Begin Great Books of the Western World one work at a time
Begin a lasting reading project with one work, a workable rhythm and a thoughtful decision about buying the collection.
A shelf of Great Books can represent a life you hope to have: time to read carefully, follow an argument and return to questions that work rarely leaves room for. The first useful step is smaller than buying the shelf.
Choose one work. Read enough of it to have an opinion. Return to a passage that troubles you. That is already the experience you were hoping the collection would make possible.
What are you actually starting?
Great Books of the Western World is a particular edited collection associated with Encyclopaedia Britannica, rather than a general label for every worthwhile book. In his account of the project, editor Mortimer J. Adler emphasised rereading and discussing works over a lifetime. The collection also uses the Syntopicon, an index connecting passages through ideas, as another way into the books. Adler’s explanation.
You can approach that ambition through a complete set, individual works or books borrowed from a library. The important distinction is between collecting the objects and spending time with the writing. Both can be enjoyable; only one requires you to understand the next paragraph.
The collection reflects a chosen Western tradition. Treat its selection as a route into that tradition, with room to question its choices and read beyond it.
Try Plato before committing to a decade
One possible beginning is Plato’s Apology, which presents Socrates defending himself at his trial. Use it as a text to question, rather than a test of whether you already know philosophy. Project Gutenberg supplies a Benjamin Jowett translation; that is a specific edition, not a claim that its wording matches every collected set.
Try this question while reading: when does refusing to compromise look like integrity, and when might it look like stubbornness? Find a passage that supports your first response, then another that makes it less comfortable. You do not need to settle the issue to have had a worthwhile encounter with the book.
If the language repeatedly gets between you and the ideas, compare another translation or an annotated edition. Difficulty with one rendering is not a verdict on your ability to read the work.
Give the first month a modest shape
As an experiment, set aside twenty minutes three times a week. Those are suggested appointments, not a promised completion schedule.
In the first week, begin the work and note what you think its central question is. During the next two weeks, keep reading and mark a small number of passages. In the fourth, revisit one of them and write a paragraph about how your view changed. If you have not finished, continue; the calendar is helping you make time, not grading your speed.
A useful reading log needs only the work and edition, where you stopped, and one question worth returning to. A page-count dashboard can wait.
If you want the whole set, inspect what you are buying
Before paying for a used collection, ask for its edition and a complete volume list. Check for missing books, damaged bindings, uncomfortable print and whether the physical size suits the place you actually read. Photographs of attractive spines do not answer those questions.
Compare the total delivered cost with acquiring a few works individually. A heavy set can become an expensive decoration if the reading copies are awkward to use. Conversely, if the books themselves give you pleasure and you have the space, owning the set can be part of the project.
There is no need to choose a seller or declare a lifetime commitment before the first month. Read one work, discover what you want next, and let the collection grow around a practice that already exists.
Make the next book a response
At the end of the trial, choose between going deeper with the same writer and changing form entirely: a play after an argument, perhaps, or a historical narrative after a philosophical question. If you own the set, its contents and index can help you follow a subject across authors.
Keep a little space for returning. The achievement is not merely being able to say you have read something important. It is discovering that an old work can still interrupt a settled opinion—and wanting to pick it up again.
Sources
Mortimer J. Adler on the collection and its use