Bert Kreischer's Reading List (From Ryan Holiday)

0:00Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. When Bert Kreischer asks you for some book recommendations, you really got to think about what he's going to like. And he came out to my bookstore here in Bastrop, Texas, recently, and this is what I picked out for him. All right, so I said, I said to crack up. Tornography? Never mind, no. I have that book, 1929. Amazing. I didn't read it, but I have it. It's really good. Where does the crack go? Okay, so this is about S. Scott Fitzgerald blowing up his life.

0:42I love that. One of my favorite lines in a book ever, Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway says, at the age of 30, I realized I had to stop lying to myself. It's my favorite line. Okay, so let me give you this then. I read it in, I read it when I moved to New York and I was working at Barnes & Noble.

1:04There's a new edition of it that is amazing. Really? Yes. Okay. So it's 100 years old. It's now officially in the public domain. So this is a 100-year anniversary edition, and it's got all these illustrations and stuff. My favorite line from Magatsby is actually the first line, which I'll read to you. These are fine here. But I think this is the greatest line. In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice. I've been turning over my mind ever since whenever you feel like criticizing anyone he told me just remember that all people in the world Haven't had the advantages you've had He's read about white privilege in 1929 No, okay, so this is me.

1:42It's got all these like it's really cool It's got these like cool like facts and stuff on the show you like learn about like the making of the book Oh, that's awesome. So those two go go really. You know the crazy Fitzgerald Hemingway story. No. Okay, so Fitzgerald is in like the worst marriage of all time, Zelda's. Yeah. Where she tells Scott Fitzgerald that his dick was small and he's like really broken up about it. Still works a hundred years ago. So he goes to Hemingway and he tells her, he tells him that she said this and whatever. And then Hemingway's like, let me see it. And he shows him, he's like, dude, what are you talking about?

2:22And then that's their famous exchange. So he's so in his head, he has said, I'm gonna check it out and tell him whether it is. I always say, the best titles for any book are Hemingway, and the best titles for any movies are The Grateful Dead. Ooh, that's good. The Grateful Dead has the best titles. People have stolen so many Grateful Dead songs and used it as a title that you're like, oh man. Someone told me that every word in the Gettysburg Address has become a book title. Like every phrase in the Gettysburg Address has become its own book title. like you know these honor dead we you know every phrase in it has become itself I can I will sit like one of my favorite things to do is sit and try to think of titles yeah so and but that's how I got the TV show something's burning was just like oh that's great something's burning then and then I build the show around it I have a show I'm trying to do called too many cooks in the kitchen it's where 47 people make one dish we just always there's a No, no, no, no.

3:20So the other, I mean, there's actually a book called Hemingway versus Fitzgerald that's about their, like, frenemy friendship. And in it, he, the other one, the other famous exchange is, because Fitzgerald is obsessed with money and, like, rich people. And he goes, you know, like, Ernest, like, the rich, they're just, like, different than you and I. And Hemingway says, like, yeah, they have more money. And then Hemingway puts that exchange in one of his books, and the show was like humiliated. Can I tell you what book I didn't understand and now I understand? I didn't understand in college and now I'm starting to understand and I have not finished the whole book but I've read parts of it all over is The Fountainhead.

3:59Oh yeah, Ayn Rand is like, you know. Because at first I go, the hero's Keating. He's doing the job. He's getting the job done. He's showing up and going to work. Yeah, he's slapping it together, man. That's what we do. And then I start going, O 'Rourke is the... Oh shit. Some of these books you have to read over the course of your life. Yes. That's why I think you'll like that new one. Have you read a Confederacy of Dunces?

4:28The funniest book of all time? The book that's this thick? Yeah. No, I've never read it. You haven't? No. Would you read it? Yes. It would be a good idea. Let me find it. But it's the funniest. It's one of those books that you're like, I would love this to be a movie, and they just have never managed to make it. That guy breaks my heart. Oh, yeah. That's a good example of what we're talking about. I saw the Jason, Jason, whatchamacallit movie he did. Jason, kid from How I Met Your Mother, did a movie about the guy. Oh, about John Kennedy Tool? No. Oh, who am I thinking of? Are you thinking of Infinite Jeffs?

5:02I'm thinking of Infinite Jeffs. Confederacy of Dungeons, I have not read. Okay, so where is Confederacy of Dungeons? I don't know why it's so confused. I will get you Confederacy of Dungeons. Okay, but John Kennedy, oh, here it is. Okay. here it is funniest book of all time are you serious there's a statue of him on uh canal street in new orleans he's a hot dog it's a book about a hot dog salesman he just eats all the hot dogs um it's really it's it's it's amazing but okay so the story of this book is this guy writes this book he sends it to his agent and uh his agent uh is like this is not a book this sucks she sends it to his editor the guy's like not a book this sucks so he kills himself on a road outside Biloxi, drives his car off, takes a garden hose, puts it in the pipe, into the window, kills himself.

5:50His mother finds a confederacy of dunces in a desk drawer after his death and she takes it to a professor in New Orleans at Tulane, a guy named Walker Percy, who wrote a famous book called The Movie Goer.

6:09He's a professor there, he reads the book, thinks it's genius, gets it published by the Louisiana University Press. It wins the Pulitzer Prize that year. So it's just a reminder to go to our point about not, like, the same fucking book. He's dead. He has not changed it in any way. The one that his editor said wasn't a good book, the one that his agent said wasn't a good book, wins the Pulitzer Prize. So you can't, you can't, you can't write, you gotta, do you think it's good? Does it do what you want to do does that mean it's gonna be a success you don't know but you can't it's the funniest I can't wait I absolutely can't wait okay what else would you like oh something about I was used to be in history books John Mulaney book it's about them sending the first debtors down to Ireland or to Australia.

7:10Oh, The Fatal Shore? Incredible book. It's so hard to get into. Okay, can I ask you as a bookstore owner, do we have to read the preface? If you want to understand what's happening, I think so. Goddammit. Okay, this book is, here's a funnier Australian book. This is much better. The Fatal Shore I just read this year because I did an Australia tour last year and that was amazing And it's a it's a crazy good book But I mean the first like 200 pages of the Fatal Shore about like how prisons in England work Yeah, so it's like it was like a while to get to even Australia It's a lot and they don't have it in the audiobook Yeah, it's this old if one like the Pulitzer Prize in like the 60s or something It's there but read that one.

7:51Okay. Okay

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10:59Let's do I read this book in college. he was like my first my first book I ever sat and read for real not like I had to read in class but I sat and read a book was The Firm and then the next one was Fear and Loathing and once I read Fear and Loathing I then read Cahill Gibran's The Prophet and then I got into reading and then I read Hell's Angels I started reading a lot in college and then in and out you remember James Mishner yeah I was big into Mishner yeah he he's buried in Texas I was in yeah yeah

11:42yeah would you read the why or something I read well I read why it's really racist now but that's the thing was like I read that summer and the midnight sun or whatever the Joe recommended Empire of the summer moon yeah and then I was like wow the Indian sounds like dicks he's like well you got to be careful who writes it. He lives here, he's been here. Anne Frank had a boyfriend, it's a new joke I have. Did she? Yeah, and she lives in the, I go, are there any single ladies in the audience? And they go, yeah, I go, Anne Frank had a boyfriend, she's lived in an addict during the Holocaust, maybe it's you ladies.

12:13I bought Endurance. Endurance is very good. Do you know why? Oh, you told me why, my bad. What, did I tell you? Yeah, I was about to quote you from your book about that? By Endurance We Conquer? That was his family motto. And so he named them both the Endurance. Have you read Happy Land? No, I have not. Wright Thompson's maybe the greatest sports writer of all time. Oh, I know this guy. I haven't read this book, but he was on 30 for 30. I know this guy. He's awesome. Yeah, okay. He has a sports book you'll like. Sweet. This is a legit bookstore. My office is upstairs. We needed office space and I was like do I want to rent a boring...

12:56Like Tom, you guys are a studio in Austin. I could rent something like that there and then it would have zero... It would be cool and easier in a lot of ways but it would have zero external impact on the world. Do you know what I mean? So I was like we were eating brunch at that Greasey Spoon across the street and this was for sale and I was like what We just did a bookstore and office at the same time. That's brilliant. Hey, did you read Matthew McConaughey's Green Lights? Of course. Were you impressed by... I'm on the... I'm on the back. Were you impressed by how much he likes ketchup? Isn't that crazy?

13:31I thought there was more wet dreams in the book than I needed. Oh, really?

13:37Yeah, he asked me to blur, but I'm on the back.

13:46This is the great. What is this? This is his sports book. It's amazing. Oh, for real? Yeah, it's really good. Oh, I'm going to get warm with this. Okay. And then I'm going straight to Confederacy. I think that's the right order. Yes. Then do the crack up. This is great. All right. There's your stack. Perfect. Thank you. Oh, and then you said journaling. I got a journal for you. Okay. All right. It's one line a day, but a parenting question every day. For real? Yeah. So that's what I do. One of the journals I do, I have, I made a version of the book. That's great. That's the best way to hold yourself accountable because it's so doable.

14:30Yeah. Yeah, I do this one and I just write one sentence a day and I've done it. I did it for five years on one and then I finish it and now I'm on the 10th year of the second one. So every day for 10 years I write one thing. So it's really cool because I can go through it. Do we have any of the one line a day journal? But the idea is like, it's like, oh, on June 1st last year, June 1st the year before, you kind of see the rhythms of your life and you're like, oh, I'm gone too much or whatever. One line a day, what's that? Yeah, that's yours. So this is this idea, but it's like a parenting version.

15:05and this is just a general one. So you're just like, you would just be like, what's the date today, the 23rd? You'd be like July 23rd, or January 23rd, and you'd be like, show came out, debuted number two on Netflix, like feeling good. And then, so it'd be cool, like next year, you're just doing some random shit. Oh, that was exactly a year ago. And then the third year, you're like, ah. And then the fourth year, you're like, I forgot. You know, that I like. Oh, give me, can I, I want to give this to my daughter, Georgia. Ila won't write, but Georgia will. This is perfect. Thank you. So that's like a parenting version of the same thing.

15:40Oh, wow. I'm going to be a better parent this year, considering my daughters watch my TV show about them come out. We're not in love with it. Oh, they didn't like it? They don't like it. It's weird when you're... And it uses their names, right? It uses their names, and it's... It's got to be really weird to see someone playing you when it's not you and it's not your life, and then you see a story that wasn't yours, and then they like it. They're like, it's really good. and it's really well done. It's just very uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. Well, and you're like, well, do you want to go to college?

16:09I mean, if you want to finish college, then deal with that uncomfortableness. Go to a bar and get rid of it. Or I'll send you a one line a day journal, George. Yeah.

16:22Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode. You