A few years ago, a college friend called me on my birthday. He’d been feeling, he said, a little isolated — not lonely exactly, but cut off. His work life had shifted, most of his colleagues were younger, and the jokes and comments he’d make in Zoom meetings and on Slack weren’t landing the way he’d hoped. In at least one case, an offhand remark he delivered during a Microsoft Teams meeting inspired a concerned email from HR. He needed, he said, a safe space. People his own age. People who would get it.

He suggested a book club.

Ali Khamenei, 1939-2026

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There were five of us scattered across the country, and the idea was simple: Rotate choosing books, meet on Zoom once a month, and talk about what we’d read. That was four-and-a-half years ago. We’ve read 54 books. Nobody has quit, though there have been moments.

We try to keep the choices interesting, alternating fiction and nonfiction, classics and new releases, highbrow and, well,........

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