The Daily Stoic - Jordan Klepper's Reading List (From Ryan Holiday)

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

After their conversation for The Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan gave Jordan Klepper, comedian, writer, and correspondent on The Daily Show, a few book recommendations at The Painted Porch.Follow Jordan on Instagram @JordanKlepper and check out his upcoming live show dates on his website https://www.officialjordanklepper.com/📚 Books Mentioned:Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed AmericaLetter to the FatherA Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and ShipwreckDead Wake: The Last Crossing of the LusitaniaI Survived the Hindenburg Disaster, 1937How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral QuestionMontaigneThe Plague: A new translationOutdoor Kids in an Inside WorldMoby-DickIn the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex🎥 Watch Jordan Klepper's full episode on The Daily Stoic Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utF8yGyWpEgSPECIAL OFFER exclusively for podcast listeners 👉 Go to dailystoic.com/spring and enter code DSPOD20 at checkout to get 20% off the Spring Forward Challenge! Challenge yourself to spring forward and become the person you aspire to be. The Spring Forward Challenge starts March 20, 2026. 🎙️ 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✉️ 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, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. You would not think that a thousand-page biography of William F. Buckley would be... You're fucking with me? Yeah. You're fucking with it. A thousand page? It's incredible. Really?

Incredible. Yeah? Yes. Like, first off, just because it's like this arc of history that's fascinating and he... all these different, like James Faldon's in there. I mean, he was the first person to publish Joan Did he. Is that right? Yeah, she wrote for the National Review.

But, yeah, so it's this arc of American history that I think is fascinating. So basically, he fondly recounts, he was not invited, but his brothers at the direction of their father go burn a cross on somebody's law. Like, his father's like profoundly anti-Semitic, profoundly racist, just a reaction bigot. And then so when you understand that, then when you understand, when you understand, when you Buckley, you're like, oh, he's, he's actually doing this thing that's kind of endemic to the conservative movement, which is like, people have these opinions, these instincts. How do we intellectualize that? It's a way of creating like an intellectual cover for these sort of like

primal, like emotional prejudiced ideas. Like, so it's a way of, like, emotional prejudice ideas. Like, so, There's the arc of that in his lane. And then he starts by writing a book about liberal overreach on college campuses that his dad pays for. Is that right? Yeah. His dad was like an oil speculator. Okay. Then he is a speech writer and advisor to McCarthy.

And the next, he's this sort of Machiavellian genius behind, like all these pivotal moments. It's fascinating. Really. You will realize, like, oh, if you just change a couple of these names, it's the same things happening again. Yeah. But, like, I think the free press, which I like for some stuff, is it similar role where it's like part of what it does, though, is create kind of intellectual cover for

things that people want to believe. Like, realizing that, like, we tend to think. of propaganda and misinformation as like inserting false ideas. And actually its job is to give you reasons to believe what you already believe. Yes. Give you give you a way to not look like an asshole in conversation. Yes. Yes. And kind of gives you this, it's like, okay, so the Wall Street Journal is this part of the hierarchy and then all the way down to like, you know, Charlie Kirk was in there somewhere. And then the gateway pundit is down here. But they're all doing this thing and they have various levels of funding. And it was, it was interesting to me to watch, like, how people

sought him out, just like Charlie Curry is this average kid who wants to go to college. And some billionaires, like, you're good at this. Let me pay you to do that thing. And this basically is the same thing that happened to Buckley. Really? And then I'd experienced that with, when my stuff started to get popular, I would get invited to these conferences. And I could see they were, they were like evaluating me. To be like, do you ever? need anything. How could we get this out to more people? There's like, which the left doesn't have.

It tends to be, I think, more organic. But this process of like, oh, this person has a way with audiences and their fellow travelers with what we're saying. How do we bring them into the ecosystem? I mean, that's like, I feel like Peterson's an interesting example. Is that right? With those early Peterson, like, oh, I get this. Yes.

It's a lot of sense. I met him at some of those conference. I met him at an entrepreneur. conference and then the next thing I saw him was at a Coke thing. Yeah. You know, and it's a process. Yeah. You got to read this. Oh my goodness. You're going to, you got to read every page. I come down to Texas and I lead with a thousand page biography on William F. Buckley. It might be an audio book for you then, but I'll show you my office in a second. You'll see how the notes I'll have you done. I haven't even finished a Gore Vidal book by being totally honest. I don't know. This is great. Is there anything you've been reading? What have I been reading? So I've been

I just actually picked up the pension book on the way here, so I've been reading that. Okay. I have been, I picked up some writings by Camus. I like, I like me that myth of Cicapus. Have you read the plague? Yes. I just reread the plague. And it's another one where you're like, oh, this is, explains everything.

Oh, that, yeah. I have this sort of theory about like dark energy that there's this dark energy in humanity. And it goes from issue to issue era. Yeah. And that you realize like, oh, it's not about the plague at all. Plague is about dark energy. Yeah. Because the plague is about Nazism.

Yes. As a metaphor, but he's, at the end, he's like, the plague just goes on to the next thing. We think we beat it, but we didn't. It just goes to the next thing. I think Camus was a fun one to read right now. Yeah. I feel like that that absurdist point of view feels. I was also reading Kafka because of that.

Ooh. Did I give you this Kafka parenting book? No. Because I remember I gave you some parent. You just had a kid, right? And you gave me the self, what is it? Self-driven child. And this was great.

Did you like that? You gave me these two. Both of these are great. Okay. This makes me want to... Outdoor kids in an inside world? Yes. Yes.

It makes... This is helpful for New York. Okay. Oh, yeah. Sure. Okay. This is... Caca wrote this letter.

Oh, my gosh. You know what? I read about this letter. I read about this. And it's brutal, right? It's like a brutal letter? It's like a brutal letter. It's super brutal.

His father was kind of like William McCuffley's father. It was just like one of those overbearing, powerful people, and you can sort of go of two ways, you know? And he sort of goes in the other direction. And then he writes a... slidersher jumping out all his feelings about it. It's beautiful and haunting. He is lovely. And I feel like his short stories now where things feel like they don't make sense. In some ways, he taps into that such a nice way. Yeah. We've got an employee here at Daily Stoke. I won't say who because it's kind of private, but they've been using Monarch, today's sponsor, to track their progress as they try to

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Make sure you enter our show name at checkout so they can know we sent you. Helix sleep.com slash stoic. I have many shipwreck books for you. Is that right? So this one just came out. This is called the marriage at sea. What is this? This couple is sailing from England to New Zealand.

And in real life, a whale breaks their sailboat apart. This is my shit. And they spend like three months in a raft. And it's like about their marriage. So husband and wife just stuck in this wrap. It's great. At one time, they're in the Pacific. So it's like full of light.

At one time, they catch a giant sea turtle and they tie a rope to it. And they try to like harness it, like to see if it can pull them. Yeah. It's amazing. That one's good. I got obsessed with Moby Dick. That's probably my favorite quote. Have you writing the heart of the sea? Yes. Okay. Amazing. That's one of the all-time greats.

I called the Melville Estate and they let me write at his desk for a couple days. What? A pilot, yeah. Pilot didn't go anywhere. You were writing a pilot about it? I was writing a pilot and I needed to get away from home and I was like, I just need to go. I want to go up to the Berkshires. I called it. I'm kind of a lark. I was like, you know what? I know you do some writer's stuff here and there.

I was like, hey, hoping they're like a daily show fan. Was there any good energy in the... Great energy. I think, but you know, if I'm being totally honest, the energy is I didn't dare look at my phone for a second in that room. Like, I felt so guilty not being productive. I was productive for two straight days.

Interesting. This Walter Lord has a book about the Titanic that's amazing. Oh, really? But then Eric Larson has one about the sinking of the Lusitania. Which one is warrior style? Oh, wait. The Cicita. I don't know the Lusitania.

Lusitania is... is the sinking of the American ship that basically brings us into World War I. Give me that one. All right. Where is that? Found it. Deadweight. Look at this.

I gave Vista at Helms when he was here. This is about Zeppelin's. What about Zeppelin? Which is, in retrospect, the dumbest idea that humans have ever had. I think so, right? But a fun idea? I imagine this. But they kept crap.

It's, I described this book as the dead. definition of the triumph of hope over experience because they would just every single one horrendously crashed because it is a balloon filled with highly flammable gas powered by an engine. This one, like this is the famous British one. It had a smoking room inside the Zeppelin. Amazing. that again meant people were lighting lighters

and matches. They brought on a fire eater every time to come. What I love is like the Empire State Building has the dogging point. And they're like, oh, one stop there. So the crazy thing about, they talk about this in the book.

So like, okay, so you tie up a balloon to this pointy needle. All right. Okay. What happens when it gets windy as it often does. No amount of ropes are going to secure this giant. And then the people are in it, like, or whatever.

It's still, whatever. So it was just the dumbest fucking idea. How long was it? The idea of a, like, how long was that? Like, 40 years. Like, it lasted a lot longer than you would think it would. It's incredible. Because he wrote a book about snafus, like about.

Oh, yeah, I read his book. Yeah. stupid things human stuff. That struck me as like just the definition of human stupidity. It's incredible. Give me a philosophy thing. I'm like the young Chulhan. Are you reading his stuff?

No. I don't even know what you just said. Okay. Korean German does a lot of like tech philosophy right now. Ah. Michael Scher wrote a book about moral philosophy. You can read that? No.

Good. Really good. I bet. It's awesome. Very fun. He's I feel like, yeah. Funny guy running a smart book like this is going to make me so jealous. Yeah.

I think I've got that book's fucking great. It's really, it's really good. It's funny and good. These prints are so nice. Oh, I love this little series. And then we'll do this Montaigne book that I've been reading about. He's talking about... Wait, Zweig.

He's... The world of yesterday. Yes. So he's like the most famous novelist in Europe. Yeah. Chase out of Germany the second time. Yes. And then he ends up in Brazil,

after in Brazil. And he rediscovered Montaigne, the French singer. And then he realizes, oh, Montaigne is writing in the middle of the religious wars of the 16th century. So it's like he's not just exploring philosophy for its own sake.

He's turning inward because the world is tearing itself apart. He's saying that the hardest thing to do is to remain human inhuman times. Montaigne was all that intellectual humility in a time when they're burning people alive for being heretics. And so how do you maintain intellectual humility when it's not just out of style, but the opposite is the case.

Wow. It's amazing. Wow. So good. Because Zwig was like a 50s writer, right? No, no, no. He was popular during the first World War. So first half of the 20th century.

So this was... He wrote a bunch of novels, which are not that popular. And then he wrote a couple of biographies. Yeah. Wes Anderson loosely based one of his... movies. I didn't know that. He gets blasted one. But the world of yesterday is a beautiful book. Is it? Yeah. And haunting. But this is, he would do these little biographs. He wrote a really good biography. You have Marie Antoinette. That's good. We have one of Magellan that he wrote.

Really? But the Montaigne one is his best one. Oh, I love that. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoog podcast. I just wanted to say, we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say, thank you.