Start here: your first philosophy book

Three rules that make it stick

1. Start short. Begin with a book you can finish in a week: see short reads.
2. Fiction or letters before treatises. Camus' The Stranger before The Myth of Sisyphus; Seneca's letters before the systems. That's the most common advice in the Reddit threads we cite.
3. Read the right chapter first. Every book card here has a “read this first” tip where one exists.

editorial These rules are our synthesis of the community advice cited on each guide.