About Common Book
Common Book is a living canon of human wisdom — ancient and contemporary, gathered from many traditions and many people. The idea behind it is simple: most of what we know about how to live is held privately, in fragments, in people who will never write a book. This is an attempt to gather some of that — gently, with consent, in people’s own voices — and weave it into something that can be read alongside the texts that have endured for centuries.
Ask and reflect
Ask. Bring a real problem — a choice you’re facing, a fear you can’t shake, a tension you’re sitting with. The book answers in its own voice, drawing on canonical passages and community contributions, citing every source. Where the traditions conflict — and they often do — it shows you the tension instead of flattening it into one answer.
Reflect. Share something you’ve come to believe. The book will show you where your wisdom already lives among the rest: which traditions have reached for the same thing, where yours diverges or sharpens or updates what came before. If you’d like it to join the book formally, the book will invite you to contribute it — with your consent, under your name or anonymously.
How contributions work
You speak with the book, and the book asks. Not a form — careful questions, one at a time, until the thing you mean is in words you would actually stand behind. Then you decide: whether to publish it at all, whether it carries your name or stands anonymous, and — separately — whether your words may help the book learn to draw out other people’s wisdom better. You can change any of those decisions later.
Publishing a reflection makes it available as a source; it does not automatically place it in a chapter. Chapters have their own drafts and publication history, and can be revised as the book grows.
How the book is made
AI helps find related passages, compose conversational responses, and draft essays. Source citations let you check the passages behind a response. Selection and interpretation can be mistaken: a similarity between texts is not evidence that one influenced the other, and an old text is not authoritative simply because it is old.
The book does not give you one answer. It holds multiple traditions in conversation, lets them disagree, and trusts you to weigh what you find. It is not therapy, not a coach, not an oracle. It is a book that talks back — and that listens when you have something to add.
The sources
The canonical passages come from public-domain wisdom traditions: Stoicism, the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, the Qur’an, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism, Rabbinic Judaism, Sufi poetry, and Ubuntu philosophy. The collection is selective. Translations and short excerpts offer a starting point, not a complete account of any tradition. Reading across them can reveal both shared concerns and disagreements worth keeping in view.
Your words and your choices
Conversations are private unless you create a shared link. Signed-in conversations are saved to your account (including the earlier part of a conversation you started signed out and carry on after signing in); curators and administrators can also access them. Without an account, nothing you ask is kept — unless you share the answer, in which case that question and answer are saved so the link works, with no name attached. The browser that created the link can turn it off, and signing in from the same page moves it to your account. Messages are processed by AI services to generate replies. Saving a conversation does not publish a contribution.
Before publishing a reflection, you review its principle and story and choose whether readers see your name. The interview transcript is not included in that publication. Permission to use a contribution to improve Common Book’s AI is a separate choice, off by default.
You can change contribution preferences and turn off conversation sharing from your account. Withdrawal prevents future source retrieval and removes contribution listings. Quotations already included in chapters, shared answers, or copies saved by other people may remain. Turning off AI improvement permission cannot undo previous use.
Unfinished drafts are also saved in this browser. On a shared device, use “Clear conversation” or “Start over” when you finish. To report an error or raise a concern about published text, use feedback.
Get involved
The simplest way to participate is to speak with the book — ask it something real, or offer something you believe. If you contribute wisdom and it resonates with others, it may find its way into a chapter. The book grows through people who trust it with something true.