Athenaeum’s classic reading push
The Athenaeum Book Club’s video call to reread Western classics such as Virgil’s Aeneid went viral on social, amassing roughly 31,000 likes and prompting widespread discussion about gaps in school curricula (x.com). The club has moved to a biweekly schedule and is using social video to recruit readers for group discussion (x.com).
A video pitch from the Athenaeum Book Club turned a niche rereading project into a wider argument about who still reads the Western canon. (x.com) Athenaeum describes itself as “a digital book club dedicated to studying the great texts of Western Civilization,” and its Substack says it has “27K+ subscribers.” Its recent reading schedule has included Homer’s *Odyssey* in March and Virgil’s *Aeneid* starting March 31. (substack.com) (athenaeumbooks.com) The club’s site says paid members get “live community book discussions” on a biweekly schedule, along with essays, recordings, and votes on what to read next. A current membership pitch on the main page says subscribers can “join our biweekly book club.” (athenaeumbooks.com 1) (athenaeumbooks.com 2) The argument around the video landed in a school and college climate where humanities departments have been shrinking for years. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences said in its 2024 department survey that degrees awarded in most humanities disciplines fell by more than 25% over roughly the past 15 years. (amacad.org) Reading performance has also weakened in the broader school system. The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that average national reading scores in 2024 fell below 2019 levels in fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade, with twelfth-grade reading at its lowest level on record. (nagb.gov) (nationsreportcard.gov) At the same time, the books most often taught in United States secondary English classrooms have changed less than the politics around them. The National Council of Teachers of English said in 2025 that its new national study found many commonly assigned texts still overlap with books that dominated classroom surveys decades ago. (ncte.org) Virgil’s *Aeneid* sits in an odd place in that debate: it is central to many “great books” lists but far less common in mass schooling than Shakespeare or Steinbeck. Research from the University of Cambridge noted that in England about 12,000 students take an ancient language at General Certificate of Secondary Education level, and only those taking Latin typically have the option to study extracts from one book of the *Aeneid*. (cam.ac.uk) Athenaeum’s own pitch is not a classroom substitute so much as a parallel track. Its “About” page says, “This is not school,” and promises no grades or credentials, only group reading and discussion. (athenaeumbooks.com) That helps explain why a short social video about rereading Virgil traveled beyond book-club circles: it offered a concrete answer to a familiar complaint. Athenaeum is now trying to turn that burst of attention into recurring, twice-monthly meetings built around old books and live conversation. (x.com) (athenaeumbooks.com)
