Short
Not more than four hundred words. A reader who has chosen something longer cuts it, and cutting it badly is preferred to reading it whole.
The Practice
The House Reader
After the silence, one person reads aloud for not more than four hundred words. The book they read from is an anthology: assembled by committee, printed at a price, argued over, borrowed from, cut, mistranslated and sometimes disliked at the table. It settles nothing and is not quoted as authority.
There have been five editions since 1977. Earlier ones were never called in, so on any given evening the houses are reading from four different books. Where the editions differ the difference is a fact about printing and not about the Practice.
The present edition is the fifth, of 2024. Two of the five people who prepared it disagreed with the result and asked for their disagreement to be printed, which it was.
How it is used
Attribution after
The reading is given first and the author and source afterwards, so that the words are heard before the name. Where nobody asks, the attribution is still said.
Omission and substitution
A house may leave out any reading and may read something else instead. The choice is written in the book as one line: what was left out, what was read, and the date. No reason is required and reasons are rarely given.
Older editions
Earlier Readers are not called in. A house reading from the 1984 edition is reading from the Reader. Where editions differ, the difference is a fact about printing and not about doctrine.
Local editions
Circles that meet in a language other than English make their own edition and their translations are not checked or approved by anybody. Two of these editions contain readings that appear nowhere else.
Not authoritative
No edition settles anything. The Reader has no standing in a dispute, is not quoted in minutes as authority, and may be disliked out loud at the table.
The readings
As listed in the contents of the 2024 edition and its predecessors. Readings marked as appearing in earlier editions only are still read at the houses that hold those editions.
Letter of 9 November
E. Vale, 1976
What is owed to a thing one has agreed to keep.
Correspondence, Vale to Orrell, COR/1976/014. Read from the second paragraph only.
The only reading present in every edition. The committee has twice proposed dropping it, on the ground that it is read too often to be heard, and twice been refused.
About 260 words. · In the 1977, 1984, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
On the Boiler
E. Vale, 1979
Attention, in the least interesting available form.
A working memorandum on maintenance, read entire.
Written to a plumber and not intended for reading aloud. Vale is reported to have found its inclusion embarrassing.
About 180 words. · In the 1977, 1984, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
Minute of the Second Meeting
North House, 1975
How a small thing is decided by people who will have to do it.
Minute book, read from the resolutions.
About 200 words. · In the 1984, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
Letter to a House That Had Stopped Meeting
E. Vale, 1981
Obligation, and its limits.
Correspondence, COR/1981/046.
About 300 words. · In the 1984, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
Against the Founder's Habit of Explaining
R. Nwankwo, 1993
Disagreement with Vale, kept in the Reader deliberately.
An address to stewards, printed from the typescript.
Objected to at the time as disrespectful. The committee's answer, printed beside it in 1996, is that a Reader containing no argument with its founder would be a worse book and a less honest one.
About 340 words. · In the 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
What a House Is For
M. Halloran, 2004
Hospitality as an ordinary expense.
An essay written for the annual sheets and lifted from them.
About 350 words. · In the 2011, 2024 editions
The Repair of the Long Table
Anonymous, 1988
Repair; the shortest reading in the book.
A note left in the repair book at Shore House.
Frequently chosen when the evening is running late, which the committee has noticed and has declined to prevent.
About 120 words. · In the 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
On Being Asked to Say More
E. Vale, 1985
Why the Practice does not explain itself further.
Correspondence, read from the first page.
About 220 words. · In the 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
The Danger of a Well-Run Institution
G. Idris, 1993
What an orderly body does to the people inside it.
Address to the stewardship, printed entire.
The reading most often chosen by circles and least often chosen by houses. Nobody has offered an explanation of that in writing.
About 380 words. · In the 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
A Note on Money
Stewardship, 1990
Where the money comes from and what is never asked for.
A circular, read from clauses 1 to 4.
About 200 words. · In the 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
The Book That Was Not Kept
H. Sarraf, 1999
Memory, and what a missing year does to an account.
An essay on a gap in a house record.
About 330 words. · In the 2011, 2024 editions
On Attending in February
L. Barrow, 2016
Continuing when there is no reason to.
Written for a circle newsletter and reprinted with permission of the writer.
About 240 words. · In the 2024 editions
Reading for a Death
Stewardship, 1987
What is said; and the four things that are not said.
The standing text read at the table on the evening after a death.
About 90 words. · In the 1984, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
On the Handing Over of a Duty
Stewardship, 1991
Succession as an administrative act.
A procedural note, read from the second half.
About 210 words. · In the 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
From the Sixth Book
Marcus Aurelius, translated by George Long (1862)
Attention to work in hand.
Meditations, Book VI, sections 6 and 7. Public domain; translator recorded.
About 150 words. · In the 1977, 1984, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
A Time to Every Purpose
Ecclesiastes 3, Authorised Version (1611)
Season, and the order of ordinary work.
Public domain. Read without commentary.
Withdrawn from the fifth edition after a long argument, on the ground that several houses had come to treat it as a text of the Practice rather than as a borrowing. Houses that want it substitute it back, and eleven do.
About 180 words. · In the 1977, 1984, 1996, 2011 editions
Of the Swallow, Late in the Year
Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne (1789)
Observation kept up over years by one person in one place.
Letter XXI, abridged. Public domain.
About 200 words. · In the 1984, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
From the Lamp of Memory
John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849)
Building for those who come after.
Chapter VI, section X, abridged. Public domain.
Two houses omit it as sentimental and enter the omission each time. One of them has done so since 1986.
About 260 words. · In the 1984, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
From The Beauty of Life
William Morris (1880)
Ordinary work and the objects it leaves behind.
An address at Birmingham, abridged. Public domain.
About 240 words. · In the 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
Three Days in March
Dorothy Wordsworth, Grasmere Journal (1802)
Weather, and keeping an entry when there is nothing to say.
Entries for 15 to 17 March. Public domain.
About 170 words. · In the 2011, 2024 editions
Of Things Within Our Power
Epictetus, Enchiridion, translated by Elizabeth Carter (1758)
The limit of an obligation.
Sections 1 and 8. Public domain; translator recorded.
Dropped in 1984 as too instructive, restored in 1996 in a shorter extract.
About 160 words. · In the 1977, 1996, 2011, 2024 editions
The editions
First edition · 1977
Readings for the Table
Duplicated typescript, North House office, 120 copies.
Stapled at the corner, no cover, no contents page. The stencils were cut by two members over four evenings and the second of them left the Practice the following year.
Nine copies are known to survive. None is in ordinary use; two are read from at anniversaries.
Changes
- Fourteen readings, assembled from what was already being read aloud.
Papers
HAN/1977/1 · PRO/1977/06
Second edition · 1984
The House Reader
Letterpress, a jobbing printer at Bangor, 600 copies.
The first edition to be called the Reader, and the first to be paid for out of the general account. Cloth boards in a dull green chosen because it was the cheapest cloth the printer had.
In use at three houses. It is the edition most often quoted from memory, which is not a recommendation.
Changes
- Nineteen readings. Five of the 1977 texts were dropped and ten added.
- Attribution moved from the head of each reading to the foot, following the 1984 minute.
Papers
MIN/1984/05
Third edition · 1996
The House Reader
Offset, 1,500 copies, two printings.
A signature was folded out of sequence in part of the first printing, so that in perhaps three hundred copies pages 96 and 97 stand in the wrong order. The bindery corrected the second printing at its own cost. The invoice is in the archive and the matter is closed.
The commonest edition in the houses. Uncorrected copies are still read from and are not withdrawn; a reader who reaches the transposed pages reads them in the order they are bound and no one minds.
Changes
- Twenty-one readings.
- The first edition to print the form of local substitution on the endpaper.
Papers
LED/1997/02 · FRM/1996/03
Fourth edition · 2011
The House Reader
Offset, 1,200 copies; large-print companion issued 2013 in 300 copies.
Reset in a larger face after a review found that half the houses could not read the third edition by the light they had. The large-print companion is the same text at the same page openings.
In ordinary use at six houses and most circles.
Changes
- Twenty-two readings. Two added, one restored from 1977.
- Sources and translators printed in full at the back for the first time.
Papers
REP/2011/05
Fifth edition · 2024
The House Reader
Offset, 900 copies. Sewn, because the fourth edition fell apart at the kitchen end of the table.
Prepared over three years by a committee of five, two of whom disagreed with the result and said so in the minute.
Issued to all houses and circles in 2025. Earlier editions were not called in.
Changes
- Twenty-one readings. Two withdrawn at their authors' request; three added.
- The note on attribution reprinted at the front.
Papers
MEM/2024/12 · PRO/2024/04
Omissions and substitutions, as entered
A house may leave out any reading and read something else. The choice is written down in one line, and the form has no field for a reason.
- Shore House · since 1986
Omitted: From the Lamp of Memory
Read instead: A page from the house repair book, chosen by whoever is cooking.
Entered each time in the house book, in one line, for thirty-nine years.
- Karst House · since 2025
Omitted: A Time to Every Purpose
Read instead: Nothing. The Quiet Twelve runs on for a further two minutes instead.
Entered as an omission with no substitution, which the form allows.
- Orchard House · since 1997
Omitted: Nothing is omitted.
Read instead: Readings are taken in the printed order, which no other house does.
The house enters the order kept, because it was asked to explain itself once and has not stopped.
- Circle C-11 · since 2019
Omitted: Against the Founder's Habit of Explaining
Read instead: Of Things Within Our Power.
Entered in the Circle Book at each occurrence; the convener has twice noted that she disagrees with the substitution she is recording.
What tends to happen
None of these is a stage and none of them is required. They are the things that tend to happen, set down so that the books make sense. A person may meet all of them, or one, or none, and their standing is the same in each case.
An Open Table
A monthly evening at a house or a circle: quiet, a short reading, talk, and a meal. Anyone may come and most who come come once.
Written down
The number present, so the kitchen knows what to cook next month.Declining it
Not coming. No one is written to, telephoned, or asked after.- It is not an introduction to anything.
- Attending does not begin a relationship with the Institute.
A first attendance
The first evening a particular person is in the room.
Written down
A name, only where the person gives one at notices.Declining it
There is nothing to decline. No welcome is staged and no introduction is made.- It creates no standing and no obligation.
- It does not make a person a member, a visitor under review, or a name on a list.
Taking up a rota
Agreeing to hold one ordinary duty — a key, a boiler reading, a Tuesday kitchen — for a period of months.
Written down
The duty, the dates, and who carries it when the holder is away.Declining it
Saying no, which is common and unremarked, or asking to be taken off the book, which requires no reason.- It confers nothing on the person holding it.
- A duty of long standing is not a superior duty.
A first reconciliation
The first time a person sits with a steward and a book and settles what was carried against what was recorded.
Written down
That the account was reconciled, and the date.Declining it
Asking for the reconciliation to be done by the steward alone, which is ordinary.- It is not a confession, an examination, or an interview.
- Nothing personal is asked and nothing personal is entered.
A year kept
Twelve months in which a duty was held and, on the days it could not be held, carried by somebody else.
Written down
The line. Nothing is added to it and nothing is said about it aloud.Declining it
Stopping. A duty laid down after four months is laid down; nothing is noted.- There is no mark of a year kept, no mention at notices, and no thanks offered in public.
- Length of service is not seniority and gives no say in any decision.
A first winter
The months in which a house is cold, the work is dull, and the reason for attending is not obvious. Most people who stop, stop here.
Written down
Attendance figures, which are published in the annual sheets without comment.Declining it
Not continuing. It is the most common outcome and the houses expect it.- Continuing through a winter is not endurance and is not admired.
- No one is asked in spring where they were.
Fellowship
A formal undertaking to hold a defined obligation for a defined term. Optional, uncommon, and entered by a minority.
Written down
The undertaking, the term, and the review date.Declining it
Never raising it, or declining when it is raised. A fellow and a member of forty years' attendance have identical standing.- It is not an inner circle, a qualification, or a degree.
- It gives no additional access to the record and no additional voice.
Holding an office
Convener of a circle, steward of a house, keeper of a book: an administrative post held for a term and then handed on.
Written down
The office, the term, and the handover.Declining it
Refusing, which is frequent, and asked again of somebody else the same evening.- An office is a workload, not an authority over persons.
- It ends on the date it ends.
Separation
Leaving. A form of two lines, or nothing at all.
Written down
The date the duty was laid down, and where the duty went.Declining it
Not applicable. Nobody is prevented, delayed, or asked to reconsider.- Separation is not a failure, a lapse, or a matter for enquiry.
- No reason is asked for and none is recorded.
Taking the work up again
Coming back, sometimes after decades, and asking whether anything needs doing.
Written down
The new duty. The gap is not annotated.Declining it
Not returning, which is neither noted nor regretted in writing.- There is no readmission, no interview, and no account to be settled first.
- A return is not a homecoming and is not marked.
Closing an account
The administrative end of a participation, on separation or on death: the duty reassigned, the entry retained.
Written down
That the account was closed and that the entry is kept.Declining it
Not applicable. Closing is done by the house, and the entry is never deleted.- The work is reassigned; the person is not replaced.
- Closing an account expresses no judgement of any kind.