Symposium and Phaedrus

Why it’s on the list: Plato’s two dialogues on love — a drinking party of speeches on Eros ending with Socrates and Alcibiades, and a walk outside Athens that turns from love to rhetoric and writing.

Where I heard about it

• @athenaeumbc — one of ~35 old books in a stack photographed by Athenaeum Book Club (October 2026) under the line “One of the hidden benefits of reading old books is that they rescue you from the arrogance of the present.” The full stack is listed on One of the hidden benefits… (tweet).

Connections

• Plato — author.
• Plato’s Republic — also in the stack.
• Plato: Complete Works — the collected edition already on the anti-library.
• One of the hidden benefits… (tweet) — the stack it came from.