So You Want to Read the Classics

Let's make this less daunting and more doable.

For many of us, reading the classics is a dream we wish to achieve but one we struggle to start. Perhaps you have completed a few already. Or perhaps reading anything seems like a struggle at the moment. We all want to “find time” and so, we follow the well-meaning advice shared time and again: delete social media, put down the phone, turn off the screen, and so on. All of these things are sound pieces of advice, but a problem still lingers.

It’s one thing to find time. It’s another thing to keep it.

This is why found time is great for starting a book but rarely sufficient for completing one.

So how do we fix this?

Start short.

While the canon of classics boasts such titles as War and Peace and Middlemarch, not every classic is an intimidating tome. In fact, many classics—both fiction and non-fiction alike—are reasonable in their time commitments. In the time it may take you to plod through a larger classic, you could have read 3, 4—perhaps even more—shorter classics. Great authors and poets have given us many short classics, works that are often alluded to in other literature and popular culture, and works that are well-worth your limited time.

Why read the classics?

The classics are the classics for a reason. These books stand as achievements of their time. They epitomize wisdom, virtue, and the like. Some are simply masterpieces in their genre. The classics speak to a conversation that spans time. By reading them, you enter into that conversation. You discover connections between the ancient and the modern. You discern an integrated knowledge of wisdom and of truth. More than anything, reading the classics reveals an inheritance of a storied history. It’s all yours, if only you knew where to start.

Starting is the most daunting part, but it doesn’t have to be.

What if you could read a classic this weekend? What if this classic were short and your time was not simply found but sufficient?

Welcome to the Well-Read Weekend where we read through some of the classics one weekend at a time.

One weekend each month, we will read through a short classic and discuss it the following week.

That’s right. One weekend of your time. One classic off your shelf.

The inaugural Well-Read Weekend is set for October 12th-13th. We will be reading our first classic, The Old Man and the Sea.

This is your invitation.