A reading companion for curious minds
Great books.
Better questions.
Read the classics through an honest conversation. Alex, Peter, Gwen, and Eric follow the text, challenge one another, and leave room for your own thinking.
01 / Your way in
Choose a reading path
Follow a sequence or pick a novel. Every conversation can stand on its own.
02 / The guided path
Through the Harvard Classics
Start at the beginning, or drop into a conversation that catches your attention.
After the Shelf: Who Gets to Introduce a World?
A good introduction should leave its reader better able to disagree with the introducer.
Read the dialogueA Shelf Is a Theory of Education
A guide opens paths through books; it also decides which paths appear natural.
Read dialogue Week 51Epic Memory and the Hero's Debt
Heroic fame is a public story. The texts ask who pays for the deed that makes it memorable.
Read dialogue Week 50Pascal's Fragments and the Limits of Proof
Pascal's precision does not make his deepest questions into theorems.
Read dialogue03 / The open shelf
Find a novel to discuss
Fifty public-domain books, each with a full conversation. Here are three places to begin.
The Hound of the Baskervilles
A rational explanation does not erase the danger of the method that found it.
Read dialogue Position 2 · F. Scott FitzgeraldThe Great Gatsby
The green light belongs to Gatsby's dream; the people near the road live with its consequences.
Read dialogue Position 42 · Virginia WoolfMrs. Dalloway
Two London lives touch in a report of death, not an encounter.
Read dialogueThe idea behind the project
A conversation, not a verdict
The four readers test claims against the text, ask what each interpretation costs, and carry open questions into ordinary life.
Learn about the project →