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Tommy Collison

9 Nov, 8 tweets, 2 min read

Been working on this for a while, and the winter of a global pandemic is as good a time as any

I designed myself a solo “great books of history” project using a syllabus from St. John’s College

Aim: to read the canon and become a “liberal arts” student in the classic sense

I’m giving myself five years to read somewhere in the region of 100 great books. Finishing in four years would be a bonus.

Very broadly:
Year 1: Antiquity
Year 2: Middle Ages
Year 3: The Enlightenment
Year 4: Modernity

I have a list, but recs welcome! See you all in 2026.

Here’s year one:

Homer: Iliad, Odyssey.

Asechylus: Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound.

Sophocles: Antigone.

Plato: Republic, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus.

Aristotle: Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean, Ethics, On Generation and Corruption, Politics.

Euclid: Elements

Related, #bookTwitter — anyone know of a good (annotated/footnoted) version of The Odyssey?

Trying to get a head start over the Thanksgiving break.

https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish/status/1326521384235900928

Still figuring out how to track my progress, but also trying to figure how to make this a group thing. WhatsApp group?

My kingdom for a decent book social network.

https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish/status/1326521384235900928

Here are some more details on the project, and the full list I have planned: tommycollison.com/greatbooks

Anyone have the booklist for onlinegreatbooks.com?

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More from @tommycollison

Tommy Collison

@tommycollison

22 Nov

@EmilyRCWilson

Books project update: @EmilyRCWilson’s translation of the Odyssey is as good as everyone says it is.

Also, working on a project for a group reading environment. More shortly!

tommycollison.com/greatbooks

@EmilyRCWilson

Finished The Odyssey! Definitely check out @EmilyRCWilson’s translation. I read that version while listening along to an audiobook version of Rouse’s translation.

Working with two different translations super interesting, but mostly I was struck by how human Odysseus seems.

We have so much evidence of his ingenuity and shrewdness, while he’s also… a rash dude whose mouth gets him into trouble.

Also fun to have a view of gods who aren’t distant or on high, but who pick favorites and seem very interested in humans affairs.

1 of 125 classics: 📚✅

Read 4 tweets

Tommy Collison

@tommycollison

7 Sep

@NotoriousTIB

1/ For the last year or so, I've been wondering about religions: are the positive attributes of religion unique? Why be (or become) religious?

@NotoriousTIB has written a book on this: "Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World."

Thread: the Great Unbundling of Religion

2/ The sorts of questions I was wondering about:

- Why do people say a Soul Cycle class is a spiritual experience?
- What is Jordan Peterson saying that is so un-ignorably popular?
- What is the effect (on a person, on a community, on a society) of institutional religion?

@NotoriousTIB

3/ Enter, @NotoriousTIB, with a theory on what religions are. I'm simplifying here (the whole book is worth reading), but Burton maintains that religions provide people with four things:

- meaning
- purpose
- community
- ritual

Let's quickly break those down.

Read 15 tweets

Tommy Collison

@tommycollison

11 Feb

Seems obvious, but I don't think I've seen this written elsewhere: the growth in popularity of WhatsApp group chats is probably a function many things, but most interestingly:

(1) Example: I act differently around friends than with that one college professor I keep in touch with, which is different again than my roommates.

WhatsApp recognizes this reality. You get to segment yourself, your interests, and --most importantly-- your injokes.

(2) I don't think we've quite figured out the societal impact of having everything we say being publicly searchable and documented forever. For better or worse, jackass mistakes people make as teenagers can impact careers and relationships decades later.

Read 6 tweets

Tommy Collison

@tommycollison

6 Jan 19

Something strange happened on the plane. As we boarded, an older woman asked me to put her suitcase up in the overhead bin. I did, no problem.

For most of my life, I couldn’t do this. (I have moderate cerebral palsy, and lifting heavy things was never something easy.)

In fact, as recently as when I was in college, I would have to people for help putting my own suitcase up in the bin.

But since graduating in May ‘17, I’ve put hundreds of hours into stretching, cycling, and generally becoming stronger.

No new treatment, no medical advance — just me committing to zero excuses and finding a way to exercise 3x a week, same as is prescribed for most everyone.

Read 5 tweets

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