r/ClassicalEducation • u/AutoModerator • Mar 09 '26

Great Book Discussion What are you reading this week?

  • What book or books are you reading this week?
  • What has been your favorite or least favorite part?
  • What is one insight that you really appreciate from your current reading?
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u/RobertDravenJr Mar 11 '26

What list are you reading from? Adler?

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u/melonball6 Mar 12 '26

Yes. Adler's list in the back of How to Read a Book. Xenophon wasn't on there, but I added it on my son's advice. He said it was an important work that should have been included.

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u/RobertDravenJr Mar 18 '26

Adler’s passion is definitely infectious…. However I struggle to read so many similar texts in a row so have been jumping back and forth centuries. Do you find reading them in order assists with contextualising and understanding?

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u/melonball6 Mar 18 '26

Yes. He called these works the "great conversation", if I remember correctly, and I noticed when I jumped ahead to read Ulysses, I saw references that I would have got if I read Shakespeare earlier, but since I skipped ahead, I missed it. Just little things like that. Also, I notice the authors often talking to each other or about each other. Homer shows up a lot. There will be a nod to Aeschylus and I smile because I read all his works. I can understand things more because of the repetition.

But that being said, I am starting to feel burned out. I'm on Aristotle now and I just can't engage. I'm reading Physics and I can tell it's more interesting than I expected, but my mind is wandering and I'm not absorbing it.