Here are 100 books that Lectures on Ancient Philosophy fans have personally recommended if you like
Lectures on Ancient Philosophy.
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I am the ultimate dilettante. I consume huge amounts of history, literature, and current events. I am not interested in dumbing down what I write. I am endlessly curious and assume my readers are also. I started writing during the pandemic and have not quit. I have completed three novels and have been an avid reader my entire life. Join me!
I enjoyed learning about religion from Dan Brown. I am not a religious person, so presenting so much research in a tightly bound thriller was an excellent way to keep me engaged and reading.
I came away from this book with a deeper psychological understanding of God and the devil.
Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes.
As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history.
Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
I’m an Indonesian writer who loves the idea of supernatural fantasy. I’ve always liked daydreaming. It started when a story suddenly kept playing inside my head like a movie. And that story now became my first fantasy book, Royal Arcanum. Never I imagined I’ll be a full-time writer now. I feel blessed that my family supported my writing career.
This book is very unique. Written through the psychic medium named Farnese in 1896. The spirit named Franchezzo told his experience in the afterlife. There is a fantasy and reality here. Even though we haven’t experienced death and don’t know how’s life in the afterlife, but I feel a strong connection with this book. I feel like I can believe everything this book depicted about the world on the other side.
A supposed real life channeling about a slightly bad man who died, and starting his journey in the lower spirit realms, advancing his way into the higher. Once in the higher realms he joins a brotherhood who go deep into hell rescueing others who have changed and praying for rescue. This book gives a detailed glimpse into hell, what its like and its many levels. An entry level book for those who want to to know more of the spiritland structure.
Hollywood and celebrity gossip can be a fun diversion, from their fabulous clothing and closets to their ability to influence a worldwide audience. It is something I have long been drawn to and love to be immersed in. The idea of fame has always intrigued me. Is it good? Bad? Somewhere in between? Sometimes, the very pop star who the world is idolizing can be tortured behind the scenes—maybe even by fame itself. I am intrigued by the ways one goes from anonymity to notoriety, as well as the ways fame can change one’s life.
This was an enjoyable read, first and foremost, because of Meg Cabot’s witty writing style—she always makes me chuckle. I also loved this young adult novel because the main character gets to temporarily experience a vastly different life.
From Never Been Kissed, where Drew Barrymore’s twenty-something character goes undercover as a teenager, to Freaky Friday, where a mother and daughter trade places, I adore seeing characters live life in someone else’s shoes. That was a big part of why I wrote my book where Skye gets to trade in one life for another—even if it isn’t exactly by choice.
In this book, the main character, Em, gets a true peek into the life of a celebrity, and she realizes all she really wants is to be herself. This is book one in a three-part series. I haven’t read the others yet, but they look just as fun.
Two worlds collide when super-gorgeous celebutante Nikki and tomboy brainiac Em find themselves thrown together - literally. Forced to live the life of a glamorous supermodel, will Em be able to keep her old life, and those she cares about, a secret?
Airhead is the first in a brilliant, funny and thought-provoking trilogy from Meg Cabot, the author of the million-selling The Princess Diaries.
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
I’m an Indonesian writer who loves the idea of supernatural fantasy. I’ve always liked daydreaming. It started when a story suddenly kept playing inside my head like a movie. And that story now became my first fantasy book, Royal Arcanum. Never I imagined I’ll be a full-time writer now. I feel blessed that my family supported my writing career.
The book titleLove Virtually instantly reminds me of the rom-com book that I wrote. The vibe of the book and when I read the synopsis are kinda similar to the world that happened in my book. It’s all about writing to a stranger and falling in love. I like it. Love Virtually is an example of a simple love story. This kinda fresh and unique story idea is still rare out there. 😊
Is there a safer space for secret desires than virtual reality?
"Just what you need" WENDY HOLDEN
It begins by chance: Leo receives emails in error from an unknown woman called Emmi. Being polite he replies, and Emmi writes back. A few brief exchanges are all it takes to spark a mutual interest in each other, and soon Emmi and Leo are sharing their innermost secrets and longings. The erotic tension simmers, and it seems only a matter of time before they will meet in person. But they keep putting off the moment…
As a queer first-generation Cuban-American woman, reclaiming my magic from oppressive religious dogma and societal bigotry has been the foundation of my art practice since the mid-90s, when I started writing my fanzine, the Green’zine. Although my trajectory comes from punk rock, reactionary feminist art, and coming-of-age graphic memoirs about sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll—healing the soul is interwoven into all of my published works. When I eventually began work on the Next World Tarot, I knew I had to enrich my gritty soul with divine compassion; as well as forgiveness towards the versions of myself that did not accept ancestral magic and spirituality as part of my own healing.
Mya Spalter is a New York witch who learned the ropes by way of her ancestors as well as the Enchantments occult shop. Learning from both guides and NYC witches, I love the way this book shows how Spalter’s magic was conjured by personal connections to survival and home.
Gaining knowledge on both our magic and ancestral practices can be a difficult journey for queer folks, navigating the ultra-conservative laws of mainstream spirituality. However, magic is not conservative nor heterosexual—it is universal and a tool we can all access. This book showed me the divine connections between Wiccan history, self-care, and surviving as a queer person of Color in America.
I started writing urban fantasy because that’s what I wanted to read more of, and at the time there wasn’t much on offer. I started the Kit Melbourne series with the aim of creating a world in which magic was real, but most people don’t believe in it. I aim for believable, realistic characters with plausible relationships. I’m not a fan of prophets, noble bloodlines, or destiny; magic in my worlds are much more egalitarian. Vampires are not sexy superheroes. Faeries are more like aliens than pinup girls. My inspirations are mystery, true crime, anthropology, psychology, history, natural sciences, ecology, and neo-Paganism—and books like those on this list!
Molly Tanzer came up with one of the cleverest “magic” tropes ever and I wish I’d thought of it myself. Her Victorian London “diabolists” engage with demons in a way that felt so logical that it seemed 100% plausible. It involves specific plants, for example, ginger. These demons are more like sentient aliens that enter into a (permanent) symbiotic relationship with a human host, upon which they confer benefits.
It made me go, “I mean, getting into devil worship like this may not be my thing, but yeah, I get why people could be into it.” It’s not all gushing balls and gaslit concerts either, since our protagonists are much more middle class. There’s danger here, because not all of these diabolists are harmless. I craved ginger for months after this book.
Victorian London is a place of fluid social roles, vibrant arts culture, fin-de-siecle wonders ... and dangerous underground diabolic cults. Fencer Evadne Gray cares for none of the former and knows nothing of the latter when she's sent to London to chaperone her younger sister, aspiring art critic Dorina. Unfortunately for Evadne, she soon learns too much about all of it when Dorina meets their uncle's friend, Lady Henrietta "Henry" Wotton. A semi-respectable aristocrat in public, in private she is secretly in the thrall of a demon obsessed with beauty and pleasure. When Lady Henry and Dorina immediately hit it…
Aury and Scott travel to the Finger Lakes in New York’s wine country to get to the bottom of the mysterious happenings at the Songscape Winery. Disturbed furniture and curious noises are one thing, but when a customer winds up dead, it’s time to dig into the details and see…
I love fantasy literature, because it's the what-if literature of the human spirit. Magic animates fantasy, and in the real world, magic is difficult to define; it lies somewhere on the border of the unconscious mind, the lore of our grandparents, scientific hypothesis, what the priest tells us, and what we see in social groups other than our own. In recent decades, much fantasy literature has walked away from portrayals of real-world magic, replacing it with synthetic and sterile creations euphemistically called “hard magic.” Hard magic has the form of magic, but lacks the power thereof. These books are all strong inoculations against the scourge of hard magic.
If you know Hellboy only from the movies, you’re seeing a very limited image of the character and his adventures. Hellboy has many roots (pulp sci fi and crimefighter stories, superhero tales, Lovecraft’s mythos), but one of his earliest is in real world magic and folktale. We see this in his encounters with Baba Yaga, Hecate, and others, but also in his battle fairy creatures that are vulnerable to unforged iron.
Since Mike Mignola's Hellboy first hit the stands in 1993, it has become a cultural sensation, racking up a dozen Eisner Awards and inspiring numerous spinoffs, from a novel line, to video games, to feature films. Now, Dark Horse is pleased to present the comics that started it all, collected in deluxe hardcover editions. Sized at 9" by 12", and handsomely bound to match The Art of Hellboy hardcover, each volume contains two full story-arcs - the equivalent of two trade-paperbacks. Each volume of the Hellboy Library Editions also includes extensive supplemental materials, including previously unreleased sketches and designs.
A retired professor, an art historian who taught at Berkeley, Northwestern, and the University of Pennsylvania. Since my main interest is the emergence of Europe from the late Middle Ages and into the Early Modern period around 1500, I naturally gravitate to non-fiction books that engage with the shifting interests and values of that era, and my own books include similar efforts to discuss visual art in relation to religion, literature, politics, and wider contemporary cultural movements. Among my own books I would cite: Rubens, Velázquez, and the King of Spain (with Aneta Georgievska-Shine); Europe Views the World, 1500-1700; and the forthcoming Art and Dis-Illusion in the Long Sixteenth Century.
An unlikely complement to Huizinga tracing the overlap between magical beliefs in religion as well as astrology and the emerging accusations of witchcraft. Deeply immersed in research about 16th-17th century England, this book offers a form of historical anthropology for baseline views of the strange ideas that drove spiritual life.
Witchcraft, astrology, divination and every kind of popular magic flourished in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the belief that a blessed amulet could prevent the assaults of the Devil to the use of the same charms to recover stolen goods. At the same time the Protestant Reformation attempted to take the magic out of religion, and scientists were developing new explanations of the universe. Keith Thomas's classic analysis of beliefs held on every level of English society begins with the collapse of the medieval Church and ends with the changing intellectual atmosphere around 1700, when science and…
I’m an intuitive channel and spiritual guide, deeply passionate about personal transformation. Over the years, I’ve worked with countless individuals to help them break through limiting beliefs, tap into their true potential, and live more empowered lives. My own journey of self-discovery has led me to explore topics like spirituality, psychology, self-concept, and energy work—areas that are all interconnected in creating lasting change. As a coach, content creator, and author of Show Up As Her, I’ve gained valuable insights that continue to shape my growth. These books have each had a profound impact on my journey, and I’m excited to share them with you.
This book shifted how I view the energetic universe, helping me realize its true nature and the principles that govern it. I love how this book breaks down the seven Hermetic principles which literally dictate our physical reality.
These teachings helped me understand how we have the power to shape our reality through our thoughts and actions. By aligning with these universal laws, I can now manifest more intentionally and accurately, enjoying better results. Before, it felt like the laws were using me, but now I’m using them to create harmony in my life.
The most popular occult work of the twentieth century--now in a hardbound edition that evokes the original volume, with a new introduction by scholar of mysticism Richard Smoley.
For generations, readers have debated the origins and studied the knowledge of this mysterious exploration of Hermetic wisdom, attributed to "Three Initiates."
Now in its second century, The Kybalion is restored to hardcover in a commemorative volume that evokes the appearance of the occult landmark's first edition.
The new introduction by Richard Smoley, a celebrated scholar of mystical traditions, makes this a historical keepsake.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I discovered Indian Yoga and Western occultism as a teenager, and it turned into a lifelong obsession. I tend to relate to various forms of esotericism more naturally than to established religions; I find the lack of rigidity in the former’s metaphysical and ethical constructs more appealing. I obtained a Ph.D. in Asian Studies with a Thesis on the Nāth Yogis and pursued my interest in Aleister Crowley, his religious movement of Thelema, and Western occultism. What I find attractive in these systems is the vision of the human potential that promises to be able to transcend limitations associated with the consensus reality.
This book chronicles the changing landscape of Western spirituality as it encounters “the wisdom of the East,” primarily India’s religious heritage, alongside its fascination with and assumed similarity to the archaic and “pagan” European past.
The ideas of the primacy of solar worship are entertained side by side with the notions of the importance of phallic worship and fertility cults. The title of the book is a tip of the hat to Frances Yates’ study of Rosicrucian Enlightenment–in both cases, the suggestion is that the project of Enlightenment does not consist of the “cult of reason” exclusively but that it contains important undercurrents best described as esoteric, which in Godwin’s book have their focus on the Theosophical Society of Madame Blavatsky and its many associated propagators.
This is an intellectual history of occult and esoteric currents in the English-speaking world from the early Romantic period to the early twentieth century. The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by Helena P. Blavatsky, holds a crucial position as the place where all these currents temporarily united, before again diverging. The book's ambiguous title points to the author's thesis that Theosophy owed as much to the skeptical Enlightenment of the eighteenth century as it did to the concept of spiritual enlightenment with which it is more readily associated.
The author respects his sources sufficiently to allow that their world, so…
