Can You Get Inside? | The Top Books Ryan Holiday Recommends

Marcus Aurelius wrote about how the philosopher is one with their weapon—like a boxer, more than a swordsman. A boxer just clenches their fist. A fencer has to pick something up. Through repetition, through absorption, we're trying to fuse ourselves with our philosophy. 📕 The Daily Stoic eBook https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HNJIJB2?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true is on sale for $2.99! Grab yours now at dailystoic.com/discount https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HNJIJB2?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_F4DFB52S5WNSN0VE4HJC&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true 📔 Pick up your own leather bound signed edition ofThe Daily Stoic https://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-daily-stoic-leatherbound-signed-edition! Check it out at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ https://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-daily-stoic-leatherbound-signed-edition 📚 Pick up a copy of any of the books mentioned in today's episode at Ryan Holiday's bookstore,The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/ 👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ 🎥 Watch the video episodes onThe Daily Stoic YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos:https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast onInstagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast/?hl=en:https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail 🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store:https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📱 Follow us: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/,Twitter https://twitter.com/dailystoic,YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic,TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic?lang=en, andFacebook https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome 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, 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.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Can you get inside? Marcus Aurelius read Epictetus so many times, it became a part of him. Chrysippus loved the play Medea so much and quoted from it so often that he joked that one of his essays was "The Medea of Chrysippus." And of course, it's not just philosophers who do this. Musicians fall in love with songs from other artists and make them their own. Johnny Cash did this with "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails. Luke Combs did this more recently with Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car." The musician Phoebe Bridgers sings about this on her song "Chinese Satellite", which we also have done a Daily Stoic email about. And in fact, on her album Stranger in the Alps, she covers the song "You Missed My Heart."

• 1:40Ryan Holiday?

  And as she explains about it in an interview, "I have this thing where I listen to songs over and over again, if I like them a lot, and I have to listen to that song over and over and over." And then she says, she was like, "I just have to play this. It's an extra level," she says, "I have to get inside it." She said the song totally resonated with her, and she just couldn't stop listening to it. And you could say that this is what we need to do with the Stoics, not just read them, but get inside them. Marcus Aurelius wrote about how the philosopher is one with their weapon, like a boxer more than a swordsman. Boxer just clenches their fist, he says, while fencer has to pick something up.

• 2:22Ryan Holiday?

  Through repetition, through absorption, we are trying to fuse ourselves with our philosophy, to make it instant, to make it instinctive, to make it inseparable from who we are. And this is why Seneca urged us to linger among a limited number of master thinkers and digest their works, not skim, not sample, but digest till the wisdom takes firm hold inside you, never to be dislodged. I've said before that the Stoics aren't something you have read. They should be something that you are reading, right? Always, at every age, at every era in your life, ideally every day, just a little bit here or there. The world's always changing.

• 3:06Ryan Holiday?

  The texts stay the same, and yet we get something new out of them each time we pick them up. And that's what The Daily Stoic was designed to be, right? Not just the email, but the book itself, right? One page a day that you read out for a year and then never touch again, but ideally year after year. And people have been doing that now for 10 years, which is absolutely crazy to me. I've seen books that are falling apart at the seams. I've seen people bring me their new leather edition, which they're like, I just, I burned my other copy out and I needed a new one. That's the idea. Year after year after year, you're supposed to come back to the Stoics. The Daily Stoic is discounted to $2.99 right now. They're doing a little special for the new year.

• 3:49Ryan Holiday?

  Grab that on Amazon or iBooks, wherever you get your eBooks. And if you want to sign to the leather edition, you can grab that at store.dailystoic.com. I'll link to that in today's show notes.

• 4:11Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, so the perk of having your own bookstore is that you get to give people books that you know they're gonna love. I'm Ryan Holiday and people come from all over the world to our little bookstore here in Bastrop, Texas, right outside Austin, which was my wife and I's dream to open about five years ago. Whether people are strangers passing through, old friends, people here to do the Daily Stoic Podcast, my favorite thing is walking through the bookstore and picking out books that I think they're gonna love. And so, over the years, I have recommended a lot of books, and that's what we're gonna do in today's video. I'm gonna show you some of my absolute favorite books in all different categories that I think you're gonna like.

• 4:49Ryan Holiday?

  Some books that are so good you'll have trouble believing that they're true, but they are, and they're so well-written they'll rip your face off. Literally, that's true for this one. This is Night of the Grizzlies, which is about a series of grizzly bear attacks that happened on one night in 1967 in Glacier National Park, the first time it had ever happened in the park. When you read about the lead-up to it happening, you realize it was inevitable. Like, they would have shows where they would feed the bears' trash every night, and then they let people camp right next to the shows. Mind-blowing. Of course, the best animal versus man's narrative nonfiction book is The Tiger by John Valant. I just can't tell you how good this story is. If you haven't read it, I don't know what you're doing with your life. I just read Marriage at Sea, which is about

• 5:31Ryan Holiday?

  this couple sailing from London to New Zealand, and then halfway through, a whale sinks their boat. Like, really like Moby Dick, which is also what In the Heart of the Sea is about, like, the true story of Moby Dick, but that hundreds of years later, basically, the same thing would happen again, and they spend many, many days in this inflatable raft. They catch turtles and sharks, and they somehow manage to survive against all odds. And it's this sort of interesting look at their marriage that is under strain throughout all of it. Absolutely incredible. Stranger in the Woods and The Art Thief, both written by the same guy. This guy steals literally billions of dollars' worth of art from tiny museums all across Europe, and then he just keeps them in

• 6:15Ryan Holiday?

  His apartment until I won't spoil it incredible and then one day some guy just drives off into the woods in Maine and then he doesn't come out for 27 years everyone knew there was someone who was breaking into their houses and stealing supplies and there were whispers and rumors of it but no one saw him just absolutely incredible book this is the black count about a black general in Napoleon's army who also just happened to be the father of Alexander Dumas Three Musketeers the Count of Monte Cristo incredible book and let's close this out with the river of doubt about Theodore Roosevelt exploring a river in South America where he almost dies post presidency just mind blowing and by the way he took a copy of Epictetus with him books with shitty titles

• 6:59Ryan Holiday?

  that are actually great and this is called the Colossus of Merus I don't even know how you say this word but it's actually Henry Miller the novelist the controversial novelist wrote like one of the greatest travel books of all time and this is this sort of rhapsodic beautiful book about traveling through Greece as World War II is breaking out I discovered this when I was in Greece I'd never heard of it and probably never heard of it because it has a shitty title it should just be called Henry Miller travels through Greece or something like that I don't know you can't do worse than what he has invisible man one of the great novels of all time but everyone thinks you're thinking the invisible man they think like is this literally about an invisible

• 7:41Ryan Holiday?

  man no this is about figuratively an invisible man one of the all time great novels by Ralph Ellison that everyone should read and people don't because they think they read it or they think they know that it's about the guy with the bandages all over notes to John this book sounds incredibly boring but it's actually one of the greatest writers of all time writing these letters to her husband their notes from therapy sessions as her daughter is drinking herself to death but it's also a reflection on Didion's early life and her childhood and her child's early life this was a controversial book when it came out most of Didion's books like a year of magical thinking and Blue Knights most of her books have amazing titles but she obviously wasn't alive to choose this title maybe she would

• 8:25Ryan Holiday?

  I don't believe you even published it, but it's a great book with a not so good title. Here are some books that aren't movies, but they should be. Tunnel 29, about people in West Germany tunneling under the wall to help people from East Germany escape. And then actually, a documentary crew from CBS was funding the tunnel without telling their superiors. Like, just super good, amazing book about the Cold War. Like, just fantastic. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel is insane about this guy that steals nearly a billion dollars of art from tiny museums across Europe, and then he hides it in his apartment. It is an insane book that you almost cannot believe it's happening. What Makes Sammy Run by Bud Schulberg, who wrote On the Waterfront.

• 9:07Ryan Holiday?

  This is one of the famous Hollywood novels that Hollywood has been trying to turn into a movie for decades. I think Ben Stiller had the rights for a really long time. I was just reading in the New York Times yesterday that Jason Bloom, it's his dream to make this into a movie. It's one of my favorite novels. It would make a great movie. So as a bookstore owner, unfortunately, one rule about books is usually the better the title, the worse the book is. But there are some exceptions to this rule, and I'm gonna give you some books with incredible titles that live up to how good the title is. Fish That Ate the Whale, incredible title. It's about a little company swallowing a big company. Or The Little Guy Beating the Big Guy, David and Goliath. This is about the creator of United Fruit. I know maybe that doesn't think, doesn't seem like it would be interesting, but it is absolutely incredible.

• 9:47Ryan Holiday?

  Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller. I won't spoil what it's about, but the idea is, like, fish don't exist as a category. They're not related as animals at all. Like, salmon has nothing in common with another fish, except for they all live in the ocean. But we don't have a category of animals that live on mountains. So, uh, one of the insights is that fish don't exist, but it's about this crazy taxidermist and his life's work. I can't tell you how good this book is, but it's very good. Forget the Alamo, great title, great book. Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi. Not many people know about this book, but it is a crazy memoir of a riverboat gambler in the 1800s. A Confederacy of Dunces, of course, incredible novel by John Kennedy Toole.

• 10:29Ryan Holiday?

  The Epigraph, When a True Genius Appears in the World, You Will Know Him by This Sign, That the Dunces are all in a Confederacy Against Him. That's Jonathan Swift. But he means it satirically because Ignatius Riley is a dunce. By Grand Central Station, I sat down and wet. What a fucking title. Uh, this book is a fever dream, but it is beautiful and it lives up to the title. Although I gotta be honest, I don't totally understand what happens. Everything is tuberculosis. Crazy title, crazy good book. The Baby on the Fire Escape, which is about female artists, also very good. Oh, How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes, that's the whole job. These are books that are totally weird stylistically, but absolutely amazing.

• 11:13Ryan Holiday?

  This is a biography of Edison by Edmund Morris. He wrote an amazing biography of Theodore Roosevelt, but it's in reverse chronological order. Towards the end, as at the beginning, he lived only on milk. I've never read a biography like that. I don't know why he decided to do it, but it fucking works. Alright, Charing Cross Road is, this would seem so boring. Some lady in New York is looking for an old out of print book, and she starts writing letters to a rare bookseller in the UK, right after World War II. And this is their letters back and forth as this friendship emerges. They never actually meet, and yet somehow they strike up this, not just lovely friendship,

• 11:57Ryan Holiday?

  but it captures all the things that are amazing about books and what's happening in the world right then, because Britain is reeling from the Second World War. Just an amazing book. I actually went to Charing Cross Road not that long ago. It's now McDonald's. Okay, so there's basically never been a book like this ever in human history. You have the most powerful man in the world writing private notes to himself, never thinking they're gonna be published. And somehow it turns out, this book where it is ultra-specific, a guy thousands of years ago worshipped as a god, controlling the largest army on earth, unlimited wealth, there are literally statues of him everywhere,

• 12:39Ryan Holiday?

  is writing these thoughts about virtue, about honor, about how no one's gonna ever remember him, and that fame doesn't matter. And yet, from this specificity comes one of the most relatable and accessible works in all of philosophy.

• 12:53Ryan Holiday?

  Just an absolutely amazing book. Everyone should read. He'd probably be mortified that we're even reading it. It was not intended for our eyes. But again, because of that, it's so honest and authentic and unperformative. So there aren't a lot of very good books in the second person. But Walker Percy's Lancelot is. It starts, "Come into my cell. Make yourself at home. Take the chair. I'll sit on the cot. No, you prefer to stand in the window? I understand." It is a man who has committed an unspeakable crime, confessing to a priest in his cell, looking out over a cemetery in New Orleans. I actually have the opening page of this book, signed by Walker Percy, on the wall in my office.

• 13:38Ryan Holiday?

  But this, and maybe Brightlight's Big City, are the only two good second-person novels. Of course, lightning round. The road doesn't have any punctuation in it. That's weird. I might throw James on there. I mean, stylistically, it's not that weird, but it is taking one of the great classic novels, Huckleberry Finn, and doing it from the perspective of what was previously a minor character. But then you get Jim, James, the slave, from his perspective. And it turns out, he is incredibly well-read and articulate, and he's just been putting on an act. Lovely book. This is also a series of letters, but it's between two German art dealers, one Jewish, one not. And it tracks their friendship as one goes in one political direction

• 14:22Ryan Holiday?

  and the other goes in another direction. And to me, it is a beautiful, very important novel on radicalization and what fascism and bigotry can do to a person. And then we should probably give a nod to Montaigne, who, before this, no one had written an essay before. Obviously, now, the idea of just riffing on a handful of topics and using them as a jumping-off point to speak philosophically about something, it's obviously very well-established because what was once transgressive became commonplace. But if you haven't read Montaigne's essays, you should. They have been a staple for more than 500 years. Some great biographies of women that you should read. I've read many, many books about Churchill,

• 15:07Ryan Holiday?

  but Sonia Purnell's biography of his wife, Clementine, is incredible. Churchill would say that his greatest accomplishment was getting his wife to marry him, because none of the other accomplishments would have been possible without it. I think he's very right. This is a great book. This is Julia Barrett's bio of Queen Victoria. Again, maybe you've heard of the Victorian Age, but it doesn't seem interesting. She was an incredible woman, an incredible leader. And this book is fascinating. Really, really liked it. Another Queen biography. This one on Queen Elizabeth is very good. It's not the perfect one. I think I read something like 4,000 pages on Queen Elizabeth II when I was writing Discipline is Destiny. That one had the most of the stuff that I used, but was by no means the complete story.

• 15:51Ryan Holiday?

  Maybe you read Anne Frank's Diary when you were in elementary school or middle school or high school, but Melissa Muller did a beautiful and haunting biography of Anne Frank, who would not be that old even now, which is a haunting idea. Every year that passes, more and more people don't know what the Holocaust was, don't even know who Anne Frank is. And you have to read this book.