<aside> Why I have a reading program
This is my second year of reading classic literature and philosophy. I started this habit in 2024 as an experiment and summarized what I learned here.Ā The tl;dr is that Iāve been more enlightened in one year of focusing on classic works than in a decade of randomly reading my way through non-fiction ābestsellersā. As a result, Iāve decided to continue doing that for the rest of my life.
If youāre feeling an urge to change your reading habits, want to read more or better but feel like you canāt quite find the time or motivation, please reach outā Iād love to help!
šÆ What Iāll read
Just like in 2024, Iāve put together a list picking from classics across centuries and cultures that I feel drawn to. There are some heavy-hitters like Anna Karenina and Don Quixote that Iām just curious to find out what the fuss is all about. When it comes to philosophy, Iāll try to be a bit more methodical and start with foundational texts. It might seem over-engineered, but I find it helpful to schedule books based on what I know Iāll realistically be able to read (I have two kids under six š). For me, that means an average pace of 15 pages a day (~450 pages/month).
š How Iāll read
I will continue to treat reading as a daily āstudyā practice, armed with a pen to scribble my reactions in the margins. Iāll read books through the lens of themes I care about (e.g., memory, perception of time, the mundane, wisdom, beautiful analogies/metaphors, etc.) and keep track of where they appear (I find it helpful to create an index on the title page).
š§What I read for
I believe the best way to make a book truly yours is to write about it. And by that, I donāt mean writing a book review. Who am I to give Homer feedback? And most importantly, who cares? Instead, I will articulate the wisdom I drew from the book. In 2024, I gave that approach a shot with The Odyssey, Moby Dick, and Infinite Jest, and I want to continue doing that. If you want to follow along, Iāll be sharing those takes in my newsletter!
To get started...
| January | Hamlet, Shakespeare Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle | | --- | --- | | February/ March | Don Quixote, Cervantes | | April | Don Quixote, Cervantes Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse | | May/ June | Du CĆ“tĆ© de Chez Swann, Proust | | July | Du CĆ“tĆ© de Chez Swann, Proust Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf | | August | Poetics, Aristotle The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus | | September | Anna Karenina, Tolstoy | | October | Anna Karenina, Tolstoy | | November | The Epic of Gilgamesh, ****Unknown Persuasion, Jane Austen | | December | Le CittĆ Invisibili, Italo Calvino A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens |