About
What’s the newsletter about?
I’m doing a slow reading of The Great Books (Encyclopædia Britannica - Great Books of the Western World), about 2 pages per day / 14 pages per week, to start with. I’ll post a brief summary and some thoughts connected to the issues in the contemporary world as I’m reflecting on what I’v read.
Process
Read a couple of pages (or more) per day, take some quick notes (Rob’s Notes - external link).
Every Saturday, review notes & quotes, pick up a quote and tie it to something relevant to people of today or a thought that comes to mind at the time.
Write a ‘brief summary’ and ‘my thoughts’. Keep it to a couple of pages (500 - 100 words).
Copy-paste the summary and thoughts into an AI chatbot (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) and ask it to expand on my thoughts and suggest questions for modern readers.
Why?
I’ve been meaning to read the books ever since I read Adler’s “How to Read A Book”. Thought I’ll read them later in my life, towards retirement. I got the book set after a friend of mine got it and that inspired me to start early. Two pages per day is not impacting anything else that I’m doing, though it is influencing what I’m thinking about during the week. I’m hoping that what I write helps or influences thoughts of others in some way.
Having a pre-determined checklist of things to read helps you to avoid being influenced by others to read the trending books of the day. It is not bad to read trending books of the day, and I am reading some of them. I sometimes start a lot of books after seeing recommendations and not continue. Having a routine (like reading The Bible or some scripture daily) helps one to look forward to the time of the day and connect days together.
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When you subscribe, you will get the posts via email. You can also check the posts through Substack site or app. The archives over 6 months are paywalled since I’m hosting this on Substack platform.
