With John Milton’s 400th birthday arriving next month, a number of universities are organizing marathon readings of his greatest work (all twelve books of it). Jennifer Howard sits in on one of them (all twelve hours of it), and reports back. Conclusions: (1) “Milton is not as boring as you think.” (2) “Milton is not that hard to read out loud.” (3) “Milton is really hard to read out loud.” But (4) “It’s worth it.”