Francis Book Club: The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

In his America Magazine interview, Pope Francis is asked about the books he loves, and he lists Dostoevsky and Hölderlin, and then goes into depth:

I have read The Betrothed (I promessi sposi) by Alessandro Manzoni, three times, and I have it now on my table because I want to read it again. Manzoni gave me so much. When I was a child, my grandmother taught me by heart the beginning of The Betrothed: ‘That branch of Lake Como that turns off to the south between two unbroken chains of mountains....’

I haven't read it. I should have, perhaps. Has anyone? Want to do a group-read?

Didn't George Eliot say of an Englishing of Sulla Morale Cattolica that it had been “poured out of silver into pewter?”

#1: hmm, each winter I reread at least one of Dostoevsky, it has become a seasonal rite - perhaps this year I can break the habit and try something new. I'm in.

#1: that particular passage in the interview was a François le Champi moment - the young Jorge Mario a stand-in for the young Marcel. So sweet.