Last week went by in a blur. I took the week off from work and did practically nothing. I’d wake up in the morning in Matt’s bed (he would have already left for another day of RA training). I’d check my e-mail, and then just hang out in Matt’s apartment and read. At some point I’d go out to get some lunch, bring it back and eat it while watching some TV. Around this time, Matt might come back up for a little while and do some computer work. In the late afternoon, I’d head back to my apartment to pick up my New York Times and a new change of clothes, maybe walk to the nearby mall and buy a few things, then go back to Manhattan and perhaps hit a bookstore for a new book. In the evening, I’d get some dinner. At night, Matt would come back, and we’d veg out in front of the TV, watching the Olympics or “Sex and the City,” while I’d also make my way slowly through the newspaper, including the crossword. Eventually we’d go to bed.

It was an unexciting week, but that’s what I wanted. I got a little shopping done, I hung out with Matt, I did lots of reading.

As for that reading — wow. I was on a philosophical kick and read the nerdiest books: Descartes’s Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, Hobbes’s Leviathan, and Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Next I want to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, although it’s apparently a bear of a book.

For the last few summers I’ve been getting into the so-called “Great Books.” I’ve always loved to read, and I’ve always preferred “juicy” books — books that I could get something out of. I remember telling a friend of mine several years ago that I wished I could find that one book that would change my life. She told me that she didn’t think there was just one book. Finally, in the summer of 2001, I picked up How to Read a Book and The New Lifetime Reading Plan; the former contains a long list of recommended books, and the latter is essentially one list itself. I use these whenever I feel like diving back into the “Great Books.”

I don’t know why this happens to me mostly during the summer; perhaps it’s a throwback to college and law school, when the summer was a respite from required education and I could just follow my inclinations wherever they led me.

Anyway — and I have a feeling I’ve linked to some of these before — here are some more book lists:

The syllabus for St. John’s College, whose curriculum consists entirely of “Great Books.”

Various “Great Books” lists.

Access the Great Books — links to many works online.

Literary Critic — scroll down to find a bunch of other book lists, including several devoted to the 20th century.