Erik Rostad
Erik Rostad started Books of Titans in 2017 as an experiment to discover how to read more books and remember what he read.
He has loved books since childhood, remembering nights spent reading by the light of his fish tank. He lost the spark in high school when reading became an assignment, but got it back in college, where he spent about as much time reading for fun as he did on his schoolwork.
Toward the end of 2016, two things came together. He came across the list of books suggested by some of the world’s top performers in Tim Ferriss’s Tools of Titans, and he wanted to read every one of them. As a business owner, he also knew he needed to keep learning each year to offer real value to his clients. Reading seemed like the best way to do both.
Inspired by those recommendations, he set a goal of reading 52 books in 2017. He made a list of all the titles, threw them in random order, and dove in, tackling fiction and non-fiction alike. The goal stuck. Year after year, he kept exploring new worlds and ideas through reading.
In 2022, he started noticing a pattern. Books often referenced or built upon other books, and he grew curious about the foundational works, the ones that served as source material for so many others. He got hooked on the idea of reading the Great Books.
In 2023, he kicked the project into high gear with Stage II: a list of 200 Immortal Authors and a commitment to read their complete works, the Great Books, in chronological order. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. He estimates it will take 40 years to complete. Spencer Klavan called him the “Marathon Runner of the Canon” on this guest appearance on the Young Heretics podcast.
Today, Books of Titans publishes a weekly article and a per-book podcast episode, with a hub at booksoftitans.com and distribution through Substack, Apple, and Spotify.
Outside the project, Erik is the business manager at Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, Tennessee. He played the violin in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 during the wedding scene. He is married to Stephanie Staples, and they have two daughters.
He welcomes notes from other readers, whether about the books he has read, his reading process, how he chooses what to read next, or simply to talk about a book in common. He can be reached at erik@booksoftitans.com.
