Make meaningful works of literature part of your life
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What we do

I know so many people — thoughtful, intelligent, motivated people — who avoid reading the classics. And for understandable reasons: they’re busy, they don’t know what to read, they’ve never been taught how to enjoy it, they have unpleasant memories of tedious discussions in high school English class.

If you too are intimidated, uninitiated, jaded or disillusioned...read with me. Let me show you what reading can be.

At Read With Me, I will guide you through timelessly important and stirringly beautiful works of literature, in a manner that allows you to grasp them intellectually, connect with them emotionally, and, ultimately, learn better how to live.

Lisa VanDamme
Founder of VanDamme Academy and Read With Me

How it works

Literature made accessibleUsing the app, you can listen to the book read aloud by Lisa in manageable sections of half-an-hour to an hour long. Each of those sections is then recapped in a “focused summary” that helps highlight what was important.
 
Bringing the books to lifeAfter each reading, Lisa makes brief commentaries on it that are meant to transform your experience of the text - enabling you to connect with the characters, see the emerging themes, find favorite moments, and develop a deep personal attachment to the book.
 
A community of readersWithin the app you will find a link to a Facebook community for each work, where readers can ask questions and share thoughts about the book. There, you can connect with other thoughtful and enthusiastic readers and with Lisa herself.Get the app

A Growing Collection

Connect with hundreds of hours of stimulating, powerful, and thought-provoking stories, plays, and poems.

 
4h 27m
14h 51m
25h
2h 31m
9h 56m
6h 37m
1h 41m
35h 15m
8h 3m
57m
8h 25m
 
13h 58m
3h 11m
10h 4m

About Us

Read With Me was founded by Lisa VanDamme, a school founder and literature teacher with big ambitions to provide students with an exceptional education and a joyful learning experience. Her life’s purpose is to show people that literature can be an invaluable tool in the quest for a more fulfilling life.

Professor of English and literature enthusiast Mark Edmundson puts it best: the value of reading is “the joy of seeing the world through the eyes of people who—let us admit it—are more sensitive, more articulate, shrewder, sharper, more alive than they themselves are,” and of discovering “that life is bigger, sweeter, more tragic, more intenses - more alive with meaning than you had ever thought.”

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What People Are Saying

Make exciting and meaningful works of literature part of your life

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