Reading

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen
I have eight journals and planners I use regularly. Nine if you count my commonplace book of notecards. (My wife, Courtney, likes to joke that I have to write reminders to remember to breathe.) I keep a weekly planner and notebook for work, and a personal weekly planner with a habit tracker for everything else. I keep a notebook on my writing desk and one on my nightstand. I keep a collage/travel journal and a one-line-per-day journal. And then there’s my most important journal: my morning pages journal.

So it’s no wonder a book with notebook and paper in the title grabbed my attention. What’s funny is that, according to my notes, I first started reading this book in September—of last year. I’m not sure why I stopped, but I picked it back up again this October. This book is thorough. If you want to understand where notebooks originated and how they’ve morphed into one of the best pieces of technology the world has ever known, this is the book you want to read. “Use it enough,” Allen writes, “and a notebook will change your brain.”

How To Be Caring by Shantideva
I picked this up this month at Changing Hands bookstore as part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series, and loved it. I also bought and read How to Have Willpower. Some of my favorites from this series are: How to Have a Life: An Ancient Guide to Using Our Time Wisely, How to Do the Right Thing, How to be Content, How to Give, and How to Be Free.

Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T. Phillips
I came across this while browsing the shelves at Goodwill and decided to give it a shot. Wow, this book is good. It’s fairly short, but it manages to touch on some of the most important qualities that made Lincoln such a force: his relentless self-education, his strong sense of right and wrong, his ability to put the right people in the right positions, his gift of finding common ground with just about everyone, his otherworldly humility, and his sense of humor even in the most dire situations. There’s a reason he’s regarded not only as the best president we’ve had, but as one of the best men to have ever lived, period.

The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
A good friend of mine recommended this, and one of my biggest takeaways—and this is something I’ve been thinking about—is the idea that we have two selves within us. One is anxious and controlling and judgmental, and the other is intuitive and natural and creates without fear. We have to let the second self take over, quieting the mind so we can perform at our best. Relaxed concentration—that’s the key. Not trying so hard. As Ray Bradbury warns in Zen in the Art of Writing (a classic), “Those who try hardest scare it [the Muse] off into the woods. Those who turn their backs and saunter along, whistling softly between their teeth, hear it treading quietly behind them, lured by a carefully acquired disdain.”

History Matters by David McCullough
Wow, what a gem! I bought this book because I love McCullough’s writing and was pleasantly surprised to find that much of it is about his writing. After his passing in 2022, his daughter and research assistant found and organized some of his best essays and speeches, including some that had never been published. It’s a beautiful book; the inside covers feature paintings McCullough himself created. I got something from almost every page.

Buckley: The Life and Revolution that Changed America by Sam Tanenhaus
I had never heard of Charlie Kirk and, after the intense reactions from all sides of the political spectrum when he was tragically murdered, I needed a way to understand what was happening. So I read this 900-page biography about another guy I had never heard of—Bill Buckley, considered the father of conservatism. (Ryan Holiday recommended this. How does he always recommend the best books?) Before I read this book, I watched videos of Kirk’s debates and immersed myself in his social media posts and ideas. The more I watched, the more confused—and concerned—I became. How the hell was this guy so popular? More to the point, how could so many people agree with what he said? And how could a guy with millions of followers be so reckless (and reckless is a generous word) with what he said? “It should be legal to burn a rainbow or BLM flag in public,” reads one of his Instagram posts. He wasn’t trying to unite people. He debated topics not to get to the truth, but to win arguments. His game was to state his opinion—no matter how trivial or misleading or biased—and defend it at all costs. There was no nuance or concessions. It’s a tale as old as rhetoricians. While today we would call someone like this a demagogue, in ancient Greece he would have been considered a professional debater or sophist—people whom ethical philosophers like Socrates and Epictetus repeatedly warned against. Kirk’s playbook was almost identical to Bill Buckley’s, who spent most of his career looking for the next thing to argue against. Anyway, what I didn’t expect as I worked my way through the book was to find Buckley so likable. Buckley—who, near the end of his life, finally admitted that he was wrong about the Civil Rights Act, that federal intervention was necessary—was a complex guy. He seemed to be a good friend to everyone he knew, even the people he disagreed with. His social circle included gay men, and in the late ’80s, his wife, Pat, raised millions of dollars for AIDS research. In many ways, how he actually felt—at least, how he lived his life and treated others—wasn’t the same as what he claimed publicly. But then he wouldn’t have much of a platform, would he? It’s why we can’t fall for every smooth talker, why we have to keep thinking for ourselves, why we must stay on guard against dangerous rhetoric. Because not every confident voice is interested in getting to the truth.

American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback by Seth Wickersham
I love watching football, and this book on quarterbacking—what the position entails (it’s wild how much goes into advancing a football down a field), what it costs to be great, and what happens when you finally get there—is fascinating. It’s a look into the lives of some of the best QBs to ever play, like John Elway, Peyton Manning, and Warren Moon, as well as newcomers like Caleb Williams and Bo Nix. Really entertaining.

Upstream by Mary Oliver
This is a meditation on literature and what it means to her, what it means to live a creative life. I loved it, especially how she talks about absentmindedness being fine—being a good thing even. It reminds me of the saying: if you’re on top of everything, you’re probably not on top of anything. “It is six A.M., and I am working,” she writes. “I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written.”

Wisdom Takes Work by Ryan Holiday
I’m still working my way through it, but so far it’s his best book in the virtue series. This is the review I wrote on Amazon: Ryan Holiday’s books are the only ones I preorder without question. Not because he’s written like 16 best-sellers, but because what he says is always timely, timeless, important, and practical. And he’s always right. Not just in his arguments, but more importantly in what he chooses to talk about in the first place. It’s like he has a filter that takes his every experience and thought and turns it into something meaningful and educational. If you’re on the fence about buying this book—a book about wisdom no less by one of the wisest thinkers on the planet—you’re probably not very familiar with his work.

Company K by William March
I pulled this off my bookshelf at random while looking for the next book to read, and after skimming a few pages, I was sucked in. It’s considered one of the best war books of all time for a reason. Each chapter (and they’re short chapters) is a different soldier’s account of the war. It’s fiction, but I got more insight from this book than from many of the nonfiction books I’ve read this year. It’s seriously so, so good.

Epictetus: The Complete Works by Robin Waterfield
I’d been meaning to read this book for a while, and I’m so happy I finally dove in. This newer translation of Enchiridion and Discourses—two works I’ve been obsessed with since first reading them nine years ago—feels like a fresh conversation with an old friend. Epictetus himself never wrote anything down; everything we have comes from the careful notes of one devoted student.

One of my biggest takeaways: A person might be physically stronger than you. Five people could tackle and restrain you. A person may be smarter, healthier, more beautiful than you. But none of that makes them superior to you. The only thing that can make a person superior is their use of superior reasoning. If you wish to truly improve yourself, Epictetus insisted, improve your reasoning.

Also, he will make you laugh:

“‘So am I the only one who’s going to be decapitated today?’ What are you saying? Would you want everyone to have their heads cut off? Would that make you feel better?”

“Don’t complain. Don’t say, ‘Everyone hates me!’ Who wouldn’t hate someone who carries on like that?”

Oh, Epictetus. Always a pleasure.

Courage Under Fire by James Bond Stockdale
I bought this book (it’s more like a pamphlet—only about 21 pages) on vacation last year at The Painted Porch Bookshop. I’m not sure why I pulled it off the shelf this month, but it turned out to pair perfectly with Epictetus: The Complete Works, as Stockdale used Epictetus’s teachings to get through seven and a half years as a POW in Vietnam.

Socrates by Paul Johnson
Before Socrates, philosophy belonged to society’s elite—an abstract pursuit reserved for those with leisure and education. Socrates changed that. He brought philosophy down to earth, turning it into something practical, something any person could use in daily life. What is good and what is bad? What’s worth chasing and what’s worth avoiding? How should we define justice? At its heart: What makes a good life? Socrates laid the groundwork on which Stoicism would later be built. It’s no wonder he was Epictetus’s hero.

Discipline Is Destiny by Ryan Holiday
I reread this book—well, technically I listened to the audiobook for the first time—on a whim while driving to the Grand Canyon. It’s amazing how much I’d missed the first time through. If you haven’t read Discipline Is Destiny, you’re truly missing out. Also, the afterword is one of the best reflections on the writing process I’ve ever read.

Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
Oh my gosh, this book is absolutely brilliant—and haunting. It’s the ultimate example of “words as weapons.” It’s short, too—you can probably read it in under an hour. By the end you’ll be smiling and thinking holy shit at the protagonist’s brilliance.

Reading Etty Hillesum in Context edited by Klaas A.D. Smelik, Gerrit Van Oord, Jurjen Wiersma
As I may have mentioned, I LOVE Etty Hillesum. After reading An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork by Etty Hillesum, Etty Hillesum: A Life Transformed by Patrick Woodhouse, Enduring Lives: Living Portraits of Women and Faith in Action by Carol Lee Flinders (the section on Etty), and The Jungian Inspired Holocaust Writings of Etty Hillesum: To Write Is to Act by Barbara Morrill, I had to read this textbook that Morrill recommended. If you want a deeper understanding of who Etty was and the world in which she wrote her diary, this is the book to pick up.