Candide

Voltaire published Candide in 1759 without his name on it, and it was condemned almost at once and read everywhere anyway. Its hero is a gentle young man brought up in a Westphalian castle by a tutor, Pangloss, who has proved that this is the best of all possible worlds. Then Candide is kicked out of the castle, and the world gets its chance to answer. An army, a shipwreck and the Lisbon earthquake all come in the first week. It is short, quick and savagely funny: a chapter a day for thirty days, beginning on the anniversary of the earthquake.

Read one big book alongside other readers, a day at a time. Cohorts set off on the date above.