The Enchiridion

Epictetus was born a slave, and by some accounts was lame from childhood. Once freed, he taught philosophy in Rome until the emperor Domitian expelled the philosophers, then opened a school at Nicopolis in Greece, where students came from across the empire to hear him. He wrote nothing himself. His student Arrian took down his teaching, and from it came this handbook, the Enchiridion, a word that means something held in the hand. Its first sentence holds the rest: some things are up to us and some are not. Here is the whole handbook in order, in the Daily Canon's own translation from the Greek, over fourteen short days, a few minutes each. A fresh group sets off every fortnight.

Read one big book alongside other readers, a day at a time. Cohorts set off on the date above.