10 Theses on Great Books

What makes for a Great Book? And how should you approach one?

1. Great Books do not and cannot tell us how to read them.

2. The greater the book, the more affordances (opportunities for interpretation) it offers.

3. The Hebrew Bible is the greatest book not because it inspires the greatest number of readers, but because it inspires the greatest variety of readings.

4. Great Books are like mirrors: they return to you the kind of reading you grant to them. Skeptical readings produce skeptical results. Charitable readings produce charitable results.

5. Being suspicious of people and books protects against downside. But charitable readings of people and books offers nearly uncapped upside.

6. It is almost always better to read charitably, first, and suspiciously, second.

7. The fact that Great Books are poorly read or used as totems to establish forms of social control and conformity is one of the least interesting things about them, but is also true. As any work scales, you get more good and more bad. The same is true of cities.

8. Great Books are like cities in that they attract clusters of talented readers and commentators, but they also attract bad actors and carpet baggers looking to self gain and appropriate. Don’t judge the books too much by the crime and pollution.

9. But if pollution and traffic aren’t your thing you can always go to the country and read books whose readers are spread out and whose commentaries are few and far between. It might be more pleasant, but it's also going to be more remote. There might be bears and power outages. The commute will be longer.

10. Reading remotely is like working remotely, a way of having it both ways. You can live outside a community of readers while still sort of participating in that community virtually. For example, you can read Bible without living in a religious community.