Books like On Friendship — picked by fans

This is the most readable philosophy book I know. Nietzsche wrote it in his brilliantly witty, epigrammatic style. Each episode is about a page long.

Concentrate on "Book Four." There, Nietzsche famously tells us that God is dead. Find out what he really means. (We criticize everything and can feel no true reverence.) Consequently, we seek convenience and flexibility over and over again. Stunningly, Nietzsche sets out four contrarian, incompatible good lives. (Philosophers have always sought to define one good life.)

If you read nothing else, read epigrams 290, 295, and 303: "The life of constant revision to perfect a style," "The life of short stories," "The life of brilliant improvisation," and "The risk-taking life." I use Nietzsche’s model of good lives to help business leaders restore their businesses and themselves.

This book is based on Hubert (Bert) Dreyfus’s famous undergraduate philosophy course at U. C. Berkeley, affectionately called “From Gods to God and Back.” Like me, Sean was Bert’s teaching assistant for the course. We all loved this course because it draws out of our Western literary traditions a form of spirituality that we believe is essential for good lives today.

The book begins by looking at the relationship between Athena and Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. It’s a friendly mentoring relationship without any suffocating philosophical-theological pretensions such as omnipotence or omniscience. Later, we join St. Augustine as he tries to undermine (though unsuccessfully) the theological pretensions. The book ends with Melville’s polytheism in Moby Dick.

The book inspires us to look for “attainable felicities”: simple divine experiences without pretensions. 

I love this book because Albert Borgmann shows that focal practices are at the core of any good life today.

Consider the end-of-day, carefully prepared family meal: the parents and children together showing gratitude, reviewing the day, arguing over bits, and resolving those arguments. Such moments do not always work.

When they do, they give each participant a sharp identity. There’s no place the participants would rather be, no others they would prefer to be with, and nothing they would rather do. When it works really well, participants sense they will remember it forever. These moments are heaven on earth.

We can make huddles and resource trading meetings play the same role in business. Borgmann writes of the woes of technology first; the focal practice solution comes at the end. 

Michel Foucault spent the last years of his life in his plain-speaking public lectures, calling our attention to the ancient philosophers’ practices for mastering the self. I help leaders (and myself) with these practices of managing desires without trying to eliminate them.

In this book (1982-1983 lectures), Foucault focuses on the practice that guides my life: parrhesia, telling truth to power. From 400 BCE to 600 CE, parrhesia reigned in education. Foucault’s account of Plato’s subtle truth-telling to Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, is spellbinding. As thanks, Dionysius sold Plato into slavery. Telling the truth always carries a high moral risk. Truths cut across common sense.

Today’s mantra of radical candor—sharing views—avoids hard truths, produces agreeableness, and undermines good lives. This book wakes us up.

The Giving Tree. Unconditional Love. Sacrificial Love.

I first read this when I was young. I was heartbroken for the tree and furious with the boy. In fact, I would cry on the inside as the tree became less. Not fully understanding that the tree was really becoming much more.

As I've matured, I've come to understand that more important than myself is a vision of love that is giving of myself, in a deep, meaningful way. 

To me, this book conveys that the heart of life is not possession, but devotion.

Billie Upton Green (B.U.G.) has two mums, an obsession with biscuits (the best varieties and correct way to eat them), and a problem with spelling. Young or old, everyone surely has a favourite biscuit-like Billie, I’m a custard cream fan - and even the most reluctant reader, whatever their own family is like, can pick up this quirkily illustrated book and find something to make them laugh or that they can identify with. Author Jen Carney, like me, draws on her own experience as a lesbian parent, and ensures that Billie is able to educate her classmates in a no-nonsense way on what it means to be adopted and to have two mums. 

I found this comedy mystery great fun, and was pleased to see that it includes a character who is a wheelchair user. This is great because disabled children deserve to see themselves represented more in children’s literature.

This story, written by comedian Adam Hills, introduces twelve-year-old Charley, a singing sensation, and her friend George, a wannabe comedian, who are on tour together. When a valuable painting goes missing, the pair are suddenly under suspicion and must prove their innocence before the tour is suspended.

A great contemporary mystery.

Oh, sweet, southern goodness! Set in Bon Dieu, Louisiana, this is the story of three childhood best friends, Carrigan, Ella Rae, and Laine—each a character which is expertly crafted with their own quirks, mannerisms, goals, and faults.

One of my favorite things about this novel is the way in which Bon Dieu, itself, becomes a central character in the story as we get to know its charm, humor, and yes, its not-so-great sides too. A wonderful read for anyone who enjoys a good Southern drama and a bond of sisterhood which prevails over everything else. Bring the tissues though…you’re going to need them!

This is a book by one of my favorite contemporary Japanese writers.

Sweet Bean Paste is both charming and horrifying. The main character with a criminal past tries to turn his life around by working at a confectionary stall selling sweet pancakes to passersby. At this stall he meets an elderly woman with warped hands.

Through her we learn of the horrors of how leprosy patients used to be treated. It’s an enlightening and, yes, sweet tale and shows that the young have much to learn from those who came before them.

I knew Richard Wirthlin very well back in the 1980s. I loved the stories about his encounters with Ronald Reagan and how illuminating they were in describing the characters of both men.

The lessons Reagan imparted to Wirthlin explain why Reagan was so successful in politics and his ability to understand his audience. No one knew Reagan better or understood him as well than Richard Wirthlin.