A lot of people are interested in stoicism right now. It’s become very popular in the last half decade or so especially since Ryan Holiday, released several books on the topic (see below). It’s piqued the interest of a lot of people in high performer type professions, and it’s gotten a lot of attention. 

Stoicism is very important to me as well. It’s basically my operating system — where I try to make it my operating system for how I am in life. And it’s an intimidating topic to jump into or to get started on. So I wanted to share with you the six books that I think are a great start for someone who’s interested in stoicism. 

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

This book is a great primer and it’s not intimidating to dive into. Holiday provides us a short quote from Stoicism for every day of the year and along with it, an interpretation of how to relate that quote to your daily life. Think of it like a Stoic devotional book. I’ve been using it for years and on my second copy of the binding finally gave out. 

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 

The next one, I think that’s important for everybody to have is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. If you’re not familiar, Marcus was a Roman Emperor and this was his personal diary. This was never meant to be out in public. And these are just his own writings to himself, reminding himself as an emperor of the important things like discipline and his virtue and humility. II recommend this particular version, with Gregory Hayes as the translator. It’s important to look at the reviews of the translators. Remember, these are originally written in dead languages. So if you get a real academic version of it, or an academic translator, it can be very, very dry and might turn you off to the bigger ideas. But this is a great one. It’s written in modern language. 

The Art of Living by Epictetus

Next up is The Art of Living by Epictetus. Also very important. This one is an excellent Translation by Sharon LaBelle. It’s similar to The Daily Stoic, in that it’s got one short idea to read at a time and it is easy to break it up or breeze through. This one could be read in one sitting (even for me and I read very slowly). It’s a very easy read and a very easy intro into stoicism. 

Letters from a Stoic by Seneca 

A little more dense, a little more in depth and into more of the philosophers ideas, it’s his letters to his friends and family. I recommend the translation by Robin Campbell from Penguin Classics. 

The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday 

This is Holiday’s book that’s a great intro to Stoicism as just a general idea. It covers lots of different philosophers and just the concepts of Stoicism. This was Holiday’s first New York Times bestseller and the book that brought Stoicism back to life. Given that Ryan Holiday is about 35-40 years old, the book is written in plain modern English and very easy to understand. 

The Stoic Cop by Bill Mauro

Bill did such a good job of breaking down the Stoic virtues and talking in very real and plain language about how it relates to police work. Bill’s own personal story is powerful on it’s own and Stoicism literally saved his life. Also, you can listen to him talk about his book on episode 135 of the podcast.

I highly recommend you dig into Stoicism and don’t be intimidated by it. It has absolutely revolutionized my own mindset and how I have navigated a lot of challenges.