Influential Books
The Reading List
The books behind Christ the Ideal Stoic — the ones I return to, and the ones I’d hand to anyone starting out.
The Stoics
Where the ascent toward virtue begins.
No. 1
Letters from a Stoic on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
Letters of practical counsel to a younger friend on time, grief, wealth and death.
View on Amazon →No. 2
The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
A compact selection of Seneca's essays and letters in a clear, readable translation.
View on Amazon →No. 3
Meditations on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
An emperor's private notebook, written to himself on campaign and never meant to be read.
View on Amazon →No. 4
On the Shortness of Life on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
Life is not short, Seneca argues — we make it so by how we spend it.
View on Amazon →No. 5
Discourses, Fragments, Handbook on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
A former slave's teaching on what is in our power and what is not.
View on Amazon →No. 6
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
A psychotherapist tells the life of Marcus Aurelius and turns his Stoicism into practice for today.
View on Amazon →No. 7
The Practicing Stoic on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
The Stoics' own words, gathered by theme, with commentary on how to live them.
View on Amazon →
The Christian Tradition
Where the ideal is given a face.
The Gospel of John
The Gospel that opens with the Logos — the Stoics' own word for the reason ordering the world.
Confessions on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
The first great autobiography: a restless mind trained in the classics, finding its rest.
View on Amazon →Mere Christianity on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
The case for the faith, and for the cardinal and theological virtues, in plain prose.
View on Amazon →The Seven Storey Mountain on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
A restless young intellectual's road from the modern world to a Trappist monastery.
View on Amazon →
Bridges
Books that stand between the two.
The Consolation of Philosophy on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
Written in a cell awaiting execution by a Christian steeped in Stoic and Platonic thought.
View on Amazon →Man's Search for Meaning on Amazon (opens in a new tab)
A psychiatrist's account of the camps, and of the last freedom no one can take away.
View on Amazon →
Notes on Character
Ideas worth carrying into the week.
Occasional letters on character, faith and the Stoic life. New subscribers get the introduction to Christ the Ideal Stoic free.
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