My Lent Book

I have written here before of the practice I have stolen from the Christians of having a Lent book. This is the practice of the Lent book as described in the influential Rule of St Benedict:

During the days of Lent, they should be free in the morning to read until the third hour, after which they will work at their assigned tasks until the end of the tenth hour. During this time of Lent each one is to receive a book from the library, and is to read the whole of it straight through. These books are to be distributed at the beginning of Lent. Above all, one or two seniors must surely be deputed to make the rounds of the monastery while the brothers are reading. Their duty is to see that no brother is so apathetic as to waste time or engage in idle talk to the neglect of his reading, and so not only harm himself but also distract others. If such a monk is found–God forbid–he should be reproved a first and a second time. If he does not amend, he must be subjected to the punishment of the rule as a warning to others. Further, brothers ought not to associate with one another at inappropriate times. Source

I don't see the practice of being given a book to read all the way through, as being that different from two of our traditions in witchcraft. The first that when the student is ready the teacher will appear, and the second, the tradition of being given such things as tarot decks, which tends to take our choice out of it completely. Benedict phrases this allocation of books and the obligation to read through them in a rather doctrinaire way, and this will reflect that many of the monks in monasteries in former times would certainly not be old, and this fact is reflected in a need for a more disciplinary approach.
Personally I do value the gift of a book or magical tool from someone else, as an opportunity to see how someone else sees things, and avoid my own bias. Currently I have a Barbara Walker tarot deck I have been given, which I am looking forward to getting to know, to be exposed to a world view different from my own. So far I have never been given a Lent book and instead like to think of the book choosing me.
This year my book is Joe Orton's sister Leonie's memoir of her famous brother, I Had It In Me. I have ordered it online and never so much as set eyes on it but am looking forward so much to reading it.
Orton is a hero of mine, and has been ever since I discovered his plays in my teens. You can hear a BBC production of his play Loot here. And below is an interview with him. Interestingly he doesn't come across nearly as self-assured in reality as Gary Oldman did playing him in Prick Up Your Ears.

There is just one thing I have noticed, which is an anachronism in the literature about Orton. I noticed it in an interview with Leonie where the journalist commented that they ought to have been together still (he was born in 1933), only his murder intervened. This is of course true, and his death was tragic. But the reality is that if he had lived beyond the 1960s and continued his existing lifestyle, the likelihood is he would have died of AIDS in the 1980s. Orton's generation of gays were doomed and one tragedy prevented another getting him.