Welcome to the Reading Room. As Kimi and hatster said, you can join in the chapter discussions simply by replying to messages. If, however, you want to lead a chapter discussion, you'll need to sign up. The sign-up is done periodically by a post from one of the Forum Admins. (Usually Inferno handles it, but lately it's been Altaira.) Simply keep an eye on the board, and when a post comes up that reads something like "Chapter Discussion Sign Up", just post a reply and make a request for the chapter you want. Detailed instructions about how many chapters you can sign up for and such will be in the sign up post. In the meantime, down below I've included a link to the calender so you can see which weeks are open and which are taken if you want to think about it. Most of the LOTR chapters are all taken already, but I think some of the appendices are still available. When we finish with LOTR, there will probably be a poll about what to discuss next and then people sign up and the fun starts all over again. Enjoy!

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"I like the kind of literary criticism that tries very hard to understand what the author is saying. I despise the kind that cares only about how the reader responds to it. The first requires a great deal of hard scholarship, ultimately as much as had the writer. The second can be practiced by anyone with a navel into which to gaze."

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