At the Philadelphia-area manufacturer GGBearings, employees representing every corner of the plant--from the company president to machinists, engineers, and finance staff members--have assembled in the conference room. The balanced mix of men and women varies in age, race, and background. Some are in uniform, others in business-casual dress. A few wear steel toed shoes and have safety goggles strapped to their heads. At first glance, the gathering might appear to be a typical factory meeting. Leading the discussion, though, is not the company president but a literature professor from Bryn Mawr College. The topic? Othello. While a four-hundred-year-old play whose main characters speak in iambic pentameter might not seem related to a twenty-first-century manufacturing plant, it turns out that Shakespeare has a lot to offer contemporary employees. This article describes the reading program at GGBearings. Run by the nonprofit Books@Work, it is much more than a book club for nostalgic English majors. It is a bridge between a liberal education and the workplace which delivers book and story discussions facilitated by local college professors. It aims to demonstrate the impact of literature in workplaces and communities across the country and around the globe.