Show Notes:

• Galahad and the Grail by Malcolm Guite

• Free Reader’s Kit

• Rabbit Room Publishers

• Malcolm Guite

• Stephen Crotts

• Landmark Booksellers | Recording Location

• Lifting the Veil Conference | Oct 23 - 24 | Boston, MA

• Merlin’s Isle Trailer -

Let’s do an experiment. Say you’re trying to figure out what to read next. All you need is a topic and a timeframe. For example:

• Topic: King Arthur

• Timeframe: One Month

Let’s assume you can read a book a week. That gives you four books. What specifically do you want to know about King Arthur? Are you starting from scratch or are you well-versed in Arthurian lore? If you’re starting from scratch, look for a good version that gives an overview of the entire legend. Don’t be afraid to start with a young adult book for that overview.

Next, let’s go a little deeper. What is the gold standard version of the work? Perhaps you discover that Sir Thomas Malory has the best version. That can be book #2 and you get the added benefit of working your way through a classic.

After that, consider another type of book on the topic. If Malory was prose, is there a version of poetry?

Finally, consider authors you enjoy who have written about King Arthur. How about reading what Tolkien, Tennyson, or Twain wrote about the Arthurian legends?

The timeframe puts some fire in your spirit. It also provides an easily attainable goal while limiting exposure should you sour on the topic.

Another example:

• Topic: Trees

• Timeframe: Two Months

Let’s assume you like trees, see them quite often, but don’t know a thing about them. In this case, we need to start with some sort of “trees for dummies” book. Something covering the absolute basics.

Maybe you have a favorite tree. Mine is the Ginkgo tree. I’d next want to get a book about Ginkgo trees because I have a natural desire to learn more about those awesome looking leaves. I’m learning about trees through learning about a specific tree that I really happen to enjoy.

Next, dig in on a subject about trees that interests you. For me, I’ve heard that trees can somehow communicate with seeds that drop from their trees, even feeding them in mysterious ways. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds incredible, and it’s something I’d like to look into.

Finally, what better teacher than direct experience. What if I pick a tree in my yard, find out what it is, and get a book about its proper care. Here, I can immediately put into practice what I’m learning, solidifying that knowledge in my head.

A topic and a timeframe. Give it a go.

May 2026 Reading

Plato & Others

Here are the books I dabbled in during May. Let’s start at the bottom. I’m currently reading Plato, author #20 on my Immortal Authors reading list. In Plato: Complete Works, I read the Philebus and Symposium dialogues.

The Flowering Hawthorn is about the legend of Joseph of Arimethea arriving in England with a staff that flowered when he placed it on British soil. I covered that very interesting book in a podcast episode recorded in Oxford, England. Stephen Crotts, the illustrator of the Galahad and the Grail book, suggested this to me and it’s some prep work as I get into the Arthur legend (see below).

I picked up Sophie’s World at Landmark Booksellers as a way to review philosophy as I read it. I’ll keep this book on the reference rack and look at it as I cover each philosopher. I found the parts about the early Greek Philosophers to be very helpful, tying the idea of Atoms to Legos.

I finally finished The Greek Sophists and The First Philosophers after multiple months of reading through the Early Greek Philosophers. I did this in order to better understand Plato.

I bought Plato: Philebus at Blackwell’s at Oxford University. I always run through a dialogue for the first time in the huge Complete Works on the bottom and then will purchase a Penguin Classics or Oxford World’s Classics version for an additional read-through and helpful introductory notes.

And finally, Medea by Euripides was for the May meeting of my Short Great Books reading group. It became quite the lively discussion!

June 2026 Reading Plan

The Arthurian Month

I made a slight switch for June. I usually spend March - June reading The Great Books and then take July as a break month. My plan for this July was to then read books about Gilgamesh.

However, a few weeks ago, I was asked if I’d like to interview Malcolm Guite on the Books of Titans Podcast. I heartily agreed and am now in full-on prep mode for that interview. I moved my break month to this month, June, and will then return to The Great Books between July - November. Gilgamesh will have to wait until 2027.

I’m coming in completely fresh to the King Arthur Legend. I know next to nothing, so I’m starting with Malory’s Le Morte Darthur (The Death of Arthur). I’m currently reading that book and am skipping around to the parts that will provide the necessary background to read Malcolm Guite’s Galahad and the Grail.

Time permitting, I’ll read the Roger Lancelyn Green coverage of the Arthur legends (he was an Inkling, friends of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien), the two Tolkien books, and The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad.

I’m loving this so far and I can’t believe I’ve made it this far in life without having read the Arthurian legends. Let’s go!

Recently Acquired

May Book Purchases

Ok, I know that that photo makes it look like I purchased a lot of books during May, but in reality, that’s exactly the case. Here’s why I purchased each book. Let’s start at the top on this one.

• Clement of Alexandria - he wrote a lot about the early Greek philosophers and is one of the authors on my Immortal Authors list, and so this purchase was simply to build the arsenal. I purchased it at my favorite bookstore in all the world, Blackwell’s at Oxford.

• King Arthur and His Knights of the Roundtable by Roger Lancelyn Green - more of a summary of Malory’s work. For my Arthurian Month.

• For Art and For Life by Vincent Van Gogh - this book caught my fancy at an Oxford bookstore.

• Studies in Words by C.S. Lewis - I was flipping through this first edition and saw that there was a chapter about Nature that referenced one of the early Greek philosophers, Empedocles. Had to buy it.

• Le Morte Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory - for my Arthurian Month.

• The Enneads by Plotinus - I purchased this in preparation for my episode on The Birth of Love. Plotinus is also one of the 200 Immortal Authors.

• In Quietness & Trust by Matt Searles - my wife Stephanie had a concert with Matt Searles in the U.K. this past month and so I wanted to get his book.

• God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis - I also purchased purchased this in preparation for my episode on The Birth of Love in order to look into the role of myth. I wanted this book for my library, but just bought it for the moment for the chapter called Myth Became Fact.

• Tolkien Set - purchased these for my Arthurian Month (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Fall of Arthur in particular).

• Liturgies of the Wild: Myths that Make Us by Martin Shaw - saw this at Blackwell’s in Oxford and bought it. Martin has become friends with Malcolm Guite and I thought it’d be fun to read this one. I’m a bit obsessed with myths at the moment.

Bookish Adventures

May was one of the most insane bookish adventure months of my life. I spent a few weeks on and off in Oxford, England. I reconnected with an Oxford Don of mine and read in libraries I was not allowed to enter even as a student. Here are 9 photos from May:

1. An Oxford bookstore section I heartily approve of - Titans of Literature!

2. Inside the basement of Oxford’s Blackwell’s Bookshop, perhaps my favorite book room in all the world.

3. Inside Blackwells

4. Reading Plato in the Radcliffe Camera

5. Inside the Duke Humfrey’s Library

6. Inside the Duke Humfrey’s Library

7. Inside the Oxford Union Library

8. Reconnecting with my Oxford Don Dr. Susan Gillingham after 26 years.

9. My wife viewing a special collection of Lilias Trotter paintings and journals at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. That was cool.

In this episode, I cover The Birth of Love myth in Plato’s Symposium dialogue. I don’t usually think of Plato as a myth maker, but here he is offering a different spin on the birth of Eros to show how love’s parentage shows our need for Beauty. The ladder of love leads to Plato’s heavenly form of Beauty in a wonderful way. I talk about this myth, Plato’s use of myth, and myth in general in the art of persuasion.

Books / Articles Referenced:

• Plato: Selected Myths / Translation by Catalin Partenie / Oxford World’s Classics

• Hesiod: Theogony / Translation by M.L. West / Oxford World’s Classics

• Plotinus: The Enneads on Love / Translation by Stephen Mackenna / Penguin Classics

• From Plato to Christ / Louis Markos

• God in the Dock: Myth Became Fact / CS. Lewis

• Better Than Sex! / Deacon Harrison Garlick

A few weeks ago, I was reading in the Duke Humfrey’s Library at Oxford University. Above the desk were books that were hundreds of years old. Many of them contained a word I was unaccustomed to seeing on the spine of a book. That word was Opera.

I looked it up and learned that Opera was part of a Latin phrase (opera omnia) that referred to the complete works of a single author. Opera is the plural form of opus (a work or labor).

I loved that idea. There in front of me were the complete works, the opera, of different authors.

The book I had brought into the library to read was Plato Complete Works. Here I was in front of a bunch of books of Opera with my own copy of Plato’s Opera.

Something dawned on me. Here I was trying to figure out the list of Great Books that I wanted to read for this reading project. But as I continued on, I was enjoying the reading so much that I was naturally choosing to read the Opera of each author. Despite initially selecting a few plays per tragedy playwright, I had ended up reading the complete surviving works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. I had initially decided to read a few dialogues of Plato, but here I was, slowly making my way through his Complete Works.

So, I’ve made a few executive decisions for the Books of Titans reading project. I’m setting aside 40 years to read through the complete works of 200 authors. Those are my limits - 40 years, 200 authors. I’ve thought long and hard about these authors (my list has always centered around authors first and books second with this recent decision to not select particular works, but to read them all, within reason). I’m four years in of the total 40 years and I am 46 years old, so 36 more years makes this a lifelong reading project. I’ll read the works chronologically by author according to the year the author’s death. There are only two authors who died within the past 50 years.

I combat burnout by taking regular breaks during the year. Eight months are dedicated to The Great Books and four months to the Bible and newer books that catch my fancy. Forty years may sound like a terrible chore, but these last few years of reading have been the best of my entire life. I look forward to the next 36 years of reading with great anticipation.

I have a rather strange goal with all of this. C.S. Lewis is the 194th author on my list. By the time I reach him and read his complete works, I want to catch the majority of his references to earlier works, not because I can see them mentioned in the footnotes, but because I’ve come to know those works in my soul.

The 200 Immortal Authors

Here they are in chronological order. The year either signifies our best guess of a creation date or the author’s year of death. Many of the works are by unknown authors. In those cases, I’ve listed the name of the work instead of the author’s name (Gilgamesh, the Rig Veda, The Mabinogion). If the author or work is in bold, I have read their complete works as part of this Books of Titans reading project. As you can see, I have a long way to go over the next 36 years:

1. Enheduana - 2250 BC

2. The Epic of Gilgamesh - 2100 BC

3. Writings from Ancient Egypt - 2000 BC

4. Enuma Elish (Creation Epic) & Atrahasis (Flood Myth) - 1700 BC

5. The Rig Veda - 1500 BC

6. Homer - 700 BC

7. Hesiod - 700 BC

8. Sappho - 570 BC

9. Aesop - 564 BC

10. Lao Tzu - 531 BC

11. Sun Tzu - 496 BC

12. Confucius - 479 BC

13. Aeschylus - 456 BC

14. Herodotus - 425 BC

15. Sophocles - 406 BC

16. Euripides - 406 BC

17. Thucydides - 400 BC

18. Aristophanes - 386 BC

19. Xenophon - 354 BC

20. Plato - 348 BC

21. Aristotle - 322 BC

22. Chuang Tzu - 286 BC

23. Epicurus - 270 BC

24. Euclid - 270 BC

25. Archimedes - 212 BC

26. The Ramayana - 200 BC

27. Terence - 159 BC

28. Lucretius - 55 BC

29. Cicero - 43 BC

30. Virgil - 19 BC

31. Ovid - 17 AD

32. Livy - 17 AD

33. Seneca - 65 AD

34. The Bible - 0

35. Josephus - 100 AD

36. Quintilian - 100 AD

37. Tacitus - 117 AD

38. Plutarch - 120 AD

39. Epictetus - 135 AD

40. Ptolemy - 168 AD

41. Marcus Aurelius - 180 AD

42. The Mishnah - 200 AD

43. The Bhagavad-Gita (in the Mahabharata) - 200 AD

44. St. Irenaeus of Lyons - 202 AD

45. Origen - 253 AD

46. Plotinus - 270 AD

47. Eusebius - 339 AD

48. St. Athanasius of Alexandria - 373 AD

49. St. Basil the Great - 379 AD

50. St. Gregory of Nazianzus - 390 AD

51. Gregory of Nyssa - 395 AD

52. St. John Chrysostom - 407 AD

53. St. Jerome - 420 AD

54. St. Augustine - 430 AD

55. The Talmud - 500 AD

56. Boethius - 524 AD

57. The Koran - 632 AD

58. Beowulf - 1000

59. Murasaki Shikibu - 1014

60. Abolqasem Ferdowsi - 1020

61. Sei Shōnagon - 1025

62. The Song of Roland - 1100

63. Saint Anselm of Canterbury - 1109

64. Anna Komnene - 1153

65. Hildegard of Bingen - 1179

66. The Mabinogion - 1200

67. The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden - 1200

68. Moses Maimonides - 1204

69. Magna Carta - 1215

70. Saint Francis of Assisi - 1226

71. The Saga of the Volsungs - 1270

72. The Poetic Edda - 1270

73. Rumi - 1273

74. Thomas Aquinas - 1274

75. Njal’s Saga - 1280

76. The Sundiata - 1300

77. Dante Alighieri - 1321

78. The Tale of the Heike - 1330

79. Giovanni Boccaccio - 1375

80. Geoffrey Chaucer - 1400

81. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - 1400

82. Julian of Norwich - 1416

83. Margery Kempe - 1438

84. The Arabian Nights - 1450

85. Thomas à Kempis - 1471

86. Niccolò Machiavelli - 1527

87. Thomas More - 1535

88. Desiderius Erasmus - 1536

89. Nicolaus Copernicus - 1543

90. Martin Luther - 1546

91. The Book of Common Prayer - 1549

92. François Rabelais - 1553

93. John Calvin - 1564

94. Teresa of Avila - 1582

95. St. John of the Cross - 1591

96. Michel de Montaigne - 1592

97. Edmund Spenser - 1599

98. The Story of Hong Gildong - 1612

99. William Shakespeare - 1616

100. Miguel de Cervantes - 1616

101. Francis Bacon - 1626

102. John Donne - 1631

103. George Herbert - 1633

104. Galileo Galilei - 1642

105. Miyamoto Musashi - 1645

106. Westminster Confession of Faith - 1647

107. René Descartes - 1650

108. Blaise Pascal - 1662

109. Molière - 1673

110. John Milton - 1674

111. Baruch Spinoza - 1677

112. Thomas Hobbes - 1679

113. John Bunyan - 1688

114. Matsuo Bashō - 1694

115. Jean Racine - 1699

116. John Locke - 1704

117. Isaac Newton - 1727

118. Daniel Defoe - 1731

119. Alexander Pope - 1744

120. Jonathan Swift - 1745

121. Charles-Louis Montesquieu - 1755

122. David Hume - 1776

123. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - 1778

124. Voltaire - 1778

125. Founding Fathers - 1787

126. Adam Smith - 1790

127. Edward Gibbon - 1794

128. James Boswell - 1795

129. Olaudah Equiano - 1797

130. Immanuel Kant - 1804

131. Jane Austen - 1817

132. John Keats - 1821

133. William Blake - 1827

134. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - 1831

135. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 1832

136. Sir Walter Scott - 1832

137. Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1834

138. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison - 1836

139. Alexander Pushkin - 1837

140. Emily Brontë - 1848

141. Edgar Allan Poe - 1849

142. William Wordsworth - 1850

143. Mary Shelley - 1851

144. Søren Kierkegaard - 1855

145. Charlotte Brontë - 1855

146. Alexis de Tocqueville - 1859

147. Arthur Schopenhauer - 1860

148. Nathaniel Hawthorne - 1864

149. Alexandre Dumas - 1870

150. Charles Dickens - 1870

151. John Stuart Mill - 1873

152. George Eliot - 1880

153. Gustave Flaubert - 1880

154. Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 1881

155. Charles Darwin - 1882

156. Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1882

157. Karl Marx - 1883

158. Victor Hugo - 1885

159. Emily Dickinson - 1886

160. Herman Melville - 1891

161. Walt Whitman - 1892

162. Alfred Tennyson - 1892

163. Frederick Douglass - 1895

164. Harriet Beecher Stowe - 1896

165. Friedrich Nietzsche - 1900

166. Anton Chekhov - 1904

167. George MacDonald - 1905

168. Mark Twain - 1910

169. Leo Tolstoy - 1910

170. William James - 1910

171. Henry James - 1916

172. Marcel Proust - 1922

173. Joseph Conrad - 1924

174. Franz Kafka - 1924

175. Thomas Hardy - 1928

176. G.K. Chesterton - 1936

177. Edith Wharton - 1937

178. Sigmund Freud - 1939

179. William Butler Yeats - 1939

180. Mikhail Bulgakov - 1940

181. James Joyce - 1941

182. Virginia Woolf - 1941

183. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - 1945

184. Willa Cather - 1947

185. Sigrid Undset - 1949

186. George Orwell - 1950

187. Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1951

188. Albert Einstein - 1955

189. Thomas Mann - 1955

190. Dorothy Sayers - 1957

191. Zora Neale Hurston - 1960

192. William Faulkner - 1962

193. W.E.B. Du Bois - 1963

194. C.S. Lewis - 1963

195. Flannery O’Connor - 1964

196. T.S. Eliot - 1965

197. John Steinbeck - 1968

198. J.R.R. Tolkien - 1973

199. Daphne du Maurier - 1989

200. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - 2008

24 of the 200 authors are female, including the very first author on the list

What is the good life? This is the question addressed in Philebus, one of Plato’s later dialogues, written in the late 350s BC. Philebus and his counterpart Protarchus (a pupil of Gorgias) argue for pleasure as the highest pursuit and good. Plato (through Socrates) argues for wisdom and knowledge. Can either of these be the sole pursuit of the life well-lived? The goal of the dialogue is to rank pleasure and wisdom.

Plato quickly establishes the necessity for a third option in this quest - a mixture of pleasure and wisdom. It’s impossible to have pleasure without thought and memory and a life solely dedicated to wisdom would be a bit dry. However, pleasure by its nature is unlimited, and therefore cannot be ranked or measured.

Plato then distinguishes between true and false pleasures. True pleasures are those that don’t involve pain (like witnessing a sunset or hearing a beautiful piece of music). False pleasures are those based upon false beliefs (like I’m going to win the lottery), bad measurement/distance (another beer now will hurt in the morning), and relief from pain (showing the absurdity of hedonism that more pain leads to more pleasure).

Plato concludes with a ranking or Ladder of Goods:

1. Goodness in Moderation

2. In Beauty

3. In Intellect and Reason (Wisdom from the beginning)

4. Knowledge

5. Good/True Pleasures (Pleasure from the beginning, only false pleasures are not allowed)

The key point in this dialogue is that the good life does not consist of getting more of either of the initial pursuits, pleasure or wisdom. Instead, it consists of getting the correct balance between the two.

For years, I’ve been using the same bookmark in nearly all of the books I’ve read. I purchased it at Oxford University during the summer of 2000 while I was a student in a 6-week study abroad program. It shows three rows of old books from the Duke Humfrey’s Library, one of the twenty-eight of the Bodleian Libraries.

This past week, I opened up the Complete Works of Plato with the bookmark in that very library. It had been a long wait. Back in the year 2000, despite being a student, I did not have the necessary credentials to access any of the Bodleian Libraries. I had been longing to enter for 26 years.

For the first time in my life, I read, worked, journaled, and marveled within two of the Bodleian Libraries this past week - the Radcliffe Camera and the Duke Humfrey’s Library. I spent parts of five different days in these beautiful places and was in my glory. I’d like to share some of that experience with you:

The Oath

Upon obtaining the necessary credentials to access the Bodleian Libraries, I was asked to recite the following oath out loud:

I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

The Radcliffe Camera

My first library visit was to the Radcliffe Camera, a stunningly beautiful building at the heart of Oxford with three levels of reading and studying areas. I quickly climbed the stairs to the highest spot and set out to read Plato’s Philebus dialogue. Reading a great work of literature within these hallowed halls was an experience I will never forget.

The Duke Humfrey’s Library

I spent most of my time in this library, setting up at one of the desks along the row of books that are hundreds of years old. Warning signs adorn each shelf - “Please do not touch the books, they are alarmed.” Though tempting, I did not touch the books.

At the end of the room, there’s an area with large windows and two levels of bookshelves. At 4:45pm, they sound a loud bell in the room to warn readers that it’s time to begin packing up before the prompt 5pm closing. Drinks and food are strictly forbidden in this room.

If a Platonic Form of the library exists in heaven, this is our closest counterpart on earth.

Dr. Susan Gillingham

During this trip, I also reconnected with one of my Oxford dons, Dr. Susan Gillingham. She’s an expert on the Psalms and taught the Old Testament Literature course I took 26 years ago. We talked about Gilgamesh, her upcoming books, and our mutual acquaintance Malcolm Guite.

I found myself struck by the sheer number of beautiful, old buildings in Oxford. They tell a story about the thousands of people who dedicated their time, talent, and resources to building these colleges, libraries, and chapels. Our predecessors have communicated a very important message to us about what they believed to be of utmost importance. Housing books in libraries of such immense beauty shows a reverence for the written word beyond what most of us believe in this time. What are we building that will last and communicate to the next generations what is of utmost importance to us?

In today’s podcast episode, I cover the legend of The Flowering Hawthorn and its connection to the King Arthur legend. It’s a tale that begins with Joseph of Arimathea. He’s the rich man who buried Jesus in his tomb. Tradition holds that Joseph traveled to England many years after the resurrection carrying with him the blood of Jesus, a staff, and possibly, the holy grail. Joseph’s staff began to bud each Christmas Day in Glastonbury, England.

The story is told across the ages by bards, poets, and kings. Glastonbury attracted pilgrims from around the world to come and see this flowering hawthorn.

Is the story true? Or is it just speculation, legend, or tradition? We may never know, but there are enough connection points in this story that make it delightfully intriguing.

I recorded this video episode at the Christ Church meadow in Oxford, England.

Photos

Here are a set of photos sent to me by Stephen Crotts who visited these sites last year. Crotts is the illustrator of the new Arthuriad, an Epic Poem by Malcolm Guite, recounting the King Arthur legend.

This past week, I attended a lecture by author Judith McQuoid titled “Stress, Chaos, and Change: C.S. Lewis in the Narnia Years.”

She focused on the time period of 1945 - 1956, with a special emphasis on 1949 - 1953, the four-year stretch during which C.S. Lewis wrote the seven books of the beloved Chronicles of Narnia series.

I’ve been to Lewis’ house near Oxford, the Kilns, and have seen the desk from which he wrote. I picture him at that desk writing in perfect peace in a sort of idyllic ivory tower utopia.

That’s not exactly how it went down.

During WWI, Lewis made a promise to his friend, Edward “Paddy” Moore, that if either of them were to perish during the war, the other would take care of that man’s mother. Paddy did indeed die in 1918, and C.S. Lewis kept his promise to look after his mother, Janie King Moore, for the next 30 years of his life.

It was not easy taking care of Mrs. Moore. She lived at the Kilns and was demanding of Lewis’ time and energy. Lewis not only took care of her, but also walked the dogs, cooked the meals, and did the household chores. His writing only came in short “snatches.”

She eventually required nursing home care in April 1950 and died in January 1951. Lewis was responsible for the monthly nursing home payments, which placed a strain on his finances. It’s quite startling to consider that he was struggling financially while writing books that would go on to sell 120+ million copies.

This was not the only stress in his life at the time. His brother Warren (Warnie) Lewis was an alcoholic who regularly wound up in the hospital due to binge drinking episodes. At one point, Lewis had the chance for a much needed one-month break in Ireland, but a alcohol-fueled hospital visit by Warnie made that trip impossible.

Lewis was also teaching at Oxford, walking back and forth from Magdallen College to the Kilns, frequenting the Eagle and Child pub, and responding to countless letters.

I don’t know how he did it. He broke every rule of modern-day productivity gurus. He didn’t distance himself from those who put a drain on him. He didn’t hire out menial tasks so he could focus on what he did best. It seems like he didn’t focus on himself much at all. And yet he left a legacy of over 30 books that have touched millions of lives. And he wrote those while remaining true to his commitments to those closest to him.

Would we have Narnia were it not for this dedication? These responsibilities nearly broke Lewis (at one point he was hospitalized for exhaustion). But perhaps the endless winter came from personal experience of a 30-year commitment to look after the mother of a friend. Perhaps the escape into a magical land helped Lewis cope with his monotonous and difficult circumstances. Perhaps these nearly lifelong commitments were a part of what made him the type of person who could write the types of books he wrote.

Books Referenced:

• Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics

• The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics

• Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library

Of the early Greek philosophers, surprisingly few were born in Athens. I had always equated early philosophy with that city, but the Pre-Socratics lived along the edges of the Greek world. They lived in Ionia, Magna Graecia, Sicily, and Thrace. Many later traveled to Athens, and some settled there, but this map shows how wide their world actually was.

Pre-Socratics:

• Thales • Miletus (Ionia) • 625 - 545 BC

• Anaximander • Miletus (Ionia) • c. 610–546 BC

• Anaximenes • Miletus (Ionia) • c. 585–528 BC

• Pythagoras • Samos (born); Croton (school) • c. 570–495 BC

• Alcmaeon • Croton (Magna Graecia) • c. 570–490 BC

• Xenophanes • Colophon (Ionia); lived in Magna Graecia • c. 570–475 BC

• Heraclitus • Ephesus (Ionia) • c. 535–475 BC

• Parmenides • Elea (Magna Graecia) • c. 515–445 BC

• Melissus • Samos • c. 470–430 BC

• Zeno • Elea (Magna Graecia) • c. 490–430 BC

• Empedocles • Acragas (Sicily) • 495 - 435 BC

• Hippasus • Metapontum (Pythagorean) • c. 500–450 BC

• Philolaus • Croton/Tarentum (Pythagorean) • c. 470–385 BC

• Ion of Chios • Chios • c. 480–420 BC

• Hippo • Samos or Rhegium • 5th century BC

• Anaxagoras • Clazomenae (Ionia); lived in Athens • c. 500–428 BC

• Archelaus • Athens (Miletus origins) • 5th century BC

• Leucippus • Miletus or Abdera • c. 460–? BC

• Democritus • Abdera (Thrace) • c. 460–370 BC

• Diogenes of Apollonia • Apollonia • 5th century BC

Sophists:

• Gorgias • Leontini, Sicily (worked in Athens) • c. 483 – c. 375 BCE

• Protagoras • Abdera (worked in Athens) • c. 490 – c. 420 BCE

• Prodicus • Ceos (Iulis) • c. 465 – c. 395 BCE

• Hippias • Elis • c. 460 – c. 399 BCE

• Antiphon • Athens (Rhamnus) • c. 480 – 411 BCE

• Thrasymachus • Chalcedon (worked in Athens) • c. 459 – c. 400 BCE

• Critias • Athens • c. 460 – 403 BCE

• Lycophron • Unknown (associate of Gorgias) • 5th – early 4th century BCE

• Callicles • Acharnae, Athens • 5th century BCE (fl. c. 420 BCE)

• Euthydemus • Chios (later Thurii) • 5th century BCE (fl. c. 420 BCE)

• Dionysodorus • Chios (later Thurii) • 5th century BCE (fl. c. 420 BCE)

In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Parmenides of Elea. Robin Waterfield calls him “the single most important Pre-socratic thinker.” He introduced a puzzle about Being that required a response by philosophers who followed him. From that puzzle, we have the Atom / Void idea from Democritus and the Forms / Shadows idea from Plato. Plato even has a dialogue named after this influential philosopher who lived from 515 - 450BC.

Books Referenced:

• Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics

• The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics

• Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library

I’m not really a hit at get-togethers at the moment. When the discussion turns to current reads and I say early Greek philosophy, people assume I have a highly contagious disease and leave. I don’t mind. I’m having so much fun in my current rabbit trail of learning about the philosophers who influenced Plato and Aristotle. I’m amazed at the vastness of their questions, the theories generated in answer to those questions, and the ways in which these philosophers not only influenced each other, but the poets and politicians around them. As I close out my detour from Plato, I’m deeply thankful for the past two months of early Greek philosophers, Sophists, and thinkers.

April 2026 Reading

Early Greek Philosophy

I spent the majority of April reading the book on the left. It covers the Sophists Protagoras, Gorgias, Produces, Hippias, Antiphon, Thrasymachus, Critias, Alcidamas, and others. The Sophists live in infamy for teaching their students how to win any argument irrespective of the truth of that argument. They are lambasted in Greek Tragedies, Comedies, and by Plato. It was thought that the Sophists had set aside the early Greek philosopher’s search for truth in order to make money by teaching others to straddle truth and falsehood. Yes, they did that, but they also continued the philosophical tradition by asking and answering difficult questions.

The three green Loeb books in the middle were used for reference as Diogenes Laertius and Philostratus both wrote about the lives of the philosophers and Sophists I was reading about. These accounts were quite entertaining and would pull from a variety of often contradicting reports.

Last, I decided to try to set the book of II Timothy to memory during 2026 and used the book on the right for that purpose. It’s slow going and I’m seeing just how much I need to work on my memory skills.

May 2026 Reading Plan

Back to Plato

Last year, I read 9 dialogues in this Plato Complete Works before realizing that I needed to stop and read the philosophers Plato was referring to. My plan is to return to his complete works at the beginning of May. The question is whether I start at the beginning and read the 9 dialogues I’ve already read or start on the 10th dialogue. Your suggestions would be welcome.

We’ll be reading Euripides’ Medea for the May Short Great Books Reading Group selection. If you live near Franklin, TN, we’ll be meeting at Landmark Booksellers on Monday, May 4th at 7pm.

Recently Acquired

April Book Purchases

• I purchased Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists to learn more about each Sophist as I read about them in the Penguin Classics book. This was written between 231 and 237 AD.

• During last month’s trip to Rome, I was learning about Seneca and had it in my mind to purchase this copy of Six Tragedies. This is in preparation for when I reach the Romans in my Immortal Books list.

• Stoner by John Williams - I count it as a sign from God if I hear two or three people mention a book within a short timespan. I then purchase the book without hesitation. That’s what happened here.

• Gilgamesh by Simon Armitage - this is a new translation of Gilgamesh that I had pre-ordered many months ago. I’m taking my summer break month (July) of reading this year to focus exclusively on The Epic of Gilgamesh. This will be one of the versions I read.

• Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder - I remember a friend of mine reading this during college and loving it. I thought it’d be fun to reference as I’m working my way through philosophy. The more exposure to the overarching ideas, the better.

Bookish Adventures

I’m the business manager at Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, TN and here are 9 photos I took inside the store during April (as well as one from the Franklin Theatre for an event with Sally Lloyd-Jones). We’re on a continual quest to organize the store for the optimal, heavenly book experience:

In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Gorgias, the father of the Sophistic Movement. We can pinpoint a shift from philosophy to sophism in the life of Gorgias. Each of the early Greek philosophers had a First Principle, an arche they considered to be the foundation of everything else. That stops with the Sophists. Instead of a love of wisdom using speech to seek after truth, the Sophists value persuasion and the ability to get results irrespective of truth.

The work of most early Greek philosophers only survives in minor fragments. With Gorgias, we have some surviving full works that are simply delightful. I talk about the life of Gorgias, these surviving works, and the one thing the stuck out to me the most about this early Sophist.

Books Referenced:

• The Greek Sophists - Translation by John Dillon and Tania Gergel - Penguin Classics

• The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics

• Lives of the Sophists - Philostratus - Loeb Classical Library 134

Show Notes:

• Encomium of Helen

One thing I’ve been loving about the early Greek philosophers is that they can each be identified with a first principle. This overarching principle is usually an element or idea that underlies their entire philosophy. Here are some first principle examples:

• Heraclitus - fire

• Thales - water

• Parmenides - being

• Democritus - atoms & void

The Greek word for this first principle is arche and it also has the meaning of beginning or origin. It can relate to not only the ruling principle, but also the ruling power. Our English words for Monarchy and Oligarchy encompass ruling power while archaic highlights ancient origins.

I’m constantly experimenting with ways to better remember what I read. One practice that has helped tremendously in this endeavor is to try to remember one thing from each book that I read. Being able to tie each early Greek philosopher to a first principle as a one thing has been very helpful in recalling other parts of their philosophy. If Democritus believed atoms were the foundation of all things material, that has ramifications that help explain other parts of his philosophy.

I’ve also begun considering first principles in other books that I read. It’s a fun thought exercise. I start each year reading straight through the Bible. If I were narrow down the entire Bible into a first principle, it’d be love. The entire book hinges on love. It’s quite a contrast to the power-hungry Greek pantheon. Love is not their first principle.

There was one early Greek philosopher who also spoke of love. His name was Empedocles. His first principle was a set of four roots (earth, water, air, fire) driven by love or strife. He was using the term philia for love whereas agape is primarily used in the New Testament. From my reading, he appears to be the only early Greek philosopher who hinted at love being a driving part of his first principle.

What is the first principle of the book you are currently reading?

What is your first principle?

In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Democritus of Abdera. He is one of my favorite early Greek philosophers, mainly because of his wisdom/ethical sayings. He barely made the Presocratic cut, being just 1 - 10 years before Socrates. However, his ideas, way ahead of their time, were picked up by Aristotle and Epicurus and have influenced humankind to our time. A true Renaissance Man before it was popular 😉, Democritus is worthy of study. His First Principle(s) of Atoms and the Void are revolutionary and are great responses to the ideas of earlier philosophers.

Books Referenced:

• Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics

• The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics

• Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library

My family and I were in Rome, Italy a few weeks ago and visited the Vatican Museum. We were herded past priceless works of art on a tight timeframe with the end goal of seeing the Sistine Chapel. Right before the beloved chapel, I entered the room that contained Raphael’s School of Athens.

I’ve long admired this painting. I bought a print of it some 25 years ago and usually have it visible in my office. I’ve known that these were the men who set the philosophical tradition in order, but I never knew who each person was in the painting.

Raphael’s painting takes up an entire wall at in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. It was completed between 1509 - 1511 AD and it is wondrous. I stayed in the room as long as I could.

I’m in the midst of reading through the early Greek philosophers. Some of them are depicted in this painting. As I’ve been reading about them, I’ve been making a note of who appears in the painting. Here are a few of those I’ve been reading about who are depicted in the painting:

Plato & Aristotle

Plato and Aristotle are the focal point of the entire painting. Plato is in red on the left and Aristotle in blue on the right. There are some really neat things to observe in each philosopher:

• Raphael painted Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) as Plato.

• Plato is pointing up to the heavens, to the unchanging Forms

• Aristotle is gesturing to the earth, focusing on observable reality

• Plato is holding his work Timaeus

• Aristotle is holding his work Ethics

Heraclitus

Heraclitus (535–475 BC) is seated front, slightly left of center. He’s alone. He was known as Heraclitus the obscure and could be quite dismissive of his colleagues. He wasn’t a pleasant guy to be around. Yet his ideas of logos, fire, and flux set a philosophical path we still discuss today. Raphael painted the ninja turtle artist Michelangelo as Heraclitus.

Socrates

I’m actually surprised that Socrates is not closer to Plato and in a more prominent place. Although, perhaps it is appropriate that he is in discussion rather than holding a book like many of the others. He did not leave written work behind. Plato did that for him.

Parmenides

Parmenides led me to the early Greek philosophers, albeit in a roundabout way. I read Plato’s dialogue called Parmenides and was completely and utterly confused. I realized I needed to stop reading Plato and go back to the philosophers whose ideas Plato was referring to. That led me on the trail of learning about these early Greek philosophers.

Parmenides lived from 515–445 BC. Most of the early Greek philosophers have a first principle or fundamental element. For Parmenides, his first principle was Being. He believed that things that didn’t exist could not even be discussed. Perhaps that’s why he’s standing on a solid stone to signify the firm foundation of Being. The book he is holding is likely On Nature, his main work.

Towards the top of the painting, two Greek gods flank the artwork. Apollo is on the left and Athena on the right. The architecture is similar to what you see inside St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

My plan is to continue to identify the philosophers in the painting as I learn about them.

In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. His first principle, the thing that organized everything else, was the nous or the mind. He thought that in the beginning, there was an original mixture of unchanging seeds that a mind set in motion and began to organize. Anaxagoras was born in Asia Minor and moved to Athens, becoming one of the first philosophers to establish Athens as a hub of philosophy. In fact, Anaxagoras is a philosophical grandfather to Socrates through his student Archelaus. Socrates learned from Archelaus who learned from Anaxagoras.

Books Referenced:

• Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics

• The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics

• Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library

I lead a monthly, in-person reading group called Short Great Books. Our book for April was One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and we discussed it last night. This book is a work of fiction that follows a typical day for a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag system. It’s a harrowing account not because of a shock and awe of the tortures but more so due to the mundanity of the horror.

For example, when discussing the time of the prison sentences, one prisoner says this:

“He himself was serving twenty-five years. In happier days everybody got a flat ten. But in ‘49 a new phase set in: everybody got twenty-five regardless. Ten you could just about do without turning up your toes. But twenty-five?”

A few pages later, we meet the camp hygienist, who has no special training. He’s merely a prisoner appointed to the camp hospital, ignorant of the basics.

Perhaps the most diabolical aspect of the Gulag system was that many of the prisoners had been POWs during World War II, some having suffered greatly in Nazi concentration camps. They were promptly moved from that hell to a new Gulag hell because the Soviet’s considered them to be spies for having met the enemy.

Connections to The Gulag Archipelago

There were a number of connection points to The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn’s influential work of non-fiction:

• Both works talk about the requirement of forgetting your former life upon entering the Gulag. In “Ivan Denisovich,” the main character asks his wife not to write to him anymore. We hear little about his family. He says he now has more in common with his fellow prisoners.

• Both works highlight that behavior and attitude within the Gulag are determined well before arriving at the Gulag. One’s prior daily decisions set a path for how one survives in a hell camp.

• The soul - “Here you have time to think about your soul.” That’s a statement from Alyoshka, the Baptist who exhorts Ivan to “be glad you’re in prison.” (His name is quite similar to Alyosha Karamazov from Dostoevsky’s The Brother’s Karamazov). In The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn thanks the Gulag as being a place where he developed his soul.

The Gulag Archipelago was such an influential book for me. I read it in 2018 and think about it often. I actually had trouble getting into One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Gulag has more grit. But the more I consider One Day, the more I realize that there is a special horror in seeing the terrible mundanity of one day in the life of a prisoner.

The Soviet Philosophy

John Bayley wrote the introduction for the Everyman’s Library edition of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In it, he wrote the following:

“Ordinary reportage about the real nature of the camp system would have had some effect on the reading public, of course; but the shock achieved by Solzhenitsyn was a literary shock as well as a social one. Literature had, as it were, abruptly come to terms with the unique horrors of this form of slave economy, and showed that it could master what it really signified, presenting graphically the kind of world on which the Soviet political philosophy ultimately rested.”

The Gulag was the end game of the Soviet political philosophy. It was the manifestation of the supposed utopia.

In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Empedocles of Acragas. He lived from 495 - 435 BC before dramatically diving into the volcano at Mt. Etna to prove he was immortal. As we find out in this episode, the accounts of the life and death of Empedocles are varied and contradictory and contain an element of myth, which is appropriate given his use of epic poetry to present his ideas. With Empedocles, we have the largest stash of fragments of any of the early Greek Philosophers.

Books Referenced:

• Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics

• The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics

• Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library