The Daily Stoic - BONUS | Ryan Holiday Curates a Reading List for Nick Thompson

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

After their interview, Ryan and Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic and author of The Running Ground, headed into The Painted Porch to talk about their favorite books and swap recommendations. 🎥 You can watch this episode on Ryan Holiday's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHT1krHB6Wg🎙️ Listen to Nick Thompson's episode on The Daily Stoic Podcast | Apple Podcasts, Spotify 📚 Full list of books that Ryan gave to Nick: Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall by Helena MerrimanDying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero by James RommThe Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America by Jeffrey RosenNotes to John by Joan DidionNecessary Trouble by Drew Gilpin FaustMeditations by Marcus Aurelius (Gregory Hays Translation)Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki MurakamiLetter to the Father by Franz KafkaWhat I Talk about When I Talk about Running: A Memoir by Haruki MurakamiEverything Is Tuberculosis by John Green Death Be Not Proud by John GuntherCheck out Nick’s new book The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of SportsFollow Nick on Instagram and X @NXThompson📚 Sign up for Ryan’s free monthly reading list newsletter: https://ryanholiday.net/the-reading-list/📖 Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday is out NOW! Grab a copy here: https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work👉 Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing to The Daily Stoic Premium - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content: https://dailystoic.supercast.com/🎥 Watch the video episodes on The Daily Stoic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DailyStoic/videos🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://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, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Only books that we love. These are books that my wife told me I could read and then I put off reading and then I loved them when I read them. This is amazing. That this is, this 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 turtle it's amazing. That's incredible. Super good story Because, like, they say, they had, like, a diary, so there's, like, diaries of a good chunk of a house. Amazing. This is also insane. So good. I take that one.

That's about, they're digging a tunnel from West Berlin to East Berlin to get people out. But CBS, like, 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, the guy doing the tunnel says, okay, and he has like 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 like he knows and maybe one of the, but it's, so the whole thing is... You're paying your source, but you're paying them to get out of these per list. Yeah, you're paying, 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, the 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, the, the Russians are going Oh, you're a journalist. You're okay. Right, it's fine, no problem. So the, it's crazy.

So take that one, and then here's the, I just interviewed you in Trump, but this is, this is Seneca in the Court of Hero, and it's all about this dilemma that we're talking about. Oh yeah, of course, those are for your time. Amazing, thank you. So that one, I think about that one all the time. Awesome. Awesome. Which fascinating, because then he just wrote another book if 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. involved in politics. And so he's like the teacher of this tyrant who he's trying to convert to democracy. But really he's the tyrant is just using his reputation to make people think he's more democratic than he did. 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 and you understand this stuff more 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 that they're doing. The dynamic between Nitz and Reagan, where he's like a democratic establishment, like, Cold Warrior. Oh, he's working at the Reagan administration. Reagan administration can't be too hawkish.

He's California people. Exactly. And so, yeah, it's in... Not that Reagan was a murdererism. No, no, of course. No, it's the analog that gives you the kind of insight. So that one's really good. This book on Churchill and his son is interesting.

I haven't read that one. I've read a good bit about Churchill, but I haven't read. I love Robert Wright's stuff. Oh, that book is so good. His whole, I saw that you had. The moral animal is very good. 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. Really? Yeah. He was here. He didn't tell me this. Yeah, well, he just, he was like a brief period of his life. of his life he was like near Olympic trials level kind of amazing right yeah yeah wow I did not know I saw his YouTube video on the in the time of dying but I

happen 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 yeah and my favorite part of this one's great to you I'm talking him soon yeah she's in the book in your book yeah but the other one I think I put that in the parenting section deliberately. I 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 doesn't. 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. He's great. Although he just joined, I just. She writes her out.

She's a buddy. Like her a lot. She's awesome. We should have August book around here somewhere too, unless we sold it. She was here, Allie Perra. We should have Tom Nichols book The Death of Expertise somewhere.

Malcolm, a runner? Yes. Yes. I've run with David before. I've never run with. We should have what I thought about, what I talk about running, but I know you've heard of it, but it's one of my favorite. Did you read the novelist as a vocation, his writing book? No, I've never read that.

It's good. I just, so I read, I read what I talk 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 grease marathon. Oh, cool. Yeah. Did you read, there's a wonderful, you actually, you 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

for running a marathon. So she's a scholar of like Greek history and the greats. And it's like full of these beautiful insights about running. And then she runs the Athens Marathon. Wow, her name is Andrea Maricalongo, I think. Okay, we'll get that. 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 that is the pain in the ass. It's like, how do you get 25 miles away or whatever? Yeah. But no, I did it.

It was fun. And then I talked to, do you know Dean Carnazes? Yeah, I mean, I talked to him a few times. So he heard I was there, and he called me and he was like, hey, like, when are you doing it? And I was like, oh, I'm doing it. He's like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm out of town. I would just do it with you. He was just like going to do it, like at the drop of the hat.

Like, and I was going to run 26 miles. Yeah, problem. Yeah, that guy's, guys. And then I was like, at some level also grateful because I only like running by myself. but yeah it's interesting yeah there aren't that many great books about running weirdly 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 both like you on that one and dirt by Alex Hutchinson's really good yeah

has like a book about running and philosophy that I like a lot that came out a year or two ago oh what's that um it's like it's like it's kind of on running or something. I actually don't love the Murakami. I love Murakami. I don't let 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 as. 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. Hmm. It does feel like yeah, it's kind of thrown thrown together and it's probably if you 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 it's not optimum commies level there's born to run which is yeah amazing but completely false you don't do the barefoot thing i mean like it we have run the experiment right like everybody read that book and started running barefoot how many people run barefoot yeah 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 he said wasn't happening right right that the shoes are slowing me down that said the book is awesome yeah yeah yeah it's got great descriptions of running so incredible so the the dean kronaz's book that i read

while i was there doing it he does so the story is that 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 uh so it's like 150 miles and so uh the maripides yes really yes i didn't know that's why if he died that's why he died because he ran 150 miles yeah so the whole the whole the whole army runs from Marathon to Athens. Because they beat, they fight. Fact-checking. 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 it. And 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 what it 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 Thermopy.

So that's the actual story. So, but there's a, it's called the Spartathlon or whatever. There's a run that starts in that. and it ends in Sparta and he did that and he it's a good book called the vote 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 I try to make it more like yes yeah yeah great great so that there was that that's not great for the digestive system probably I think if I remember incorrectly in the book he talks quite at length about problems that it's yeah

eating in that digestive system your running books sometimes have a little too much on that but yeah yes yeah but yeah there's not really that many great running book Peter Sagle's book is kind of fun, but it's not, it should be better, it 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. And that is a nice thing in Murakami's book, right? Like his lines about what he's learned about writing and how it ties into what he's learned from running. That I liked. Yes. What else do you like?

What have you read? Have you read any of these recently? I read this one, of course. Oh, he's amazing. Oh, this book is awesome. Oh, he's the best. He was just too. That one.

Obviously read the Janet Malcolm and David Halberstom. I read the Walter Isaacson on Daugna. Mm-hmm. I don't know why that's in history. That's probably been by her. This, Tom Ricks, and then Jeffrey Rosen, those two books are sort of the Stoic influences on the Founders. Oh, that actually, can I read that Jeffrey Rosen?

That sounds awesome. I would love to. Yeah. We'll fix it. You don't want to, like, upset your book. The holidays are coming up. They can take a lot out of you. You've got family. You've got travel. Maybe you're not eating right. You're rushing to finish stuff for the end of the year. Maybe you're not noticing stuff that's happening in your body, markers or signs or indicators that something's wrong, that you need to be doing something differently. You need to be sleeping more. You need to get this checked out. And that's all what function helps you with. Function is the only health platform that gives you data that most people never get. And most importantly, it gives you the insights to do something with it. With function, you get access to over a hundred biomarkers, from hormones to toxins, markers of heart health, inflammation, and stress.

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Function is a 360-degree view in what's happening in your body. On 1,000 Daily Stoic followers will get a $100 credit towards their membership. Just visit functionhealth.com slash daily stoic or use gift code Daily Stoic 100 to sign up. own your health. The John Green book on tuberculosis is really good. This one? Yeah. It sort of goes to the point on how okay that we're talking about. Basically, he's like, we could live in a world where no one gets tuberculosis.

We just like to choose not to live in that world. Yeah. 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 COVID. 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 skin. 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. This book, this guy was in front 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 the, that someone could write that book, period. Yeah, who's not like a professional writer is insane. And to do it as you're dying is insane. Yeah, that book just like, I betrub made me cry so much. Have you read Death Be Not Proud? Do you know who John Gunther was, the journal? 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. And it's obviously devastating and then also just one of the most incredible books that you've ever read. This book is to be next day. It's 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, and maybe the best selling ghost writer 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, Spear? Yes. Did you like this one? This guy was actually on the Stanford Tracking with me. I liked it. So, I mean, they're like an okay band.

They're like a pretty good band. I don't like the music, but you wouldn't be like, oh, let me, if I, if you're like, okay, this is the lead singer of the airborne toxic event. Tell me what his life story was. Yeah. You wouldn't guess like his mom's in this weird cold. Right. And I thought it's, um, it's one of those books where like the, the, um, the memoir is

unexpectedly good. Yeah. And thus like, because it plays against. type I think I really liked it yeah I just read another book that I would put in a similar category I'm totally blanking on it with it yeah just like an incredible weird strange life so but you knew him yeah we were like we were on the track team together for a year wow yeah no I thought it was really good and then kind of a I mean it was the the mother character was really interesting

because he's kind of like a child that's probably why she ended up in of Colt 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. Yeah. But so she's, as her daughter, As her daughter is struggling with alcoholism, Joan Deidion 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 public right but then also it's Joan Didion so it clearly is and so which would she have wanted it would she wouldn't she have wanted it and then and then weirdly it reads like this kind of epistolary novel about this like if someone said

okay this is like a fame there's a well-known person or just an ordinary mother and they're watching their 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 to be 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 Didian it's even her notes are better than most writers right so it's really good of course incredible um this is great yeah you like it's amazing this is amazing yes uh yeah they're

all like your like home and no no these are just there's actually a company called books by the foot uh and you just buy it buy it buy We're going to stay with a large whining 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 Ford's Theater, it has the spinning power of books about Lincoln. Uh-huh. So that's what it is.

Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, so it's a similar thing. That's very cool. Yeah. Can I take one of these home for my son? Yeah. Yeah. 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. Sure. So. And then, yeah, this is fiction over here. Oh, this is the book I was there. I wouldn't have thought she would have an interesting life. Huh. Yeah, I would have no idea. Like, you just think Administrative Harvard, like, 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, very lower. It's a great cover. And then she gets drawn into the civil rights movement. And it's, yeah, it's. Right.

Yeah, okay, I'm excited to read this. Yeah, of course. This is going to cover the next week. Rich Cohen's written for the Atlantic, I think, right? What's this a magic bookstore? Madidore. Yeah, this is... Yeah, this is...

Do we have a seat room? Yeah, exactly, right? What running shoes do you use? I've been racing in Puma R3s. I just did the last one in Ultraflies, the Nica Ultraflies. And then this morning, the Mor meros. Got me got a little bit of neat.

paying um this is where i write oh cool this is where i write this is incredible yeah this is amazing looking at space yeah your own bookstore downstairs that was the idea this is your inspiration wall no no i'm doing the 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 okay so So, he is a stoic, right? Like he's writing about Stozy. He gets, well, he gets introduced to Stoicism at Stanford. He's, the Navy sends him for a post-grad degree

in his like early 30s. And he, he's walking through the philosophy department where he's not taking classes. And this professor's name is Philip Rhinelander, who had been in the Navy, he sees him and he thinks he's like a professor. And they're just talking, and then he finds out he's a, you know,

the Navy and he gives him, let me see it fine, I have it, gives him, 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 Stoses in the laboratory, but I've been, 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 get shot down so he's he graduates in 46 from the Naval Academy so he's technically like a World War II guy yeah because he's he's in Jimmy Carter's class at the Naval Academy so he kind of

He's kind of like in this like elite circles, but he's never the main guy. Like Bill Crow is his roommate who, so anyways like 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. Uh-huh. So I'm fascinated by this. That'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 getting out. He gives his memo, he's like, we were shooting at ghosts. There's nothing there. Yeah. But yeah, so 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.

And then his wife is obviously very interesting because she sort of goes to war with the Nixon administration about it. 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. for Lincoln-Douglas debates. So, like, he's of that era, right? Like, it's crazy, you know. So, 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. So he goes in and 65, he comes out in 72. like he's this kind of ripped 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 in the rice bodies. And he also misses the whole career of Jimmy Hendricks.

Yes. So when he comes back, his son who was like in middle school, is now at college protests against the war. Yeah. And so yeah, so it's this fascinating arc, and then we, like the political thing at the end is this kind of weird story because the reason he has this debt to Perrault because Perot does all this work for the prisoners while they're in there. Takes care of their families.

He sends the plane that picks them up. So when he says, hey, do you want to be my vice president? like, he feels duty bound. Yeah. So he kind of is that, 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, what about it. So that's the arc of his life, so. Cool, that's great, that's great. Yeah, I love that you're doing that. That's an interest project. Yeah, we'll see.

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. Yeah. So. I mean, one of the things that I loved about getting to write about Nixon candidates that I felt like studying their lives made me smarter every day. Just like understanding how they made choices and what they did. Have you read this guy at all? He's written for the Atlantic. I haven't read this. I haven't read this.

From the old days. He's one of Emerson's friends. So he is a translator of Epictetus in the 18. 60s 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 is probably got some of his Atlantic pieces. Nice. Let's see.

It's nice out of 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 publish some real shitting people. Yeah. Poposur, which we just do in 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 closed that, close the, close, Staten Island.

I know. Stop letting these smelly people in. Huh. 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 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 here? I'm sure. Dickinson. Atlantic Essays, Higginson's. There you go. Atlantic Monthly Magazine.

Cool. Yeah. But he's like, that's sort of the, to me, again, the tradition of like the Stokes being active and engaged in a way that we don't. Think of. writing career advanced by invitation to be among the first regular writers to the newly founded periodical, the Atlantic Monthly. There you go. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks. I think we just 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, but I think connect to what's happening in the world, and you can sign up right now at ryanholyde.net slash reading list.