BONUS | Ryan Holiday's Best Book Recommendations for Dr. Becky Kennedy

After recording their episode at The Daily Stoic Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-feel-everything-without-losing-control-dr-becky/id1430315931?i=1000773232027 studio, Ryan and Dr. Becky https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside/?hl=en headed next door to The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/, where Ryan shared a few must-read book recommendations. Listen to the full podcast episode with Dr. Becky Kennedy 👉 Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-feel-everything-without-losing-control-dr-becky/id1430315931?i=1000773232027 | Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6oxfHqiIn9HYBmRWM8gNSJ 🎥 Watch this episode on Ryan's YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6lJyfrGlo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6lJyfrGlo 📚 You can grab a copy of all the books mentioned in this video at Ryan's bookstore, The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/ 📕 Grab signed copies of Dr. Becky’s books Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/good-inside-a-guide-to-becoming-the-parent-you-want-to-be-signed-by-author?_pos=3&_sid=f70897e32&_ss=r and Leave Me Alone!: A Good Inside Story About Deeply Feeling Kids https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/leave-me-alone-a-good-inside-story-about-deeply-feeling-kids-signed-by-author?_pos=4&_sid=f70897e32&_ss=r at The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/good-inside-a-guide-to-becoming-the-parent-you-want-to-be-signed-by-author?_pos=3&_sid=f70897e32&_ss=r |https://www.thepaintedporch.com/ https://www.thepaintedporch.com/search?type=product&q=dr+becky* Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and the founder and CEO of Good Inside https://www.goodinside.com/, a parenting platform that gives parents practical tools for raising emotionally healthy kids. Named “The Millennial Parenting Whisperer” by TIME, Dr. Becky is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/good-inside-a-guide-to-becoming-the-parent-you-want-to-be-signed-by-author?_pos=3&_sid=f70897e32&_ss=rand host of the chart-topping podcast Good Inside with Dr. Becky https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-inside-with-dr-becky/id1561689671?at=1000lHKX&ct=linktree_http&itsct=lt_p&itscg=30200&ls=1. 👉 Follow Dr. Becky | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside/?hl=en, TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@drbeckyatgoodinside, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQcifo_12x84Uji6h1TVmKg, Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-inside-with-dr-becky/id1561689671?at=1000lHKX&ct=linktree_http&itsct=lt_p&itscg=30200&ls=1, Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/1paqsvlLA7b5n0MFmo5xOq 💡 Check out Dr. Becky’s community and platform for parents https://www.goodinside.com/: Good Inside https://www.goodinside.com/ ✉️ Sign up for Ryan’s free monthly reading list newsletter: https://ryanholiday.net/reading-list/ 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?

  Other than yours, do you have any favorite parenting books?

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness. I mean, I'm looking at these. You know, I love Emily Oster. I love Adult Children of a Motion Immature Parent. She's coming out with a new book soon.

• 0:25Ryan Holiday?

  She's amazing. That's such a crazy book because it was like basically self-published and just became this sort of word-of-mouth enormous thing.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Eva Rosky is a friend, and I love her work. I love siblings without rivalry and how to talk to your you know, how to talk to your kids to listen, listen to your listen to your kids to talk.

• 0:40Ryan Holiday?

  Have you read this one?

• 0:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 0:43Ryan Holiday?

  So Kafka had a difficult relationship with his father. He's an artistic kid. His father was this businessman. They never got along. Towards the end of his life, he writes this letter that where he sort of lays it out. I sort of compare it to like Family Day at Rehab, where you finally talk about all the shit that you weren't there are secrets, and he writes this letter. And he gives it to his mom, and she, of course, doesn't give it to the dad, which it gives you an insight into the family dynamic. But it's like, it's a beautiful book because he's such a great writer. And he just really captures like that sort of when there isn't that parent-child fit, like when the personalities don't line up and how tough that is for both parties. It's beautiful.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Oh, great. Thank you.

• 1:26Ryan Holiday?

  It's

• 1:27Speaker 01

  I love Eliza, too.

• 1:28Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, she's been here. I think about like, what are parenting books that like people don't think of as parenting books? Like The Road. Have you read The Road?

• 1:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:36Ryan Holiday?

  You've never read The Road?

• 1:37Speaker 01

  No, I'm embarrassed now.

• 1:39Ryan Holiday?

  This, this, it hits different once you have kids. But it's a father and a son. It's sort of the end of the world. And he's just trying, he's desperately trying to get his, you know, nine-year-old to the, to the coast. They, everything's falling apart. He doesn't know. He has no plan. Just trying to get them away. And it's all this stuff along the way. It's heartbreaking and beautiful. And the famous image in the book is he's and a kid repeats it to him. He's like, we're carrying the fire. And the fire is goodness, like, like in this world where people are eating each other and killing each other and all. It's like the parent's job is to help them. That they're one of the good guys, that and they're carrying the fire. It's beautiful. So I think it like that. I love this. I give this book to a lot of people, too. I don't know if you read that.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  I haven't.

• 2:26Ryan Holiday?

  Because that's what I think we're trying to, we're trying to raise outdoor kids.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 2:30Ryan Holiday?

  All right, so that's, that's parenting.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  I really like Everything is Tremendous inside.

• 2:39Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, my God, shoot.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  John Green's.

• 2:41Ryan Holiday?

  Incredible book.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  So good. So interesting.

• 2:44Ryan Holiday?

  It's like the, like when somebody writes about something that like, you could tell their publisher didn't want them to write about, and they didn't think it would have any, but they are just so obsessed with it and that only they could have written that book.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  He's amazing. I'm sure you've

• 2:56Ryan Holiday?

  So good.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  You've met him. He's so impressive.

• 2:58Ryan Holiday?

  I have. Actually, Samantha is who told me about your books. She's looking for a fiction, fiction recommendation.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. So nice to meet you.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  What kind of fiction?

• 3:09Speaker 01

  I don't know. You know, the last book I put down as fiction is The Wedding People. Oh, I love The Wedding People. I love the characters. I was sad to see them go at the end, you know? It's over.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  The main character's journey. That one really surprised me. I read the whole thing on a

• 3:23Speaker 01

  They do? Yeah. Like, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? Is that what it's called? Like back?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Like, that was like, it reminds me of that. I just didn't want to put it down. Have you read her new book? I actually have it. I know she does. No, I haven't. Is it great?

• 3:34Ryan Holiday?

  So, yes, very good. She was just here, but we have a sign. A sign. So the, the main character is a stoic philosopher.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Amazing. Okay.

• 3:43Ryan Holiday?

  She, yeah, she, I got a call from Oprah's people to ask me to come, and I was like, how did you hear about my stuff? And they were like, well, we just did Maria's book, and she told us about you. So she just sort of blew my life up, which was very cool. You'll love it. It's very good.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Did you give her Raising Hair?

• 4:01Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, yeah. Have you read Raising Hair?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:03Ryan Holiday?

  All right, we'll do that in a second. This is another Stoic, but it's a novel. This is Memoirs of Hadrian. It's the fictional memoirs of Hadrian preparing Marcus Aurelius to be emperor. So, and, and he's, he's adopted him as his son. But it's beautiful, by this French novelist. It's one of those books that like was famous a long time ago, and then people sort of lost it. Very beautiful. All right, we actually have a copy of Raising Hair here. This is, so during the pandemic, she moves to this country house in London, and she finds like a baby rabbit, a wild hair.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Wild rabbit?

• 4:43Ryan Holiday?

  Yes, it's a wild hair. You're not allowed to get it. But I can't pronounce the word. What is?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Leverett?

• 4:48Ryan Holiday?

  Is it a leverett? I just, it's, is it a leverett? It's a, she raises it. It's all about doing, it's, it's very good.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Amazing. Thank you.

• 4:56Ryan Holiday?

  What do you have, Samantha?

• 4:57Speaker 02

  I have copies like these, and I want to do well.

• 5:00Ryan Holiday?

  Have you, have you read Claire Deegan?

• 5:02Speaker 02

  No.

• 5:04Ryan Holiday?

  Very good. I gave her The Road. It has a similar scene to The Road, but it's very good. A nice little short one.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Incredible. Thank you. So great.

• 5:14Ryan Holiday?

  Do you think of anything else?

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Totochon.

• 5:17Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, have you read Totochon?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 5:18Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, we have to do Totochon.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  I have a lot of no's. I haven't read a one-minute book. No, very, really poorly read. Oh, right here.

• 5:32Ryan Holiday?

  Oh, okay. Oh, last one.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 5:35Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, so Totochon, she is basically the Oprah of Japan.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:40Ryan Holiday?

  Like, this book sold like 10 million copies in Japan, which is like an insane number. So, but she is, she's this little sort of precocious, creative kid in World War II-era Japan. And it's about this untraditional school she goes to with this kind of like amazing, amazing, how would you describe it? Did I get it right?

• 6:03Speaker 02

  I think it's a school that just beats her where she is. So they're kind of, they, I think she didn't feel like she fit in or found a place, and she was miserable in the situation she was in. And then she found a school that celebrated her for her. And it made her feel, I mean, it's like literally a very, very good book. And I think on part with your message.

• 6:20Ryan Holiday?

  I think it's hard for an adult to write a book about what it was like to be them as a kid. And somehow miraculously does that. It's like, it captures what it is to be that kind of kid. It gives you a lot of sympathy for that.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  What is my like hit rate compared to most people? I feel like everything, like, nope, haven't read that. No, no, no.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  I don't think a lot of people have read very many of the books that were

• 6:44Ryan Holiday?

  We try to find books like, like the ones where we're like, oh, you would love this, and you've not heard of it.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Oh, great. Great.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  But you were, like, I think because I'm familiar with the material, it's very easy for my books to.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  And there's things that like, I think that I'm, if I've read and digested your book, but I'm reading other books, if I know that there's a tie between two or for two, we something.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Like, I would say I didn't see it over Wild Dark Shores. That was like, have you read that? That is like not, it's not a parenting book. It is fiction. It was very much about this like single dad's experience with his kids in a weird situation.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I love, I love books like that. Like, what is the book with the kid who like dies in the ice? And do you know what I mean? In that pond, and it's like a whole family's all waiting to talk about it. It's by an author who wrote some other books, too. But yes, anything where there's like family dynamics, like so

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Is that the same author?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  It is. It's

• 7:41Speaker 02

  By Wild Dark Shores?

• 7:42Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. But yeah, like Family Dynamics.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  Seeing the family dynamic, I'm like, there's so many parenting lessons. If I couldn't get somebody to read a parenting book, this is the book that would happen.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Wild Dark Shores. But I also, and I was like, high school, but that's just

• 7:58Speaker 02

  I'll see if I can find it.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Okay, thank you.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  We also really like recommending books to people.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  I mean, great. I will take all of the recommendations. Now I know who to check.

• 8:08Ryan Holiday?

  The idea of the bookstore is it's only our favorite books. So a typical bookstore this size would have a lot more titles than we have.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:16Ryan Holiday?

  So these are just ones that we really love. Have you read What Makes Matty Run?

• 8:21Speaker 01

  No, but I love sports stuff.

• 8:22Ryan Holiday?

  This is a tragic book, but I give it to all the coaches that come in. It's about this, like, all-American cross-country athlete commits suicide. And it's, what happens? Why? What did everyone miss? What, and it's like, you can see

• 8:41Speaker 01

  It's hard to connect the dots.

• 8:42Ryan Holiday?

  You can start to connect it, and then, and yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a very haunting but powerful book. I'd really like that.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  My 14-year-old is a, and my 11-year-old, a big, big reader. So I feel like he, and he reads a lot of, he actually gave me everything. It's super killer.

• 8:57Ryan Holiday?

  Really?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:58Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, then he would like, does he play sports?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:00Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, but this is

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Oh, amazing.

• 9:02Ryan Holiday?

  Crispo's book. Letters to a Young Artist.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  He's a basketball player.

• 9:05Ryan Holiday?

  Okay, there you go. Do that one. Do that one. And then this, he was my mentor. I worked on this book with him. But he's the one that brought, so he, he brings Jordan to Nike.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:17Ryan Holiday?

  So the two sort of crisscrosses of his life. He's, he's, he's on the, he's working security in March in Washington. And as Martin Luther King Jr. walks down the stairs, he goes, Dr. King, that was an amazing speech. And, and he hands him the speech. And so he owned the I Have a Dream speech.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:39Ryan Holiday?

  And then if that, so that was the only part of his life. You'd be like, what an incredible life.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:43Ryan Holiday?

  He becomes a basketball coach. He works on the, the 84 Olympic team. And he's the one that goes, hey, Michael, I think you should give Nike another look. And that's where that comes from. He's an incredible dude. So you'd like, I think your son would like those, too.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Great. Thank you.

• 9:57Ryan Holiday?

  If you want more book recommendations, I send these out in my reading list newsletter, which I've sent out every month for 15 years. And you can sign up at ryanholiday.net/readinglist.