Stage 1: Foundations of Existential Thought

• Plato — Euthyphro (optional)
• Plato — Phaedo (optional)
• Blaise Pascal — Pensées (selections on faith and reason)
• Søren Kierkegaard — Fear and Trembling (already reading)

Stage 2: Becoming a Self

• Søren Kierkegaard — The Sickness Unto Death
• Simone Weil — Gravity and Grace

Stage 3: Faith, Doubt, and the Modern Soul

• Albert Camus — The Myth of Sisyphus (reread)
• Paul Tillich — The Courage to Be
• Julian Barnes — Nothing to Be Frightened Of

Core Existential & Theological Readings (Kierkegaard, Camus, Dostoevsky)

• Søren Kierkegaard – Fear and Trembling (read first)
• Søren Kierkegaard – Either/Or (especially Part I: The Aesthetic)
• Søren Kierkegaard – The Sickness Unto Death
• Søren Kierkegaard – Works of Love
• Albert Camus – The Myth of Sisyphus (reread optional)
• Albert Camus – The Plague
• Albert Camus – The Rebel
• Fyodor Dostoevsky – Notes from Underground (already read)
• Fyodor Dostoevsky – The Brothers Karamazov (focus on Ivan and “The Grand Inquisitor”)

Moral Judgment and Responsibility

• Hannah Arendt – Eichmann in Jerusalem

Existential & Phenomenological Discomfort

• Jean-Paul Sartre – Nausea: You may already know of it, but this is the core text. A man becomes overwhelmed by the sheer contingency and absurdity of objects around him—tables, tree roots, even his own hand. It’s a slow burn but directly evokes the feeling you describe.
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty – Phenomenology of Perception (Selected Passages): Dense, but fascinating if you’re interested in the bodily and perceptual aspects of experience. His insights on how we inhabit space could help explain your disorientation in commercial environments.

Consumer Culture & Alienation

• David Foster Wallace – “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”: The essay isn't about supermarkets, but about ...