About to finish my 10th book of the great books project (tommycollison.com/greatbooks) and thinking about the overall project.

It's far easier than I expected. In a @JamesClear-ian sense, you just have to identify as a reader. You have to find a little amount of time each day. I read Meditations (~120 pages) in 3 evenings, ~90 mins each. It's a commitment (less so during a pandemic, not like I have other places to go...) but if you could only do 10 mins/day, it'd only take 3-4 weeks.

These books reward effort, and reward sticking with them.

Almost finished part one of Don Quixote, the most commonly-read part.

All of the action in the book stems from DQ (the character) having this worldview where everyone's either an upstanding citizen or a scoundrel. The misfortunes befalling him are caused by rogues & mountebanks. The reality is, of course, that he just recasts everything in his head: a prostitute in front of an inn is a princess welcoming him to a castle; a barber wearing a gleaming basin on his head is a knight with an enchanted helmet.

Sancho Panza, DQ's squire, is the foil.

Italo Calvino lays out 14 characteristics of classic books:

1/ "The classics are those books about which you usually hear people saying: ‘I’m rereading…’, never ‘I’m reading…'" 2/ "The classics are those books which constitute a treasured experience for those who have read and loved them; but they remain just as rich an experience for those who reserve the chance to read them for when they are in the best condition to enjoy them."

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 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.