Key around your neck, home before dark, don't answer the door for strangers. You could watch TV. You could call a friend. But mostly — if you were a certain kind of kid — you read.
That was me. A book a day every summer from the time I was five. Not because anyone told me to. Because the house was quiet and the books weren't.
Here's the thing nobody tells you about reading that much as a kid: it gives you the travel bug. Not the Instagram-worthy beach kind. The I need to stand in the place where that story happened kind. The books got there first, and I've spent my whole life trying to catch up.
I'm Stacy Earl. I started The Latchkey Readers for the other Gen X readers who know exactly what I'm talking about. The ones who read the whole thing.
You may have heard of TL;DR — too long, didn't read. We are, obviously, the opposite.
Every month we pick a book and talk about it together on a live call. No homework. No wrong answers. Just a room full of people who actually finished it.
Every issue: book recommendations worth your time. Underread stuff, mostly — not the same ten books everyone talks about.
We've been doing this alone since 1979. We don't have to anymore.
Subscribe. We saved you a seat.
I run Early & Away, a literary travel company for people who do their reading first. If The Latchkey Readers ever makes you want to go somewhere a book sent you — that's where to go.