Ryan Holiday – The Light Appears

Q4 2022 + Q1 2023 Read It

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Michael

Discipline is Destiny is Ryan Holiday’s second in a planned four part series following the four stoic virtues of Courage/Temperance/Justice/Wisdom. It follows his familiar style of a general theme broken up into short chapters about historical figures. The themes include The Body, The Temperament, and The Soul. Some of those figures here include Marcus Aurelius, Queen Elizabeth, Lou Gehrig, and Angela Merkel. It’s another inspiring achievement for the author who has dedicated his life to the stoic one. 9/10

A classic re-read of an all-time favourite, A Catcher in the Rye. J.D. Salinger’s novel from 1951 follows protagonist Holden Caulfield around New York City after he gets kicked out of yet another boarding school. Meeting up with former school mates, girls he’s dated, a few scoundrels and best of all, his sister Phoebe. Young Phoebe is the voice of reason in Holden’s troubled life and one of the most endearing relationships in popular reading. She’s not enough to save him from himself as he makes mistake after mistake. One of the best novels of all time, Catcher in the Rye remains a must read. 10/10

Steven Pressfield’s latest book, Put Your Ass [Where Your Heart Wants To Be] has a straightforward concept – if you want to get stronger, go to the gym. If you want to write, get up early and write. If you want to be in the movies, move to Hollywood. It is a swift kick for a lot of us that put things off and never seem to get to them, for one reason or another. The chapters are short, often less than a page long so easy to fly through the book. My favourite part was the story about James Patterson who would go into work two hours early to his advertising job and work on his books/writing. If you focus, and put the time in, it’s amazing what can be accomplished in just a few months or a year. 8/10

Psychology of Money is one of those books that frequently appears on Instagram pages as a must read business book. Written by former Wall Street Journal columnist, Morgan Housel, his first book covers a lot of topics and uses stories throughout to help make his point. He talks about various financial crises, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Amazon. Housel writes that we all bring different ideas to money depending on who we are, our beliefs, life experiences and the era we grew up in. The basic tenants of the book are to invest early, invest often, don’t be distracted by outside noise, and stay the course. It is boring advice but Housel shows that slow and steady more often that not wins the race. 10/10

Paper Chase

Q4 Read It 2021

Posted on February 12, 2022 by Michael

A bit late with this posting, but here it goes:

A Clash of Kings: A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2

A Clash of Kings is the second novel in George R.R. Martin’s series, A Song of Ice and Fire. Like it’s predecessor, there is a lot plot covered in its many pages. A few highlights include the struggle between Stannis and Renly Baratheon to take the crown, Arya Stark’s journey, Theon Greyjoy’s heel turn, Tyrion Lannister becoming the king’s hand and Jon Snow travelling well behind the wall. With so many characters and plot points, it would be easy to get lost but Martin does a masterful job of keeping everything together. While it doesn’t pack as much of a punch as the first novel, it is still a terrific read and the description of the war at King’s Landing is a thrill.

9/10

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

The first of Ryan Holiday’s big three stoicism books is The Obstacle Is The Way. Released in 2014, the book is broken into three main sections – perception, action and will. The format is familiar to some of his other books of short stories taken from history. While summarizing some of those historic lessons, Holiday can make it all very simplistic to prove his point. After several years of reading his writing, some of the stories and lessons may be blunted by being familiar but Holiday does have a unique ability to make the reader want to learn more about the many stories he shares.

7/10

Sponsored Ad – British Classics. Great Expectations

Great Expectations is Charles Dickens’ 13^th novel and one of his most beloved. The story follows Pip, starting as a young lad who lives with his sister and her husband in the country with dreams of becoming a gentleman in the city. His dreams come true through a secret benefactor that pays his many bills. Along the way, Pip falls for the beautiful Estella who he meets through the mysterious Miss Havisham. Great Expectations is a very good story with many memorable characters and a few twists and turns to keep the reader engaged.

8/10

Paper Chase

Q4 Read It 2019

Posted on December 29, 2019 by Michael

I’ve been listening to The Watch podcast since it’s inception way back when on the old Grantland website. Over the past year co-host Andy Greenwald has taken time away from the pod to be the show runner for his adaptation of Ross Thomas’ 1984 murder mystery, Briarpatch. Upon hearing of his sister’s murder, Benjamin Dill returns to his small hometown to settle her affairs and look into what happened. Turns out she had a $250K life insurance policy, many questions about a possible double life she was leading and several suspects.

Before his death in 1995, Thomas had published 25 books and won an Edgar award for Briarpatch. This is not life changing stuff but a solid read with several funny bits, interesting characters, a story that keeps things moving along swiftly.

7.5/10

I’m fairly certain Ryan Holiday came onto my radar through the Tim Ferriss podcast a few years ago and have been subscribing to his newsletter for about as long. Every month Holiday sends out his reading list with lots of great suggestions. Like James Clear, since we’ve consumed so much of his content, we wanted to support Holiday with his latest book entitled Stillness Is The Key.

The book is laid out in three sections on mind, soul, and body with several short chapters devoted to each. Stories through the centuries come from Marcus Aurelius, John F Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Anne Frank, Tiger Woods, etc. This book is a great jumping off point to dive further into teachings and philosophies that have been preached throughout the world. It is a book that I will certainly return to throughout the years.

10/10

George Saunders’ first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, won several awards including the Man Book prize in 2017. The book tells the story of Abraham Lincoln’s son, William, who passes away and who for a time is caught between heaven and earth. The writing switches from written historical accounts of the events surrounding his death and fantasy of what happened after he had passed on. Several times when reading I found myself stopping and thinking about what was written. Certainly not an easy read, I’m sure I missed a few things but feel like this is one that I would re-read again someday.

9/10

Tayari Jones’ fourth novel, An American Marriage, was selected as an Opera’s book club and has won a couple of awards including the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2019. The book takes place in Georgia with African American Roy marrying Celestial. A year into the marriage, Roy is accused of raping a woman in her hotel room and is sent to jail for several years. Much of the book takes place in letters written between Roy and the outside world.

When picked for my fiancé’s book club, this was not a fan favourite so even though I knew it has been well received, I was not expecting to like it as much as I did. The characters are flawed but likeable in their own ways. Everyone is just trying to get through life the best they can which added to the realness of the story. As an added bonus, the southern expressions and teachings were nice additions for this Northern reader.

8.5/10