Charles Darwin, whose idea of the sacred also came from an English private school, witnessed religion at its most primordial when he went to Australia in 1836. He found it horrifying: “nearly naked figures, viewed by the light of blazing fires, all moving in hideous harmony…”

Whatever Darwin’s personal sensibilities, Mr Wade is convinced that a Darwinian approach offers the key to understanding religion. In other words, he sides with those who think man’s propensity for religion has some adaptive function. According to this view, faith would not have persisted over thousands of generations if it had not helped the human race to survive. Among evolutionary biologists, this idea is contested. Critics of religion, like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, suggest that faith is a useless (or worse) by-product of other human characteristics.

When one lives in Washington, DC, it is an unfortunately common occurrence to find oneself in a political, philosophical, or otherwise worldview-oriented conversations. While I generally find these interesting and (if I may flatter myself) am able to in some small way hold my own, I have realized that I need a firmer grounding in the means of understanding.

I could, like Descartes, choose to lock myself in a room until I suddenly comprehend the world around me. Or I could not reinvent the wheel. I would also like a solution that involves you, dear reader.Thus, I propose to undertake the following endeavor: to read one Great book a month and report back to you. The rules are to be as follows:

1. I will purchase each book and do something I rarely do: mark in it as I read it.
2. Unless otherwise noted, I will have one month to read each book.
3. Upon completing the book, I will post a reflection of some variety on the blog. Exact content will be flexible.

Further guidelines will be:

• I will rotate through four main categories of books: Science, Economics or Philosophy, Literature, and Theology.
• Suggestions for future books will be solicited on the blog. (Please reply in the comments rather than directly to me, for the benefit of other readers.)

To begin, I shall finish The Origin of Species this month. After that, I will be moving to the next category. Contenders for the second book include:

• The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
• Capital by Marx
• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls

Please leave further suggestions below. I will need particular help when it comes to the Literature section. I have been careful to specifically include it, as I would tend not to read it. Beginning with one of Shakespeare’s plays that I have not yet read seems a good idea to me, but I am open to ideas.

In this means I hope to accomplish in some small fashion my tweet tonight (incidentally, Twitter is a wonderful way to learn to be concise in one’s writing): “The world must by synthesized.”

So, in the tradition of many an avid reader before me, I am hereby setting about to make a list of my current piles, in the hopes that it will somehow encourage me to read through them.  At the very least, I hope, it will encourage me to see the breadth of topics I am interested in.

So, vaguely in order by the intended reading schedule:

• Why Evolution is True (currently reading)
• Hundred Years of Solitude (reading off and on)
• War is a Force that Gives us Meaning (half way through, on pause)
• unChristian (read a few pages, on the list)
• The Shack (so as to be able to converse about it)
• Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road (half way, on pause)
• Financial Statecraft (purchased years ago, will read eventually)

Mind you, these are just the ones currently around my apartment, of course, sitting in stacks with various other literature–several devotionals, Bibles, a book on climbing, journals, magazines, etc.  There is a considerably longer list in my head (most of which I have forgotten at any given moment in time) that needs to be dealt with eventually.

Lest you think that I never get around to actually reading, I  finished Chesterton’s Orthodoxy this morning.  And last summer I had what was possibly my biggest reading spree ever, reading over the course of six months The Brothers Karamazov, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Moby Dick, Mansfield Park, and The Count of Monte Cristo, among other things.

In fact, I think I read so much that I needed to take a break from books (something I didn’t know was even possible to do), and spent a while quietly meandering through the pages of my weekly New Yorker.  Now, however, I am clearly back on track.  And with that, I’m off to learn a little more about Why Evolution is True before bed.