A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst
The sea has a way of stripping life down to its essentials—danger, luck, courage, despair. A Marriage at Sea is the true story of a married couple who, in 1972, set out to sail the Pacific, a lifelong dream. Everything was going great…until a whale smashed into them, tore a hole in their boat, and sent it to the bottom. Suddenly they were stranded at sea. For months. What unfolds is a tale of love and boredom, despair and stubborn optimism, and the sheer grit it takes to survive. It’s a survival story that reads as easily as a novel.
How To Think Like Socrates by Donald J. Robertson
After reading Paul Johnson’s Socrates last month—I wrote what I loved about it here—I wanted to go deeper, so I picked up How To Think Like Socrates. I’d even started last month’s newsletter with a story from it that really stuck with me. Robertson’s book was longer and more historical than Johnson’s, which I appreciated for the added context. Along the way, I also read Socrates by Anthony Gottlieb, a used copy I bought for a few dollars at Noley’s bookstore while on vacation in Payson, AZ. You never know when a book will come in handy!
With the Old Breed by E. B. Sledge
After finishing the phenomenal Company K last month, I found myself still in the mood for war writing. With the Old Breed is called one of the most unflinching memoirs of World War II, and now I understand why. Sledge writes plainly about what he witnessed and felt while fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa—battles whose necessity has long been questioned—and you can’t help but shake your head in amazement at the bravery…and the waste.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
As you know, I love a good memoir. I really enjoyed this one, especially how she wove her poems throughout. The title comes from a line in her poem “Good Bones”—one of my favorites—which Meryl Streep read at the Academy of American Poets’ fifteenth annual Poetry & the Creative Mind gala. This book is about heartache and rebuilding, and finding beauty where it feels hardest to see.
Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor by Donald J. Robertson
I enjoyed How To Think Like Socrates so much that I picked up another book of Robertson’s: Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor. We imagine Marcus Aurelius as the all-powerful philosopher-king—which he was—but Robertson’s telling of how Marcus grew to know and practice Stoicism paints him as human—flawed like the rest of us.
Marcus learned from Epictetus, who had learned from Socrates, that philosophy should never be an abstract, theoretical pursuit. It should be practical, aimed at making a person better. Better how? Not a better wrestler or academic, but—as Marcus wrote—“a better citizen, a better person, a better resource in tight places, a better forgiver of faults.” For Marcus, philosophy was the work of overcoming vices like vanity and anger, and through constant moral self-examination he became the man we know today.