100 Books Like On Anger (De Ira)

C.S. Lewis is best known for his Narnia books, but the book of his that sticks with me the most is this one, a first-person contemporaneous account of the famed fiction writer’s mourning for his wife. He began a journal shortly after she died and stopped when he reached the end of the notebook and then published it.

When I read it, I was dealing with intense grief that I felt no one around me understood, and reading Lewis’ journal/memoir made me feel like someone living in the same headspace had reached out his hand to me. One of the early statements in the book struck such a chord with me that I remember it to this day, more than 30 years later: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

I enjoy being surprised by philosophical work on emotions. Kurth’s The Anxious Mind is full of unexpected insights into anxiety, an emotion that seems to have little to recommend it. But Kurth manages to persuade readers that we should actually be glad for the presence of anxiety in our lives. He explains how anxiety can enhance our performance and contribute to moral progress both individually and collectively. 

Like many emotions, shame seems like a double-edged sword. Shame seems to notify us that we haven’t lived up to our own ideals – that we’re not the people we thought or hoped we were. But shame has, as Thomason carefully delineates, a dark side: Shame can lead us to withdraw from the world in order not to be seen, and too often shame is a precursor to self-destructive behaviors. Naked ultimately argues that we need shame despite these drawbacks. Thomason’s book is also among the very best of recent books to use philosophical tools to investigate social media; her discussion of online shaming should not be missed.

We live in a very interconnected world, and yet loneliness is rampant. How can that be? Gaffney’s Political Loneliness helps us see that today’s loneliness is the byproduct of our specific political moment. Modern political life, she argues, alienates us from one other and fosters anonymity while also priming us to value belonging and inclusion. Gaffney’s purpose is less to offer us advice about how we can overcome this ‘political loneliness’ on an individual level. Rather, her uncomfortable message is that, with respect to loneliness at least, the personal is indeed the political, and she warns us that many will find totalitarianism an appealing antidote to the loneliness endemic to contemporary life.

If you read the three books mentioned above, you will get a very good idea about Stoicism and how it can help you to lead a better life. But these books do not give a comprehensive overall picture of Stoic philosophy. They tend to ignore many aspects of Stoicism. If you want to have a good overall understanding of Stoic philosophy without having to spend a lot of time or money, get this book. In just 152 pages, Brad Inwood, a distinguished Stoic scholar, gives a clear account of what Stoicism is all about. If you are serious about Stoicism, at some point you need to have a reasonable understanding of what Stoicism actually was and is. You can find no better introduction to Stoicism than this.

This book is so concise, comprehensive, and clear, there’s no other book that directly competes with this one.

This is a unique book in that it integrates the learnings from the great philosophies and religions with modern science to create a powerful story of how you and I can live a happy and a meaningful life.

The Author takes you on a great journey illuminating how our thinking and how our mind and body influence our beliefs and ways of being. He puts together a compelling new story that you can embrace to be on your Journey to Best Self. This book was so good that I have read it three times since I bought it.

Musonius was a celebrated teacher who was thrice banished from Rome. He would often turn would-be students away, explaining to a young Epictetus that “the more one pushes the intelligent person away from the life he was born for, the more he inclines towards it.” His school, he often said, was not some concert hall, where people come to be entertained, but a hospital, where they come, in trepidation, to be treated. Thus, he measured the success of his lectures not by the applause that they received, but by the shock and awe to which they gave rise. The twenty-one lectures preserved in Stobaeus were recorded by one of his students. They are full of practical, everyday advice aimed at instilling virtue, and include a lecture on household furnishings and even one on hair.

Seneca lived through the reigns of all five Julio-Claudian emperors. His writings represent the most important body of primary material for ancient Stoicism. He wrote the Letters to Lucilius in his final years, intending them as his immortal legacy, prior to committing suicide on the order of Nero. The letters are an excellent entry point to Seneca, Stoicism, and philosophy in general. They collectively amount to a course in moral development and become longer and more technical as Lucilius appears to be making philosophical progress. Michel de Montaigne, the “French Seneca”, modelled his Essays upon the Letters, writing in one of them, “I have not devoted myself to any serious work except perhaps Plutarch and Seneca: but upon them, I draw as do the Danaids...”

For me, Montaigne’s thoughts on life and human foibles compare favorably with those of St. Augustine. His insights on the human condition are valuable to anyone inclined to self-reflection on one’s own frailties. Montaigne’s advice on coping with one’s mortality is worth heeding. He counsels that in order to deny death its sting, “…let us deprive death of its strangeness; let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more in our mind than death.” Yet our mortality is only one of many issues he discusses. Montaigne offers up wisdom on everything from fear, prayer and solitude, to the virtues of social intercourse, avoiding unwanted relationships, and educating children.

I loved the bold new interpretation that Epictetus was actually the author of the Discourses rather than the teacher who narrated them to his student Arrian, who wrote them down, as the vast majority of scholars believe.

Dobbin’s introduction offers a concise and lucid overview of Epictetus, supported by a meticulous bibliography and generous indices. I was pleased by the balance of accuracy and readability of his translation, which is often clearer than Robin Hard’s and more modern than W. A. Oldfather’s.

I found the commentary to be generally excellent, with insightful connections to Stoic theory, other philosophical schools, and rich cross-referencing throughout. Dobbin’s treatment of prohairesis, Epictetus’ originality, and his creative polemics is quite compelling. I also appreciated his attention to Epictetus’ pedagogical strengths and philosophical rigor.