BONUS | The Novels Every Stoic Should Read

After recording in studio for The Daily Stoic Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Sa0BpdHf8, Ryan and Maria Semple went next door to The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/ to talk about the Stoic-themed novels everyone should read. 📚 Books: Moviegoer https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/moviegoer?_pos=1&_sid=cf41283f9&_ss=rMemoirs of Hadrian https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/fiction22?_pos=1&_sid=aabd2fc9d&_ss=rStoner https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/stoner-new-york-review-books-classics?_pos=1&_sid=57e61ab01&_ss=rA Man in Full https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/man-in-full?_pos=2&_sid=3d4baaa9b&_ss=rJulius Caesar https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/julius-caesar-the-pelican-shakespeare?_pos=2&_sid=f24791226&_ss=r 🎥 Want more book recs? Check out the full list that Ryan put together for Maria on his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1fhk-7PHN4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1fhk-7PHN4 🎙️Listen to the full episode with Maria Semple on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-5-step-stoic-routine-for-clear-thinking-maria-semple/id1430315931?i=1000761761546, Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/2IZH3QT6jXDP17nvSp4B2i, or watch it onYouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Sa0BpdHf8 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.

• 0:00Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues: courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

• 0:15Ryan Holiday?

  So we were talking other Stoic-themed novels, and you only knew about Man in Full?

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:20Ryan Holiday?

  There are many more.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 0:22Ryan Holiday?

  One of which I told Oprah about. She said she loved your book. So, so obviously, one of the most famous probably Stoic novels is Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full, which is very epictetus-themed.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:36Ryan Holiday?

  But have you read Walker Percy's The Moviegoer?

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, no, but I've been meaning to. I have no idea that it had a Stoic theme.

• 0:43Ryan Holiday?

  No, so his character Aunt-

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Oh, crazy.

• 0:45Ryan Holiday?

  The character Aunt Emily is very Stoic, Stoic-themed. Let me find it, if I can find this. She has this amazing passage.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  That's like everybody's favorite book, and I haven't read it yet.

• 0:56Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, no, no, it's incredible. So his uncle introduces him to Stoic philosophy. His parents both commit suicide or die in accidents, and he's adopted by his uncle, three boys. And he's this sort of poet in Mississippi, and he introduces him to Stoicism. And there's this one, she sends him this note. I wish I could find it.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:19Ryan Holiday?

  But anyway, she, very Stoic-themed, so that's one.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:24Ryan Holiday?

  This is the other famous one. You haven't read Memoirs of Hadrian? This is a beautiful novel. This is the one I told Oprah about.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Oh, Shirley Hazard, that's Adora Hazard. I use the last name from Shirley Hazard. Oh, wow.

• 1:38Ryan Holiday?

  But, okay, this is, it's fictional, but it feels real. Like, it's one of those things where you-

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Oh, see, that's why I think I haven't read it, because it's like a docudrama.

• 1:46Ryan Holiday?

  But it's Hadrian as if he's writing down his memoirs for the benefit of Marcus Aurelius.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Okay, that's amazing. Okay, I don't know this book.

• 1:54Ryan Holiday?

  You'll love it.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Okay, great, amazing.

• 1:56Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, so we could do, have you ever read Ambrose Bierce? He has like the greatest short story of all time, an occurrence of Owl Creek, at Owl Creek.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Oh, right, I know that one, I know that one.

• 2:05Ryan Holiday?

  So, this is, this is the Ambrose Bierce thing. Ambrose Bierce's father is named Lucius Verus Bierce.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:11Ryan Holiday?

  And his uncle is named Marcus Aurelius Bierce.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Whoa, they were committed, yeah.

• 2:15Ryan Holiday?

  And, and so, he's very stoic themed, there's, there's this great, um, there's this great story in here, it's one of my favorites. Uh, it's called Parker, Addison, Philosopher.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:25Ryan Holiday?

  And it's this guy who's about, you can take this one.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Okay, is this mine?

• 2:27Ryan Holiday?

  Yeah, I'm picking it up.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  I'm gonna start, okay.

• 2:29Ryan Holiday?

  So, he's about to be executed, um, and he's like, sort of being very stoic.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Which one? A philosopher?

• 2:35Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, Parker Addison, philosopher. So, he, you know, he, they're gonna, uh, sorry, you're gonna be, um, you know, you're captured, you're gonna be put to death. Um, and he's, he's being very stoic about it, and he's telling him death doesn't matter, he's not afraid, he's, he's willing to die for his country, blah, blah, and then sort of towards the end, he goes, "And of course, we'll be hanging you as a spy." And he freaks out, and he's like, and it turns out, it's all, it's a, the, the message of the story is that it's all, it's very easy to pose as the philosopher, until it gets real. And then it gets real, and it's a sort of poking fight, but it's a great, it's a great story.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  It's like you, you become a Christian in the, in the trenches.

• 3:10Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, exactly.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11Ryan Holiday?

  Uh, John Williams, who wrote Stoner, this is about, about this, so.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  I own this, but I love Stoner.

• 3:16Ryan Holiday?

  Extremely stoic, but he does talk about Athenodorus, who was the, a stoic teacher who's his advisor. So, it's a little suspending of stoicism. Let me see if we have Julius Caesar, um, just that I mentioned it.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  The play?

• 3:30Ryan Holiday?

  The play.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  I read the play recently, but I don't remember that.

• 3:32Ryan Holiday?

  So, yeah, so Portia Cato and Cato are the two stoic, the two stoic themes in that one.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  You know, Julius Caesar, I always thought was like the beginner's play, it's so good though.

• 3:40Ryan Holiday?

  It's incredible.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  I just, I read it maybe two years ago, after reading it in, in high school, and thinking it was just like a Romeo, I mean Romeo and Juliet is great also, but they're all great, but I, I was, I just rediscovered it.

• 3:52Ryan Holiday?

  But you kind of skip over like, oh wait, there's a female stoic character in, in, in Portia Cato, like she, like, cause Brutus gets all the attention, cause he does the deed, but it's like Brutus is actually wavering, and it's in real life, it's, Portia is like, no, no, you gotta do that, so there's this kind of, and she's, she's Cato, the stoic philosopher.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Do you ever, uh, listen to Philosophize This, uh, Stephen West? Oh my god, it's like, he's my philosopher king.

• 4:18Ryan Holiday?

  Okay.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  He's so good, he's a philo, he's a philosopher, he- He, what you do to Stoicism, he kind of brings-

• 4:25Ryan Holiday?

  Philosophy generally?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and brings it into modern day situations. But now he's going through Shakespeare's works. And he did Julius Caesar through the lens of philosophy at the time. And how, how Shakespeare really knew his philosophy deeply. And it's just about how it's, it really is a kind of an allegory for, for the battling different philosophical systems is what the play of Julius Caesar is.

• 4:47Ryan Holiday?

  Well, I mean, he's taking it from Plutarch. Shakespeare's taking it from Plutarch, which he's read.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:52Ryan Holiday?

  And Plutarch is, writes a bunch about, it's sort of critical of Stoicism. But it's like, uh, Shakespeare was so good at mining source material and getting the essence of it and then fictionalizing it. Speaking of which, Thornton Wilder also wrote a, a novel about Julius Caesar called The Ides of March.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, okay, that's good, okay, amazing.

• 5:10Ryan Holiday?

  I don't know if we have it. I'm trying to think-

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Oh, please, no, it's, I mean, there's an abundance of riches.