The issue with the Great Books is that people mistakenly think that there is a skill called “Reading”, and if you’re “good at” this skill, you can tackle the “Big, Important Books” of human history or Western Civilization.

In fact, the mainstream view of education researchers is that reading ability is not a single skill, it is aggregated Domain Knowledge across many, many domains.

To read Dickens you need an understanding of Victorian society, of how the UK government functioned in the 19th century, as well as a rough understanding of the geography of London and England. Oh — and you should know what everything costs in shillings, pounds, and guineas because that’s hugely important

You can’t read Virgil without a background in the classical age or Plutarch without understanding Roman society, culture, politics, and geography.

These are not works that you can just dive into. They require extensive preparation, often in obscure matters, annd that preparation is anllost always extremely time-consuming .

I really think it’s far better to read contemporary books about these figures than to read the original texts.