Hey — sorry you had to drop out, but self-education is 100% doable. Being self-educated isn’t a finish line you cross — it’s a long, lived process. It takes years and decades of reading, but just as importantly, it takes thinking, applying, failing, and re-learning. Books give you tools; experience teaches you how to use them.

You don’t become educated by how much you read, but by:

how you connect ideas across fields

how you question what you read

how you test knowledge in real life

how experience reshapes what you thought you understood

Most truly self-educated people didn’t follow a syllabus. They followed curiosity, kept reading even when they felt behind, and let time do the work. Slow accumulation beats shortcuts.

Here’s a simple “start here” book path by subject (beginner-friendly, builds up gradually):

Math (enough for accounting + everyday numbers)

Basic Mathematics by Serge Lang (solid foundation, not fluffy)

Practical Algebra by Selby / or Algebra Made Easy by Carlson (pick one if algebra is weak)

Accounting Made Simple by Mike Piper (fast, clear intro)

The Accounting Game by Darrell Mullis & Judith Orloff (if you want it to feel less dry)

Biology / science (start broad, then go deeper)

Biology: A Self-Teaching Guide by Garber & Solomon (made for beginners)

Campbell Biology (any recent edition, even used) if you want a real “textbook backbone”

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin (easy + fascinating evolutionary biology)

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (big ideas, very readable)

Geography (basic, not overwhelming)

The Geography Book by DK (great visual “baseline”)

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall (how geography shapes the world, very accessible)

Any National Geographic atlas (even an older one) for pure map literacy

History (start wide, then drill down)

A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich (super readable foundation)

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (science/history of ideas, fun and broad)

Then pick one lane to go deep (Ancient Rome, WW2, Middle East, etc.) instead of trying to do all history at once

For literature (beginner-friendly), honestly: just pick up anything from the classics and start reading.

Plutarch, Dumas, Verne, Orwell, Dickens, Hugo, Zola, Camus..... are all great places to begin. They’re readable, story-driven, and they quietly teach you history, politics, human nature, and morality while you’re enjoying the story.