Athenaeum Book Club
@athenaeumbc • 242,911 subscribers
An online book club studying and preserving the great texts of Western Civilization. Join 40,000+ members 👇
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Elite university students are now incapable of reading a book. Instead of fixing this, universities are simply reducing reading requirements to shorter and shorter excerpts. This is no mere literacy crisis. It is a civilizational one. To fight back, we started an online book club to study the great texts of Western Civilization — if the schools and universities won't teach the great books, we must form reading groups to study them ourselves. Every month, we read a new great work. We've covered texts like Augustine's Confessions, Dante's Inferno, The Count of Monte Cristo, Don Quixote. We're now reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. We must study the ideas upon which the West was built if we are to preserve it. It takes effort to read these texts, and even more to read them well. Thats what we're doing, slowly, in dialogue with each other. If you'd like to be part of this, please join our reading group and consider a paid subscription. It makes a HUGE difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this project. We are entirely funded by our members. You'll get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Access to our incredible community chat - Essays to guide you through the Great Books - All past recordings, essays, and podcasts - Ability to vote on what we read next Welcome!
Athenaeum Book Club881,674 views • 12 days ago
WARNING: Once your culture is gone, it's gone forever. You must live it every day if you want to keep it. We are forming an independent book club for the sole purpose of studying the great texts of Western Civilization — to study the ideas upon which the West was built. If the schools and universities won't teach the Great Books of the West, we must do it ourselves. In dialogue with each other. If you'd like to be part this, join our reading group. We tackle a new classic text every 4-6 weeks and meet biweekly via Zoom/S*bstack to discuss. We're about to start Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Western Civilization has given us the greatest texts ever written, but it takes effort to read them, and even more to read them well. To support our efforts, please consider a paid subscription. It makes a HUGE difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this project. You'll get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Access to our incredible community chat - Essays to guide you through the Great Books - All past recordings, essays, and podcasts - Ability to vote on what we read next... Welcome!
Athenaeum Book Club1,173,415 views • 26 days ago
One of the easiest ways to stand out in 2026 is to read. The gap between readers and non-readers will be the most important divide of the next decade. While everyone worries about AI, 54% of adults can't read beyond a 6th-grade level. That's why we started an online book club to study the greatest texts of Western Civilization. Every month, we study a new great work — so far we've covered Augustine's Confessions, Dante's Inferno, The Count of Monte Cristo, Don Quixote, etc. Currently, we're reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Western Civilization has given us the greatest books ever written, but it takes effort to read them, and even more to read them well. That’s what we’re doing here, slowly, together. If you want to support our efforts, please consider a paid subscription. It makes a huge difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this project. Paid members get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Access to our incredible community chat - Essays to guide you through the Great Books - All past recordings, essays, and podcasts - Ability to vote on what we read next... Welcome!
Athenaeum Book Club515,476 views • 20 days ago
Why did human beings ever build things like this? Because their minds were ordered toward objective Beauty and Truth. We must order our minds as they did — that's why we started this book club. Our group is studying the great texts and ideas upon which Western Civilization was built, in dialogue with each other. We're reading what our ancestors read. We recognize that a true education forms a mind to contemplate ultimate Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. We tackle a new classic text from the Western canon every 4-6 weeks, and meet biweekly to discuss. We're about to start Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. If you'd like to be a part of this, please join our reading group and consider a paid subscription. It makes a HUGE difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this project. You'll get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Access to our incredible community chat - Essays to guide you through the Great Books - All past recordings, essays, and podcasts - Ability to vote on what we read next... Welcome!
Athenaeum Book Club570,614 views • 22 days ago
What inspired human beings to build things like this? Such a thing is only possible if you believe in OBJECTIVE beauty and truth. Our book club exists to pursue beauty, truth, and goodness. To study the books and ideas upon which Western Civilization was built. We tackle a new classic text from the Western canon every 4-6 weeks, and meet biweekly to discuss. We're currently reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, in dialogue with each other. If you'd like to be a part of this, please join our reading group and consider a paid subscription. It makes a HUGE difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this project. You'll get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Access to our incredible community chat - Essays to guide you through the Great Books - All past recordings, essays, and podcasts - Ability to vote on what we read next... Welcome!
Athenaeum Book Club81,113 views • 4 days ago
Crime and Punishment isn't about a single murder, but the idea that can justify murdering millions. Raskolnikov famously kills a predatory pawnbroker, reasoning that she won't be missed, and he can use her money for the greater good. Strangely, however, he never uses her money. He instead buries it under a rock and forgets it. What was his true motivation then? Later on, you discover he's motivated by a much darker ideology, which he shares in an article titled "On Crime." He argues there are only 2 types of people: 1. Ordinary people: who live by the status quo and obey the law 2. Extraordinary people: who have the strength to break the law He concludes that extraordinary people SHOULD break the law to serve the greater good of humanity… The problem of this ideology is it doesn't justify just one murder, but two, or three, or three thousand, etc. Raskolnikov proves this himself: after murdering the pawnbroker, he then murders her innocent sister, solely for self-preservation. Ultimately, Dostoevsky warns that when man rejects objective morality, not only is murder justified, but moral relativism — taken at scale — can justify mass murder itself. What is brilliant about Crime and Punishment is that the greatest damage to Raskolnikov is not the legal or social consequences that eventually catch up to him. Instead, Raskolnikov's actions destroy him bit-by-bit from the inside. Where Raskolnikov thought that his own superiority would allow him to commit crimes with impunity, he finds that it is the personal cost that actually damages him. Thus Dostoevsky makes a poignant argument that morality is objective. And if we live according to our own will, and to our own ambition, disaster is lurking... --- Athenaeum Podcast Ep. 15: Dostoevsky's Warning to the Modern World w/ Liza Libes
Athenaeum Book Club53,264 views • 4 days ago
One of the Odyssey's most important lessons comes when Odysseus and his men encounter the Cyclops Polyphemus. At first the situation does not seem dangerous. They land on an island, discover a large cave filled with food and livestock, and begin helping themselves. Odysseus says they should stay and wait for the owner of the cave, because he expects the man to follow the Greek custom of hospitality. In the ancient world a traveler could rely on that custom almost anywhere. Instead, something very different happens. When Polyphemus returns, he blocks the entrance to the cave with a massive stone and begins asking questions. Odysseus explains that they are travellers and reminds him of the sacred duty to treat guests well. Polyphemus laughs at the idea, and tells Odysseus that Cyclopes care not for the gods or their laws. Then he reaches down, grabs two of Odysseus's men, smashes them against the ground, and eats them. The true horror of the scene is the calm way in which Homer describes it. Polyphemus eats the men as casually as someone might eat bread and cheese. Odysseus has wandered into a world where the rules of civilization no longer apply. Now Odysseus faces a serious problem. He cannot simply kill the Cyclops, because the stone blocking the entrance is so large that only Polyphemus himself can move it. If the giant dies, everyone in the cave will remain trapped there forever. The next evening Polyphemus returns again and devours two more men. This time, Odysseus offers him wine that he brought from the ship. The Cyclops has never tasted wine before and drinks it greedily. When Polyphemus asks for Odysseus' name, Odysseus gives one of the cleverest answers in all of literature: he tells the giant that his name is "Nobody." The wine soon takes effect. Polyphemus collapses into a drunken sleep, and Odysseus and his men put their plan into motion. They sharpen a massive wooden stake, heat it in the fire until it glows, and then drive it straight into the Cyclops' single eye. Homer describes the sound of the burning wood hissing inside the eye like iron plunged into cold water. Polyphemus screams so loudly that the other Cyclopes come running to the cave and ask what is wrong. The giant shouts that "Nobody" is attacking him. Hearing this, the other Cyclopes assume he must be sick or mad, and they leave him alone. In the morning, Polyphemus rolls the stone away from the entrance so his sheep can leave the cave. He runs his hands over their backs to make sure the men are not escaping. What he does not realize is that Odysseus has tied each man underneath the sheep, hanging beneath their woolly bellies. The animals walk out of the cave and carry the Greeks with them. It is a brilliant escape, but Odysseus makes one mistake. Once the ship has sailed safely away, he cannot resist shouting back at the Cyclops. He reveals his real name and boasts about what he has done. Polyphemus then prays to his father, the sea god Poseidon, asking him to punish Odysseus for the injury. That single moment of pride ends up shaping the rest of the Odyssey. Poseidon hears the prayer, and from that point on the sea itself seems determined to keep Odysseus from ever reaching home. His intelligence saves him and his men from certain death, but his pride creates new dangers that follow him for years. Even the cleverest man can ruin his own victory if he cannot resist the temptation to pride... --- Join our online book club and study the classics with us! We are working through the great texts of the Western canon, including the Homeric epics: To preserve a culture, you must continually study the books and ideas that created it. If the schools and universities won't teach the great books of the West, we will do it ourselves... We are an independent group funded ENTIRELY by the members of this community. If you'd like to support us, please consider a paid membership. You'll get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Essays to guide you through the books we're reading - The full archive of discussions and essays - Access to the community chat room See you inside!
Athenaeum Book Club434,820 views • 1 month ago
Never forget: once your culture is gone, it's gone forever. Government education has failed to teach the great books of the West for decades. Deliberately failed. That's why we started an independent group to study the Western canon, ourselves. Together, we are reading the books that form the mind and shape the spirit. The books our ancestors read. Western Civilization has given us the greatest works ever known — but it takes effort and an open mind to read them. Homer, Augustine, Dante, and Shakespeare are not just names in a syllabus, but guides to a deeper and more ordered life. If this sounds like something you'd like to be part of, please join our group. We read a new classic every month, and meet biweekly to discuss. We are about to start Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. If you want to support our efforts, please consider a paid subscription. It makes a huge difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this. We are funded ENTIRELY by the members of this community who wish to keep our efforts going — to spread the lessons and virtues contained in the Western canon. Join us! Paid members get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Essays to guide you through the books we're reading - The full archive of essays and podcasts - Access to the community chat room - Ability to vote on what we read next This is not school. There are no grades, no credentials, and definitely no status games. Just a community of readers serious about recovering what's been lost, and using it to build something better. Welcome.
Athenaeum Book Club693,390 views • 2 months ago
A powerful scene in the Odyssey comes when Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca after twenty years of war and wandering. You'd expect the story to end with a great celebration: with the hero coming home and the family reunited. Homer does something far stranger. Odysseus arrives disguised as a beggar, because Athena warns him that the palace has been taken over by more than a hundred suitors who have been living there for years, eating his food, drinking his wine, and pressuring his wife Penelope to marry one of them. They believe Odysseus is dead and in their minds the kingdom is already theirs. So the king of Ithaca walks through his own halls dressed in rags while the men stealing his house sit comfortably at his tables. They mock him, throw scraps at him, and one of them even strikes him, and Odysseus takes it. The same man who blinded the Cyclops now stands quietly while strangers insult him in his own home. Homer tells us his heart burns inside his chest and that he wants to attack them immediately, yet he restrains himself and waits. Instead of striking, Odysseus studies the room carefully. He counts the men, watches their habits, and observes which servants remain loyal and which have betrayed him. He delays his revenge until the moment is right. Eventually Penelope announces a contest and brings out Odysseus' great bow, declaring that she will marry the man who can string it and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads lined up in a row. One by one the suitors try and fail, because none of them can even bend the bow. Then the beggar asks for a turn. The suitors laugh at first, but the bow is eventually handed to him. Odysseus takes it in his hands and strings it effortlessly. Homer says the sound of the bowstring tightening rings through the hall like the note of a swallow. Then he places an arrow on the string and sends it cleanly through all twelve axe heads. In that moment the beggar disappears. Odysseus turns the bow toward the suitors and reveals who he is. What follows is one of the most brutal scenes in Greek literature. The doors are sealed and the suitors realize too late that they are trapped inside the hall. Odysseus, his son Telemachus, and two loyal servants begin killing them one by one. There is no escape and no negotiation. The men who spent years consuming another man's house die inside it. It is a violent ending, but Homer wants you to understand something important. The real danger to Odysseus was never just the monsters and storms along the journey. It was the possibility that someone else might take his place while he was gone. When Odysseus finally returns, he reminds everyone in Ithaca of a simple truth: A man's home is never truly his unless he is willing to fight for it. --- Join our online book club and study the classics with us! We are working through the great texts of the Western canon, including the Homeric epics: To preserve a culture, you must continually study the books and ideas that created it. If the schools and universities won't teach the great books of the West, we will do it ourselves... We are an independent group funded ENTIRELY by the members of this community. If you'd like to support us, please consider a paid membership. You'll get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Essays to guide you through the books we're reading - The full archive of discussions and essays - Access to the community chat room See you inside!
Athenaeum Book Club351,471 views • 1 month ago
It is now the norm to go from kindergarten to PhD without reading a single word of Homer, Plato, Augustine, or Dante. This is how you erase a culture, and it's working. That's why we started an independent group dedicated to the study and preservation of the Western canon of literature — the books that built our civilization. To preserve a culture, you must continually study the books and ideas that created it. If the schools and universities won't teach the great texts of Western Civilization, we will do it ourselves. If this sounds like something you'd like to be part of, please join. We read a new classic together every month, and meet biweekly to discuss. To support our efforts, please consider a paid subscription. It makes a huge difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this. We are funded ENTIRELY by the members of this community who wish to keep our efforts going. Paid members get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Essays to guide you through the books we're reading - The full archive of discussions and essays - Access to the community chat room - Ability to vote on what we read next Join us!
Athenaeum Book Club366,780 views • 2 months ago
Never forget: If you want your culture to survive, you have to live it *yourself* every day. Once it's gone, it isn't coming back. We are forming an independent book club for the sole purpose of studying the great texts of Western Civilization — together. The books and ideas upon which our civilization was built. Ultimately, politics is downstream from culture. If we don't understand the cultural roots of our own society, what is it that we are trying to save? What is the West? And what are we saving it from? If this sounds like something you'd like to be part of, please join our group. We are studying the great works in dialogue with each other: we've read works by Homer, Augustine, Dante, Milton, and more. We tackle a new classic text approx. every month, and meet biweekly to discuss. Our club is growing into a fantastic group of intentional readers. Please join us!
Athenaeum Book Club199,852 views • 1 month ago
“The average person lives a life of luxury that previous generations could never imagine, but because of that we dont actually taste this deeper joy that I think God intends for us.” Most people today live with a level of comfort that would have looked unbelievable to almost anyone in history. Food is always available, entertainment never stops, boredom can be eliminated instantly, and almost every inconvenience can be solved with a screen and a few clicks. That’s why so many people today have everything they thought they wanted and still feel empty afterward. The strange paradox of modern life is that we have removed many of the hardships that once burdened humanity, but in the process we also removed many of the conditions that produced gratitude, resilience, depth, and dependence on God. A civilization drowning in comfort often becomes spiritually numb without even realizing it. Which is probably why some of the holiest people in history voluntarily embraced hardship even when they did not have to. They understood something we are slowly forgetting: Comfort and happiness are not the same thing.
Athenaeum Book Club64,247 views • 1 month ago
Why The Lord of the Rings Still Matters w/ Andrew Snyder
Athenaeum Book Club38,552 views • 3 months ago
ABC Podcast Ep. 1 | Alex Petkas on Plutarch's Life of Pericles
Athenaeum Book Club72,491 views • 9 months ago
In 1879, Leo Tolstoy reached the height of success and discovered it wasn’t enough. He had everything a man is supposed to want: fame, wealth, recognition across Europe. And yet found himself asking a question he couldn’t escape: Why live? In A Confession, Tolstoy describes what happened next. The kind of collapse that happens when a man realizes that all his achievements fail to answer the most basic question of existence. Reason had taken him far. It helped him understand the world, critique society, and refine his thinking. But when he turned it toward his own life, it led him to the edge of despair. Because reason can explain how we live, but it cannot tell us why we should continue. It can analyze meaning, but it cannot create it. Follow that line far enough, and everything begins to feel optional, even life itself. What disturbed him most was the contrast he observed in others. The simplest people around him, those with the least education and the fewest possessions, seemed to possess something he lacked. They endured hardship without collapsing into nihilism. They believed. Tolstoy came to a conclusion: a life built on intellect alone becomes unlivable. You can question everything, reduce everything, and demand proof for everything, and in doing so remove the very foundations that make life bearable. What saved him was a shift in perspective. He began to see that meaning is not something you manufacture through logic. It is something you receive. You were not given a mind to solve life as if it were a problem. You were given one to recognize that it is worth living.
Athenaeum Book Club24,130 views • 2 months ago
Over 100 years ago, G.K. Chesterton diagnosed the fatal flaw of the modern mind: "The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason." — Orthodoxy Logic untethered from imagination, wonder, and revelation inevitably collapses into madness. The rationalist can "prove" his way into almost anything, no matter how absurd. A narrow circle of logic, no matter how complete it appears, remains closed. Reason only flourishes within a larger vision, one that is able to embrace paradox and mystery. Chesterton's simple but unfashionable idea is that Christian belief does not crush reason or the imagination, but keeps them alive and connected. You were given a mind that is capable of both reason and imaginative creativity — and both are essential to keep it working.
Athenaeum Book Club23,715 views • 2 months ago
Great Books Podcast Ep. 4 | Raymond Ibrahim on Defenders of the West
Athenaeum Book Club53,493 views • 7 months ago
Great Books Podcast Ep. 7 | Will Tanner on The History of Rhodesia
Athenaeum Book Club36,285 views • 6 months ago
