BONUS | Ryan Holiday Curates a Reading List for Nick Thompson

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1:21Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

2:25This woman's first book is unbelievable. Do you know this story? This couple is like, decides to go on a sailing trip from London to New Zealand. And then literally in the middle of it, like outside Hawaii or something, a whale jumps and sinks the boat, which you wouldn't think could have actually happened, but it did. And then they spend like six weeks, eight weeks in a raft flowing in the ocean. And they're catching sharks and turtles. It's amazing. Super good story. Because they had a diary, so there's diaries of a good chunk of it. That's amazing. This is also insane. So good. I'll take that one.

3:09That's about they're digging a tunnel from West Berlin to East Berlin to get people out. But the ethics of this, you may be interested in. So CBS finds out that they're doing this. and obviously wants to do a story about it, but they can't because, so see, so the guy doing the tunnel says, okay, and he has lunch or something with the president of CBS News. If you give us the money to dig the tunnel, we'll let you film us while we're doing it. And so it's... This is the weirdest ethical choice ever. Yes. It's amazing. Yes, and so he knows, and maybe one of the, but it's, so the whole thing is...

3:53but you're paying them to get out of these relics. Yeah, but you're paying them to commit like an international crime, basically, that could bring about a nuclear war or something, right? And so the stakes of it are incredible, but what it means - Wait, what year was this? Depth of the Cold War. Okay. But the crazy thing too is that it also means that the whole process is filmed as it's happening, and, but also like if they get caught, like that the the the Russians are gonna go oh you're a journalist you're right it's no problem so yeah it's crazy so take that one and then here's the I just interviewed you and Trump this is Seneca in the court of Nero it's all about this dilemma that we're talking about oh yeah of course those are amazing so that one I think about that one all the time awesome which fascinating because then you just wrote another book that you have somewhere Plato does the same thing Plato goes and he doesn't just want to be an academic, he wants to be involved in politics.

4:56And so he's like the teacher of this tyrant who he's trying to convert to democracy. But really, the tyrant is just using his reputation to make people think he's more democratic than he is. He's like an Anakin-Obi-Wan. And so that's the interesting thing about Seneca too, is you could go like, okay, yeah, he's the adult in the room. but also as we can you understand this stuff more is you when you see analogs of it happening in the present is you're like okay but also I bet other people are saying well Nero can't be that bad or Seneca wouldn't be working with him right right like or you go actually you can tell that Nero is smart because he has people like Seneca around him and it's like so yes on the one hand you're you're constraining them by taking papers off their desk or being like do you really want to murder this person or not and then you're also enabling and emboldening them to do the horrible thing is kind of doing the dynamic between it's in Reagan where he's like a democratic establishment like a warrior always working with the Reagan administration Reagan administration can't be too awkward she's got four new people exactly yeah and so yeah it's it's in not that Reagan was a murderer no no of course no it's the it's the analog yeah that gives you the kind of insight so that was really good this book on Churchill and his son is interesting I haven't read that I read a good bit about Churchill but I haven't read that one I love oh that book is so good his whole I saw that you had the moral animals very good yeah did you read the Sebastian younger book on dying no but you know Sebastian younger fun fact about him he has I believe the fastest marathon time of any journalist He ran like a 219.

6:41Really? He was here, he didn't tell me this. Yeah, well he just, he was like a brief period of his life. He was like near Olympic trials level. Kind of amazing, right? Yeah. Wow, I did not notice. I saw his YouTube video on the time of time, but I haven't. The book is really good. Let's see. Have you read Kafka's letter to the father? I have read Kafka's letter to the father, yeah. I think that's one of the greatest parenting. And my favorite part about it... This one's great too. I'm talking to him soon. Oh, yeah. He's in the book. In your book. But the other one. I think that I put that in the parenting section deliberately.

7:18I think it's actually a parenting book. It's totally a parenting book. It's so good. No, he's awesome. But yeah, my favorite part of the Kafka thing is that he writes the letter, sends it to his mom to give to the mom, and then she does it. And then you go, oh, it's a dynamic. It's not just like you have one parent. Yeah. Like the parents were attracted to each other for some reason too. And then they have their own toxic relationship or dynamic that affects the kids. This is such a good collection, right? So that started in the Atlantic. God bless him. Yeah, he's great. Although he just joined, I just...

7:54She writes for us. She's a buddy. She's a buddy. I like her a lot. She's awesome. We should have Olga's book around here somewhere too, unless we sold it. She was here, Ali Perra. We should have Tom Nichols' book, The Death of Expertise. Tom Nichols, Malcolm, a runner? Yes. Yes. I've run with David before. I've never run with Malcolm. We should have What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I know you've heard that, but it's one of my favorite. Did you read The Novelist as a Vocation, his writing book? No, I've never read that. That's good. I just so I read I read what I talked about when I talk about running and then I was just in I mean I read it 15 years ago 10 years ago and then so I just did the Greece marathon oh cool yeah did you read wonderful you actually like this book her name is like Andrea and it's a book about running with the Greeks and it's sort of like Greek wisdom I don't for running a marathon yeah what she so she's a scholar of like yeah Greek history and the greats and it's one it's like full of these beautiful insights about right and then she runs the Athens marathon Wow her name is Andrea Maricolongo I think okay well it just came out like a few months ago it's so good all right it's really good because he does it in the book he does it backwards and so I was like thinking about what I do it that way because it that is the pain in the ass it's like how do you get 25 yes away or whatever yeah but no I did it was it was fun and then I talked to do you know Dean Karnazes yeah I mean I talked about you times so he heard I was there he called me and he was like hey like when are you doing it and I was like I'm doing it he's like I'm sorry I'm out of town I would just do it with he was just like gonna do it like a drop of a hat like and I was gonna run 26 miles yeah problem yeah that guy's guys then I'm and then I was like it's some some level also grateful because I only like running by myself but yeah it was interesting yeah if there aren't that many great books about running weirdly yeah very few very few i like once a runner is the classic by john parker the novelist yeah i hated that book it's cliched and dorky but it's awesome yes it's very like i'll fight you on that one and dirt by alex hutchinson's really good yeah uh this one sabrina little has like a book about running and philosophy that i like a lot that came out like a year or two ago oh what's that um it's like it's on running or something i actually don't love the Murakami.

10:15I love Murakami. I don't love his running book. Really? What don't you like about it? I just think it's a little bland. It's a little too self-involved. Like the density of like beautiful sentences and important thoughts to total amount of content is not as high. So if you're his editor, what would you have told him to do? I would have told him to like spend another year on this book. It does feel like, yeah, it's kind of thrown together and it's probably, if you looked at the bones of it, probably like a collection of essays that got like stapled together as opposed to like a book on... It's not up to Merkami's level.

10:46There's Born to Run, which is amazing, but completely false. You don't do the barefoot thing? I mean, like, we have run the experiment, right? Like, everybody read that book and started running barefoot. How many people run barefoot now? Yeah, very few. Very few. Because they've like all stepped on nails and also because like we've invented shoes that make you go much faster, right? That's true too. Which is what he said wasn't happening, right? Right. That the shoes are slowing you down. That said, the book is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's got great descriptions of running. It's incredible. So the Dean Karnazes book that I read while I was there doing it, he does...

11:20So the story is that that guy runs from Marathon to Athens, and that's why it's the Marathon. Actually, the guy ran from Athens to Sparta and back. So it's like 150 miles. And so... Wait, Philippides? Yes. Really? Yes. I didn't know that. That's why... If he died, that's why he died at the end. Because he ran 150 miles. Yeah. So the whole army runs from Marathon to Athens. Because they fight the Persians at Marathon. And what the Persians had done is they'd split their forces and they sent half down to Athens. So Athens is left undefended. So there's this Athenian general who's like, no, no, no, we'll fight them here and then we'll race there and fight.

12:01And so that's what they did. They fight. And then the whole army makes the 25 mile-ish run in the army, in the armor, having just fought a battle, and then when they show up, the Persians go, oh, it's not undefended, and then they leave. So that's, so, so what had happened is they send the runner from, before any of this happens, they send the runner from Athens to Sparta to ask Sparta if they would participate, which they didn't. Maybe why they were so willing the second time around to give everything at Thermopylae. So that's the actual story. So, but there's a, there is a, it's called the Spartathlon or whatever.

12:37There's a run that starts in Athens and ends in Sparta. And he did that. And he, and it's a, it's a good book called The Road to Sparta. And he does it, but he tries to like only eat, he only eats like figs or something on the course of the run or something. He tried to make it more like what it was. Yeah. Great. Great. So that, there was that. That's not great for digestive systems. Probably. I think if I'm remembering correctly in the book, he talks quite at length about problems that it's feeding on that digestive system. Running books sometimes have a little too much on that, but yeah. Yes.

13:07But yeah, there's not really that many great running books. Peter Sagal's book is kind of fun, but it should be better. There should be more. Yeah, I wonder why that is. I don't know. Especially because they might listen to it on audiobooks while they're running. Right. Now the market is... There are more running books coming out. There have been a whole bunch that came out in the last year, but nothing that I've totally loved. I think the tie between writing and running is interesting, too. That's I think obviously what comes off. That is a nice thing in Murakami's book, right? Like it is like his lines about what he's learned about writing and how it ties into what he's learned from running.

13:38Yeah, that I liked. Yes. What else do you like? What have you read? Did you read any of these recently? I read this one, of course. Oh, he's amazing. This book is awesome. Oh, he's the best. He was just one.

13:55Obviously read the Janet the Janet Malcolm. Oh, yeah, David Halberstone. I got the Walter Isaacson on Dabna.

14:05I don't know why that's in history. That should probably be in my own.

14:11This, Tom Ricks, and then... Tom Ricks is great. And Jeffrey Rosen. Those two books are sort of the stoic influences on the founders. Oh, that actually... Can I read that Jeffrey Rosen one? That sounds awesome. I would love to. Yeah. Well, they'll fix it. I don't want to upset your book.

14:37We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that, but I do control how I respond, right? That's, stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

15:12My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast. And as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q &A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about a year and a half ago. I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her How Not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15th, she's hosting her How Not to Lose It Over the Holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr.

15:50Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. and daily Stoic listeners can join for 15 % off with code STOIC15. You just got to head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

16:09The John Green book on tuberculosis is really good. This one? Yeah. It sort of goes to the point on the hurricane that we're talking about. Basically, he's like, we could live in a world where no one gets tuberculosis. We just like choose not to. not to live in that world yeah um because because we think it's not a problem that affects us and he's like let me tell you here's what it's like with covet is what's going to happen is they're going to develop we're going to develop a new strain of tuberculosis that the current medication doesn't work on yeah and then we're all going to have tuberculosis it kills like a million people a year and we're just like yeah that seems like an okay number which is of course insane yeah Yeah.

16:50This book, this guy was a friend of mine in college. You knew him? Yeah. Wow. That book's incredible. It's the best book about dying I've ever read. It's just heartbreaking. It's just that someone could write that book, period, who's not like a professional writer is insane. And to do it as you're dying is insane. Yeah. That book just made me cry so much. Have you read Death, Be Not Proud? Do you know who John Gunther was, the general? So his son gets a brain tumor at like 16, and his son's like a genius. He's about to be accepted to Harvard, and he gets a brain tumor. And it's like about the last year of his son's life.

17:29And it's obviously devastating, and then also just one of the most incredible books that you've ever read. This book is surprisingly great. Of course, it's so good. But it's because it's probably the greatest ghostwriter in history. Who is the ghostwriter on that book? I'm forgetting his name, but he did. It is, so, and maybe the best-selling ghostwriter of all time, because he does this book, he does the Phil Knight Shoe Dog book, and then he did Prince Harry's book. Oh, Spare? Yes. Did you like this one? This guy was actually on the Stanford track game with me. I liked it. So, I mean, they're like an okay band.

18:03I mean, they're like a pretty good band. I don't like the music, but... But you wouldn't be like, oh, let me, if you're like, okay, this is the lead singer of the Airborne Toxic event, tell me what his life story was. You wouldn't guess his mom's in this weird cold. It's one of those books where the memoir is unexpectedly good, and thus, because it plays against type, I think I really liked it. I just read another book that I would put in a similar category, and I'm totally blanking on it. Yeah, just like an incredible, weird, strange life. But you knew him? Yeah, we were on the track team together for a year.

18:45Wow. No, I thought it was really good. And then kind of a sim... I mean, the mother character was really interesting. Yeah. She's kind of like a child. That's probably why she ended up in a cult in the first place. Right. You've got your Gideon. You've got supporting your desk. Uh-huh. The new book... Did you read the new one? I've been giving it to people. What's the new one? The Notes to John. No. Do you know the story of this one? Is this like at the... So her daughter is an alcoholic, which doesn't get mentioned in any of the other books. She drank herself to death and then... I didn't know that.

19:22Yeah. But so she's, as her daughter is struggling with alcoholism, she joined it and starts going to therapy. And obviously her daughter's in therapy. And so the book is like the notes that she would write after the therapy session, summarizing what they talked about to her husband. Oh my God. And they found that it like neatly, this is her office, like neatly stapled in a pile, like in a drawer in her desk. And so it's on the one hand, like not intended for publication. Right. But then also it's Joan Didion. So it clearly is. And so would she have wanted it? Wouldn't she have wanted it? And then weirdly, it reads like this kind of epistolary novel about this.

20:13Like if someone said, okay, this is like a well-known person or just an ordinary mother, and they're watching their daughter drink themselves to death, and it's a novel told in the form of notes to their spouse about the form, about the conversation they have with the therapist, and they're like, well, that's a really interesting concept. Yeah. And so it's actually like really haunting and beautiful and then because it's Joan Didion, it's even her notes are better than most writers. Right. So it's really good. Of course. Incredible. This book store is great. Yeah. I like it. I'll show it. This is amazing.

20:48Yeah. So they're all like different from your like home and... No, no, these are just, there's actually a company called Books by the Foot and you just buy it. We have a standard like a large winding stairwell in the Atlantic office and it's filled entirely with books by people who've written for the atlantic which is like half the great writers in american history so i got the idea from uh ford's theater it has the the spinning power of books about lincoln uh-huh so that's what oh okay cool yeah we've so it's a similar thing that's very cool yeah can i take one of these home for my son i've seen this one great for my 15 year old it's a journal yeah sure i just thought it would be a good way for him to learn he like keeps track of his workouts and he like trains harder than I do.

21:28Sure. So. And then, yeah, this is fiction over here. Oh, this is the book I was thinking of. I wouldn't have thought she would have an interesting life. Huh, yeah, I have no idea. Like, you just think administrative at Harvard? Yeah. But she's great? She came from this kind of like fancy Virginian family, and her mom was an awful... It's actually very... It's great. Very well written. It's a great cover. And then she gets drawn into the civil rights movement. and it's yeah it's wow okay I'm excited to read this yeah of course this is gonna cover the next week does rich Cohen's written for the Atlantic I think right oh he's what's this a magic bookstore

22:11what do you what right I use I've been racing in Puma R3s I just did the last and then ultra flies the Nike ultra flies and then this morning the Romero's got a little bit of knee pain

22:33oh cool this is incredible yeah this is amazing look at space yeah your own bookstore downstairs how was the idea this is your inspiration wall no no I'm doing a biography on Stockdale right now so this is the James Stockdale? Yeah. Yeah. Like one-time vice president? Well, so that's that's what so okay so he's he is a stoic right like he's yeah he gets he gets well he gets introduced to stoicism at Stanford uh-huh he's the Navy sends him for a post-grad degree in his like early 30s and he he he's walking through the philosophy department where he's not taking classes and this professor's is Philip Rhinelander, who had been in the Navy.

23:22He sees him and he thinks he's like a professor. And they're just talking and then he finds out he's in the Navy and he gives him, let me see if I have it. He gives him this, I have it somewhere, this edition of Epictetus, I guess I put it somewhere. But gives him a copy of Epictetus. And that's what he's reading in his bunk on the carrier like the day that he takes off. and so he famously is testing stoicism in the laboratory but i've been uh i'm he's a he's like i mean so he's born in 23 so he's kind of born in this like we tend to think of the vietnam guys as being of a certain generation yeah but he's like 38 when he gets shot down so he's he he graduates He graduates in 46 from the Naval Academy.

24:13So he's technically like a World War II guy. Yeah. He's in Jimmy Carter's class at the Naval Academy. So he's kind of like in this elite circles, but he's never the main guy. Bill Crow is his roommate. So anyways, one of his classmates goes on to run the CIA. So he's kind of always, but he's never the main guy until he gets shot down in the war. But the crazy thing is, which I haven't gotten to yet because I'm still, Korea hasn't happened in the book where I am. But he is in the air the night of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Oh, really? And reports that nothing happens. So I'm fascinated by this.

25:05That's incredible. So you spend seven years as a prisoner of war being tortured to give up your secrets. Yeah. And you have the most explosive secret there could possibly be. Yeah. that not only is it an explosive secret, but it would make you doubt whether you should be loyal to the country that you are currently giving your life to not betray. And he knew the consequences of the secret he held when he was shooting at them? He gives his memo, he's like, we were shooting at ghosts, there's nothing there. But yeah, I haven't quite gotten there, so I don't know exactly. But there's this, he has this terrible secret, and I'm interested in how he wrestles with that secret in the midst of the whole thing.

25:58And then his wife is obviously very interesting because she sort of goes to war with the Nixon administration about it. And then... Wait, so he's in prison 65 to 72? Yeah, so he also, so the idea that he's born, he's born kind of, like his, his one of his aunts attends the Lincoln-Douglas debates. So like, he's of that era, right? Like it's crazy, you know, so like I'm presenting him as this kind of man from the past, and then so he goes in in 65 when Vietnam is still not the Vietnam, like what's the famous New Yorker piece that kind of blows it open, but Vietnam, he, obviously there's problems with it, but it's not the same thing.

26:44So he goes in in 65, he comes out in 72, like he's this kind of Rip Van Winkle character where he misses all of it. And his war is at 30 ,000 feet, not at, he's not like watching people clean out the right bodies. And he also misses the whole career of Jimi Hendrix. Yes. So when he comes back, his son, who was like in middle school, is now at college protests against the war. And so, yeah, so it's this fascinating arc. And then the political thing at the end is this kind of weird story because the reason he has this debt to Perot, because Perot does all this work for the prisoners while they're in there, takes care of their families.

27:38He sends the plane that picks them up. So when he says, hey, do you want to be my vice president? He's like, he feels duty bound. So he kind of is, and then he gets up there and he thinks he's asking this philosophical question. Like he was like, who am I? Why am I here? Like he wanted to say like, I'm not a politician. I'm a whatever. And then we just laugh him off the stage. Yeah. So that's the arc of his life. Cool. That's great. That's great. I love that you're doing that. That's an interesting project. Yeah, we'll see. It may even work. That's why I'm fascinated by the Buckley book, because it's another book about a not well-known person, but it's interesting.

28:22One of the things that I loved about getting to write about Nixon and Canada is that I felt like studying their lives made me smarter every day, just understanding how they made choices and what they did. Have you read this guy at all? He's written for The Atlantic. I have not read this. from the old days. He's one of Emerson's friends. So he is a translator of Epictetus in the 1860s, and then he raises and leads one of the first black regiments in the Civil War. Wow. And he wrote a book about it too, which I forget what it's called, but this is a collection of his, this has probably got some of his Atlantic pieces.

29:01Nice. Let's see. It's nice to have a history that you can be proud of this publication. Because it's not true of all of them. No, no, of course. Some of them, they published some real shitty people. Yeah. We published some shitty people too in like the 1890s. Oh, like who? We had some severe anti-immigration pieces. Interesting. Yeah. Like there was a real kind of spasm of racism in the publication. Like the editor was a, I can't remember exactly what it's called, I can't remember the guy's name, but it was, you know, like... Oh, like a Ghazi or whatever? Basically, close that nylon, right? Like, stop letting these smelly people in.

29:38Huh. Yeah. In fact, there's a famous poem that is, like, the poem used by an anti-immigrant crowd that was written by an editor at the Atlantic. Oh, and then his other thing is he discovers and publishes Emily Dickinson. Oh, good work. Yeah. Good work. Does he mention it? Like, the Atlantic? I'm sure. Dickinson. Atlantic Essays, Higginson's. There you go. Atlantic Monthly Magazine. Cool. Yeah. But he's like, that's sort of, to me again, the tradition of like the Stokes being active and engaged in a way that we don't think of. It's writing career advanced by invitation to be among the first regular writers to the newly founded periodical, the Atlantic Monthly.

30:17There you go. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks. I think we should have to take a picture and then you're, let's do it. I read a lot. It's sort of my job. You can't write without reading. for almost 15 years now. Once a month, I send out an email with my favorite book recommendations for that month. Books that I've been reading, books that I've been going through, books that changed my life, that inspired me, that I think connect to what's happening in the world. And you can sign up right now at ryanholiday.net slash reading list.

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