[jrumbut]

I really recommend audiobooks here, it makes it so much easier to get through the 50 page sections of geneology or all-wrong speculation about the natural world that's included in a lot of classic works. So easy in fact you come to understand what role they play or why they're important.

One thing I love about the classics is that they have an entirely different set of euphemisms and implicit assumptions. They don't know what you're supposed to pretend isn't true in the modern world. You end up with, for instance, the ancient Greeks being very explicit that their early rulers were the most effective pirates and cattle rustlers. You learn a lot more about how we got where we are and why some obviously bad structures are so hard to change. Many decision makers from the dawn of writing to the present day relied on these texts as playbooks.