Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday:

Really good book on the negative impacts of ego, and how to avoid these pitfalls. Unfortunately some of the anecdotes are rehashed from other sources, overall still very good.

I also enjoyed this one when I read it around the time it came out. Most of Holiday's books are pretty good imo, with the exception of Stillness is the Key. That book was basically a complete retread of its predecessors, The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy. It screamed that the author realized after committing to write it that he didn't have much additional insight to offer and was simply filling in as many pages as he could to make it a respectable book length. If you haven't read the preceding books, it's probably a fine read, but if you've read either one, you can comfortably skip that one imo. I saw he just wrote a new one, not sure whether I'll try to read it since the theme looks similar to the rest of these books.

On the topic of stoicism, has anyone read A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine? I've been thinking about checking it out.

Thanks for taking the time to write that, because I was definitely considering picking up the others, and already felt that this was retreading a lot of themes. I also enjoyed Steven Pressfield's first three nonfiction books which are very similar, but I felt everything in the third book could be found in the first two. This has led me to not read his other two nonfiction books even though they seem to be a bit more specialized and are probably really good.

No problem. On the topic of Steven Pressfield, he was the interviewee in one of the best podcast episodes I've listened to over the last couple years among many: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC44dTV0kKo , for what it's worth. Amazing life, amazing dude.

That was great, thanks for linking it. Ended up adding the Lex Fridman podcast with him to my watch later as well. In Pressfield's nonfiction books I found the parts dealing with failure to be the most inspiring so it was nice to see those stories brought up again on the podcast.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Originally picked this up because I wanted to read another Murakami book. Despite craving Murakami, it was fun to read Murakami do a non Murakami-style book. Loved all of the characters in this, especially Midori.

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is a superb read halfway in and I'd be surprised if the second half isn't as strong as the first. Feels like a culturally necessary book. Burkeman wrote The Antidote, which I also loved.

My pleasure! I'll probably do the same re: Lex Fridman's podcast, I've enjoyed most of his stuff that I've listened to. Thanks for the headsup, I didn't know he'd been a guest on it and I feel due for more Pressfield in my life.

It appears we have similar tastes, as Murakami is my favorite fiction writer! Not sure what all you've read by him, but every book I've read by him out of a dozen or so has been great. My favorite is The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Next up would probably be A Wild Sheep's Chase and Dance Dance Dance, which are loosely related. I plan on reading The Elephant Vanishes next. Still need to read all of his newer book-length titles, starting with IQ84.

I think he wrote this specifically for non-Murakami readers. For a lot of Americans I talk to, it's the only think they've read by him and they seem to love it.

Norwegian Wood is really good but I read it right after 1Q84 completely blew my mind and I kept waiting for the fireworks to start. Probably would have appreciated it more if it was the first Murakami I read.

I've basically binged Murakami for the last year or so and I think Kafka is slightly above 1Q84 for me. I enjoyed Wind Up Bird but definitely think it's below those two and possibly also below Killing Commendatore. Needless to say all of them are very enjoyable and I look forward to reading the rest of his books.

Men Without Women really blew me away. I've always been a sucker for short stories though, and take way too long between reading collections, so any time I do I feel like they're especially good. Kafka on the Shore was my favorite novel so far, but I'm only about halfway through his works.


Oh that's interesting. I have mostly only talked about him with people who are pretty familiar with his work.


Kafka was my favorite as well. I tend to take pretty long breaks between his works, so it's taken me a long time to read them all so still need to read all 3 of the others. I start 1Q84 once but put it aside for some reason.

Finished the second of Joe Abercombie's First Law series Before They Are Hanged last week.



As a total change of pace from the Abercrombie books and on the strong recommendation of this thread I've started Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I'm only 50 pages in and I'm really enjoying it so far despite not entirely knowing what's going on, which I think is by design, but I also admit to not being a "great reader." Some of the English jargon/code talk is a bit hard to follow but I'm hooked and can't wait to get home to continue reading it.

I've been reading Small World: A Microcosmic Journey by Brad Herzog.

It's the story of his travels around USA #n to small towns with big-city names, like Rome, OR; Prague, NE; and London, WI. He writes about the people he meets and culture of these small burgs.

While the subtitle strikes me as a bit pretentious (WTF even is a "A Microcosmic Journey", I've been enjoying it. Reminds me of William Least Heat-Moon's travel writing as in Blue Highways. Pleasant, nothing earth-shattering.

There were a couple of posts on reddit recently that I thought did a very good job unwrapping Tinker, Tailor...

The posts are by '_adanedhel_' and obviously contain massive spoilers:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comm..._redirect=true

Oh good to know. It's known for being a bit tough to follow? In a weird way I just feel like that adds to the mysterious nature of it. Again I'm only 50 pages in but love the vibe.

I saw the movie is on HBO max and that reddit link references the movie (not gonna click til after I finish the book). Does the movie do the book any justice?

I thought the movie was great but i never read the book.

The book is amazing. I've read it at least 2x. Yes, in the spy game stuff is supposed to be confusing.

Wild Sheep Chase was hilarious, loved it. Read almost all his work so far.

Just finished The Magician by Colm Tobain, about Thomas Mann's life [fictionalized autobiography]. Worth a read if you're into that, a large part takes place during the rise of Nazism and the war, but certainly not all of it.

About 29% thru the Magic Mountain. Taking it very slowly as I read other works.

Also started Waiting by Ha Jin and halfway thru Austerlitz.

Oh, that's a real shame, you shouldn't.

His novels are much, much better.

Agree with you on the wsop book though.

Don't know if I ever mentioned The Sellout on here by Beatty but it has many, many laugh out loud moments. Probably the funniest book I read that year.

It's fine, def prefer the 6-part BBC miniseries with Alec Guinness, it is farking amazingly good. Alec is spectacular. [and can obvs deliver much more than a 2.5 hr film]

The Appeal by Janice Hallet - modern day epistolary crime fiction. The story is told through emails and texts. Quite clever, addictive, and ludicrous. The framing device whereby a partner in a law firm gives two of his juniors all this correspondence to read, without telling them why, is quite clunky and frequently assumes the reader can't follow the plot.

Poe for your Problems by Catherine Baab-Muguira

A self-help book using Edgar Allen Poe as a role model. Very funny and learned a lot about Poe and some of his lesser well known stunts/problems/wtf was he thinking.

I don't know if it gets mentioned in the book, but Poe wrote an essay on how he wrote The Raven that's fascinating. There was more to the guy than I had imagined.

I wasn't aware of that, sounds fascinating. The book is more focused on how messed up he was as an individual but how he still managed to accomplish some great things. The part focusing on The Raven deals with his popularity after writing it. He ended up having some very public correspondences with two women who were impressed by his writing abilities. While Virginia seemed to encourage this for some reason, eventually it went a little overboard. Poe thought he was going to end up in a duel with one of the women's brothers and the entire Poe family had to flee town.

A remarkable bibliographic mind has passed from us ,..

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/b...fall-dead.html

Thoughts on Shuggie Bain?