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Autodidactism Reading List

I’m not going to list more books about learning for yourself. You learn for yourself by going out and learning things yourself. So I’ll say this. Go and read primary resources. Great literature. If you’ve always meant to get around to reading Shakespeare or Dante or Proust or whatever, then actually go and do it. This is what the good life is about. Not putting things off.

This is a monumental work and every aspiring autodidact on the entire planet should read it. In this incredible feat of scholarship Rose shows us how impoverished 18th- early 20th century miners, weavers and factory workers improved their lives and their communities through reading and being inspired by the great works of poetry and prose. I honestly can’t do this one justice. It’s a long read but immensely rewarding.

A justification of, and explanation for the classical Trivium of Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric, a rigorous, demanding and essential undertaking. This is what the Liberal Arts used to mean. I believe the future will be built on autodidacts who choose to take up this dropped mantle.

A compendium of different rhetorical devices and how they work. Insanely useful and I feel cheated by the fact that this wasn’t the cornerstone of my schooling. Internalising and practising the devices in this book is probably the single highest ROI activity a budding writer or speaker could do.