Books like This Is Water — picked by fans

Few books have reminded me more powerfully that our circumstances and our inner life are not the same thing.

I first read Man's Search for Meaning years ago, and its impact has only deepened over time. Frankl's willingness to look directly at suffering without becoming defined by it challenged many of the assumptions I carried about happiness, success, and what it takes to live a meaningful life.

I return to this book because it continually reminds me that meaning is not something life hands us once everything finally goes our way. It is something we discover in how we meet what life places before us.

During difficult seasons of my own life, Frankl's perspective helped me remember that even when we cannot control our circumstances, we still have a relationship with how we respond to them. Few books have given me more courage, perspective, and hope.

A kick in the pants of a book!

Each time I read it, I am reminded that the creation of art is a sacred ritual; that the beautiful process is what creates the beautiful product; that the showing up matters most; and that when we choose art-making as a vital part of our lives, we will do a brave thing each day we go to greet our project.

I loved how daring this novel is.

It doesn’t patronise the reader as it weaves a history of Western philosophy into the narrative. The story is a semi-autobiographical motorcycle road trip undertaken by the writer as he recovers from a nervous breakdown caused by his obsession with philosophical questions.

I really enjoyed this book even though I didn’t agree with all the author’s ideas. And the first time I read it, the moment his alter ego first appears was one of the creepiest things I had ever read in a novel. It freaked me out. 

I have carried The Universal Traveller with me for decades and it sits next to my desk in my office. Any time I get jammed about next steps to take toward a worthy goal, I dip into this quirky, useful book. The authors look at life and all our efforts to live it with dignity and value through the lens of design and problem solving, by which they mean “making dreams come true.” The most meaningful life is one lived with a stoked imagination and the willingness to try on new ideas and methods. The UT is quaint because it was written before we were all digitally connected, but its wisdom stands the test of time.

Michael Schur is not a philosopher—he’s a comedian and the creator of the hit TV show The Good Place. Thus, since I am a professional philosopher, perhaps I’m supposed to be snide about the fact that Schur wrote a philosophy book. But I’m not. I really love the book, and I’ve recommended it to many friends who want a light and airy introduction to philosophy.

It’s funny and irreverent and does an impressive amount of really good philosophy. I laughed out loud while reading it, and even though I teach a lot of the fairly introductory material that Schur covers, I learned a lot just due to the breadth of what he discusses in this wide-ranging book. I came away thinking that perhaps more comedians should do philosophy!

You’ll have to work to find a copy of this book, but it will be worth your while. Morris is a brilliant philosopher (PhD from Yale, formerly on the faculty at Notre Dame) who has a flair for public speaking and accessible writing. (He wrote the Philosophy for Dummies book also.) In this volume, he champions the French scientific and philosophical genius Blaise Pascal to show the relevance of Pascal’s thought to our time and to our most pressing concerns.

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.

I was shaken by the power of Setiya’s writing. Academic philosophers are not exactly known for the beauty of their prose, but this book is, indeed, beautiful. And sad. And a bit dark. So basically, it was exactly what I look for in a book.

I was drawn in by Setiya’s early disclosure that he lives with chronic pain and that this would be part of his window into exploring suffering. As someone who also lives with pain (and who has tried to write about it), I found his reflections powerful.

His chapter on grief, too, stayed with me, so much so that I went back to it after experiencing a loss in my life. Perhaps that’s the greatest compliment I can give this book—that it truly made philosophy matter to me when I needed it to.

A Field Guide to a Happy Life is an outstanding example of what a modern Stoic book can and should be. Pigliucci has taken the famous Handbook (Enchiridion) of the Roman Stoic teacher, Epictetus, and reworked it to reflect a more modern approach to the philosophy. As such, this field guide is a portable, practical guide to applying Stoic wisdom in your day to day life.

What I most appreciate about A Field Guide to a Happy Life is that the author’s update of the philosophy is clearly described in a later section of the book. This allows the reader to compare and contrast the ancient with the modern. What does it mean to adopt and adapt a two thousand year old philosophy? This unique book is both a practical philosophical guide, and a jumping off point to deeper study.

Being Better is the best expression of the heart of Stoic philosophy that I have found in print. This is not a how-to book in the style of so many beginner’s manuals (including my own), but instead it is a meditation on the core principles of Stoicism. The authors challenge us to apply those principles in our own lives, so that we can join together in making the world a better place. Each chapter unveils a facet of the philosophy using the experiences of real people, both ancient and modern, as examples of how to apply Stoic thinking to hard problems such as the climate crisis, social justice issues, and economic excess. Being Better moves past simple life hacks to show us how Stoicism can function as a full philosophy of life.