definitely done and I can’t blame her one bit.
There are a few Dickens’ titles on my list, and, originally, the book we were going to read in its serialized form was Bleak House; however, that would take the better part of a year, and I want to finish my project by the end of the first quarter of 2026 (wish me luck on that). A pivot to re-reading Great Expectations was then made, and it’s been long enough since either of us has read it that memories are sufficiently fuzzy (though, I don’t think I can ever forget how much I ended up disliking Estella).
So, what is it about the serialization I think about?
We live in a world today where obtaining a book is as easy and inexpensive as using my (free) library card and checking something out. Gets even more convenient for e-readers to simply hop on the Internet and find an e-book on your library’s database. Don’t even have to leave your home. It’s a good time to be a reader, right? And that’s not even considering the sheer quantity of books in existence thanks to developments in production and printing. It doesn’t have to hit your pocketbook quiet so hard as it used to just to purchase a book of your own, especially considering the various ways you can get your hands on used books.
How we access reading today isn’t how it always was, obviously, and it was in the 17th century this concept of serializing a story (the installments were called fascicles) kicked off. It’s Mr. Dickens himself with his Pickwick Papers (1836) that helped people to see the popularity and viability of this format. Other well-known authors to be serialized were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his Sherlock mysteries, Agatha Christie, Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers), Jules Verne (Around the World in Eighty Days), and many, many others. I just finished Moby Dick (Meville) last month, and that’s another one originally published that way.
And I wonder—about books like Moby Dick, Middlemarch, War & Peace—if I would have enjoyed them more, had I read them how they were first received by the world. How much more would I appreciate a story, even if its characters are only so-so and the writing is lacking, if I wasn’t inundated by literary options and could only get a story by waiting for the next chapter to come out in Harper’s periodical? Or what about this: How much more would I enjoy the reading experience, if it was a collective thing that me and my household looked forward to and then read together out loud? Because that used to be the way it was done. The waiting, anticipation, was part of it, as was the shared aspect.
These days, if we’re not in a book club, who are we reading with? I’m fortunate to have a few pals who enjoy doing buddy reads, but, for most, reading is a solitary endeavor, which isn’t wrong. There’s no saying you have to have bookish community.
It seems clear, though, that connecting with others over story is a beloved pastime and always has been. Whether that’s over a good plot in a TV show or a comic book or Bookstagram, discussing what we’re reading and why we loved certain books has value. Storytelling within communities—bedtime tales with a child or bigger, societal myths retold at a large gathering—has been near and dear to human hearts for ages.
It all makes me wonder, though so much has been gained by increased access to books, has something been lost? Was reading ever meant to be a solitary hobby, or have we turned it into one because we could? Personally, I love the quiet, alone time that reading gives me, yet my reading experiences are always enhanced by discussion with a pal or when I get another’s perspective or find supplemental material that takes the themes a step further.
Some of the “Classics” I read and find full, infuriating, poorly written, whatever could maybe (probably) feel like less of a waste of time, if only I’d gone through it in a seminar, club, or group of some kind. This serialization has me intrigued, and I’m grateful Mother Nerd is down for reading Dickens like this with me. If you want to join us, we’ll start first week of January—schedule posted below!
Stay tuned for Great Expectations and buddy read reflections, and, if the opportunity to do a book club or something like it pops up for you, I hope you give it a go and see if sharing a reading experience means as much to you as it does to me, as it seems to have meant for so many generations and peoples. And may good reads find you along the way!
