For parents
Books worth growing up on, by age.
Four lists, 113 authors and 268 books, chosen to form character and a love of reading. Build the list and take it to the bookshop.
Read the Great Books slowly,
in good company.
A book club in Nairobi that has met since 2013 to read one Great Book a month and discuss the Great Ideas in it, for three hours, in the Socratic way.
I am Lucy Mulli. I facilitate; the books do the teaching. Text Book Centre gave me its Penmanship Award, Book Club Champion, and I am completing a Doctor of Arts in the Humanities through a Great Books program.
Where to begin
For readers
One Great Book a month, argued about properly.
Notes and questions a week ahead, then three hours at one table. Open sessions anyone can join, and a waiting list for the next cohort.
For organisations and schools
A team that reads Aristotle together argues better on Monday.
Facilitated series for leadership teams, schools, alumni and clubs, on the method the club has used since 2013.
The children's canon
It is never too early to start forming children in what is True and Good. These are the books I would put in a home library, in language children will understand and love.
- Ages 4–7The NurseryFables, fairy tales, the first read-alouds. 31 authors.
- Ages 8–11School DaysBigger worlds, sturdier characters. 22 authors.
- Ages 12–15AdolescenceBooks that meet the larger questions. 24 authors.
- Ages 16–20YouthThe canon as adults read it. 36 authors.
Take the list to Text Book Centre and ask for the editions by name.
Why the classics
A good book cannot be hurried, and the classics least of all. In the club we give one a whole month, then three hours around a table. What these books have to say, they say to the reader who sits with them. In school we were handed them; here we choose them, and that changes what they can tell us.
In the club we read the books that have enduring relevance, intellectual depth, foundational influence and universal themes: the works that ask what justice is, what truth is, and what a life is for. We read them in company because that is how they were meant to be read.
How the club works
Everyone who holds some position of leadership, at home or in public, is welcome. You do not need a literature degree. You need to have read the book.
- One month before
The book is assigned and members are given a month to finish it. I confirm the editions everyone will read from.
- A week before
Members receive my notes and the questions we will sit with, so the conversation starts in the middle of the argument.
- The session
We meet and use the Socratic method to guide the discussion. Conversations last not less than three hours.
Next at the table
Open sessions anyone can join. Register, read the book, come and argue.
The next open session is not set yet. People on my list hear first, and the waiting list gets the first chairs.
Correspondence, occasionally
When there is something worth writing about: what the club is reading, a passage worth your evening, an open session, a new list, a seminar for parents. No schedule and no noise. Written by me.