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Past Readings

2008: The Places in Between

In 2008, incoming students read Rory Stewart's The Places in Between, which relates the author’s journeys through Asia between September 2000 and March 2002. Stewart’s original plan was to walk a more or less direct route from Iran to Nepal, but he changed course when the Taliban barred his entry into Afghanistan. Restarting his journey in Pakistan, he reached eastern Nepal in December 2001, where he learned that the Taliban had fallen. He then decided to retrace his steps, covering the ground he had missed in his first walk. His journey through Afghanistan—“the place,” as he put it, “in between the deserts and the Himalayas, between Persian, Hellenic, and Hindu culture, between Islam and Buddhism, between mystical and militant Islam”—turned out to be the most compelling walk of all.

2007: How Proust Can Change Your Life

The text chosen for First Readings’ inaugural year was Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life. Marcel Proust was a Parisian writer who lived at the turn of the twentieth century. His literary reputation emerged from a single work that took a lifetime to finish—A La Recherche de Temps Perdu, which translates “in search of lost (or wasted) time." De Botton’s book is not about Proust per se, but rather uses Proust’s observations to provide modern readers with a “How to...” guide to life. Readers of de Botton’s book learn—among other things—how to love, how to take their time, and how to suffer successfully, all while getting a fascinating glimpse into Proust’s character and life.