Welcome to the Priory of the Orange Tree buddy readalong!

This buddy read is meant to be relaxed and low-pressure. You don't need to write long replies or create new forum posts every week. It's meant to be fun, not homework!

Week 1 will start on Saturday, August 1, 2026 and run through Sunday, August 9, 2026 to allow everyone a bit of extra time to obtain the book, get comfortable with Pagebound tracking/posting/commenting, follow each other, etc. All other weekly readings will start on Monday and run for only one week. Hyperlinks to each week's discussion post will be embedded below - just click on each week of the reading schedule to be transported to that post!

Reading schedule:

Week 1: Chapters 1–4 Week 2: Chapters 5–8 Week 3: Chapters 9–12 Week 4: Chapters 13–16 Week 5: Chapters 17–20 Week 6: Chapters 21–24 Week 7: Chapters 25–28 Week 8: Chapters 29–32 Week 9: Catch-up week (no new reading) Week 10: Chapters 33–36 Week 11: Chapters 37–40 Week 12: Chapters 41–44 Week 13: Chapters 45–49 Week 14: Chapters 50–54 Week 15: Chapters 55–59 Week 16: Chapters 60–64 Week 17: Chapters 65–70 Week 18: Chapters 71–76 + final discussion

Here's the basic format of our buddy readalong:

🍊We'll use the reading schedule as a guide to keep us on track. 🍊We'll follow each other so that we can get reading updates in our feed. 🍊When we're able to, we'll comment under our reading updates and discussion posts with thoughts for that chapter/section/week. 🍊Forum posts are always encouraged, but never expected. 🍊I will try to upload a forum post each week to give us a central space for that week/reading section, and each week's reading will start Monday and end Sunday.

Pagebound reading buddies:

alette audiobookish cammi eekzreads ereeka itsqmelie iynqed jmart machine_saint metalarmedcorvid ooeybluey redlikeroses savvylibrary storysprout sunblessedbabe theliteratepanda viscella woesbegone yoursema

Note: I'll update the reading buddies list as needed - please just let me know if you don't see your name but want to participate (or if you want me to remove you from the list). Also, this will be my first readalong on Pagebound, so I'm always open to any suggestions or ideas! Here's the link to the original forum post looking for reading buddies for Priory.

On a scale of 1 to 10, honestly, how difficult is it to read "The Lord of the Rings" in English for someone who has a level of about B1/B2? Because I read it in my native language, which is Italian, but I would really like to read it in English only I don't want to spend most of my time looking for the meaning of words that I don't know.

Almost at the end of this book, but I feel while reading this, the time runs faster, or I read way slower than usual. My page count is half of what I can normally read in the time period. I think the language used in the book is a bit more difficult, and English is not my 1st language. But I do read most of the books in English, so I don't know. Did anyone else feel the same. I do love the book, so I'm always surprised by it.