The First Step

Introductions

Begin as you mean to go on. Wise words my father-in-law taught me decades ago. So with that thought in mind, I begin my journey. As the aim of this first year is to prepare myself for tackling the 'big stuff' in the Great Books of the Western World, I had no problem starting at the 'bottom.' I am not sure what to expect in this series, so the Introduction is vital.

Since the total page count is somewhere around 5300 for the entire series, it seemed ideal for a year's work, at a rate of about 100 pages a week. I also decided that six days a week was plenty, allowing for an extra day to catch up if necessary, or just take a break. This breaks down to about 17 or so pages per day or a commitment of about 30 minutes a day, plus a little more for comments. I am going to have make sure that

Each week, I will post my thoughts on the readings, taking notes as it were, and keeping accounts of my progress.

So here is the coming week's set up, all conveniently contained in Volume 1. The title of the section is followed by the page count.

1. Introduction: I. The Ways—and Whys—of Reading (19)
2. II. Human Imagination (17)
3. III. Human Society (21)
4. IV. Science and Mathematics (14)
5. V. Philosophy (17)
6. VI. The Endless Journey (5)
   Syntopical Guide - Introductory remarks (7)
   A Plan of Graded Reading - Introductory remarks (2)

Next week, more on the method, the beginning of Part 1, and comments on this week's reading