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

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

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 is on sale for $2.99! Grab yours now at dailystoic.com/discount📔 Pick up your own leather bound signed edition of The Daily Stoic! Check it out at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/ 📚 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/👉 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.

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 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, visitdailystoic.com. 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 9-inch Nails. Luke Colmes 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. 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. 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 a fencer has to pick something up. 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 said before that the stillics aren't something you have read. They should be something 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. the text 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 burn

my other copy out. 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 Stoics is discounted to $2.99 right now. They're doing a little special for the new year. Grab that on Amazon or Ibooks, wherever you get your e-books. And if you want to sign the leather edition, you can grab that at store.dailystoic.com. I'll link to that in today's show notes. So we had an unusual little first world problem in our family. We built a little house down on the Gulf Coast, almost done, and now we're in the process of furnishing it. And we had to get mattresses for all the rooms.

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Just make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. Helix.com slash stoic. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I actually just finished my online therapy session just a few minutes ago. The year's coming to an end. I guess I could have pushed it till January, but I thought, you know what? Now, I want the holidays to go well. I want to be focused on what I should be focused on. I want to take care of myself. I want to get better. And that's where today's sponsor BetterHelp comes in. Therapy is a great way to get a unbiased perspective on your life. It's how you can get a weight off your shoulders. It's so you can focus on the future. It's so you can break old patterns and be who you want to be in 2026. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms. They've served more than 5 million people all over the world.

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Well, BetterHelp can help you do that. And you can sign up right now for 10% off at BetterHelp. That's betterh-E-L-P-D-L-P-C-D-L-C-D-L-C-T-POD. Okay, so the perk of having your own bookstore is that you get to give people books that you know they're going to love. I'm Ryan Holiday, and people come from all over the world to our little books store 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 going to

And so over the years, I have recommended a lot of books. And that's what we're going to do in today's video. I'm going to show you some of my absolute favorite books in all different categories that I think you're going to like. 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 bear's 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 and 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 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. The 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 him in 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 them. 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 them. Books with shitty titles that are actually great. And this is called the Colossus 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 man?

I know 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 bandages all over it. 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 Didian's early life and her childhood and her child's early life. This was a controversial book when it came out. Most of Didian's books, like A Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, most of her books have amazing titles, but she obviously wasn't alive to choose this title. Maybe she wouldn't have 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 is an insane book that you almost cannot believe it's happening. What Makes Sammy Run by Bud Schuberg, who wrote on the waterfront? 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 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 worst the book is. But there are some

exceptions to this rule and I'm going to 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. Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller. I wouldn'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 a 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 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. 40 years of 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 Duns is, of course, incredible novel by John Kennedy-Tool. 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. Ooh. By Grand Central Station, I sat down and wept. What a fucking title. This book is a fever dream, but it is beautiful and it lives up to the title. Although I got to 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. 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. All right, 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, 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 Crossroad 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 going to 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. They're literally statues of him everywhere, is writing these thoughts about virtue, about honor, about how no one's going to 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. Just an absolutely amazing book that 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,

but this and maybe Bright Lights, 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 knot, and it tracks their friendship as one goes to one in one political direction, 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, 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 for a reason. Some great biographies of women that you should read. I've read many, many books about Churchill, but Sonia Pernell'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 Baird's bio of Queen Victoria. Again, maybe you've heard of the Victorian age, but doesn't seem interesting. She was an incredible woman, an incredible leader in 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. The second one, 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. 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.