Tag: Books

Derren Brown
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Downtime: Happy by @DerrenBrown

Stoicism for the modern world, death to the self-help book industry, and a healthy scepticism towards social media.

Happy: Why more or less everything is absolutely fine by Derren Brown is superb. It’s beautifully written, wonderfully observed, both philosophical and practical (which once upon a time were one and the same thing). Very thought-provoking.

I think I first heard of Happy from a Donald Robertson interview and it treads similar ground to How to Think Like A Roman Emperor. However, it does so in a completely different way.

I particularly enjoyed Chapter 5, A (Very) Brief History of Happiness.

Thoroughly recommended.

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George Orwell and the Left – @ASI

Madsen Pirie, at the Adam Smith Institute, has a piece on George Orwell, his writing and his impact.

He is still highly relevant, rewarding us not only with his fluent prose, but with his honesty. He self-identified as a socialist and a man of the Left, yet he saw and wrote about what people actually did in the name of socialism. His refusal to excuse the cynical brutality of those who claimed to carry its banner but betrayed all of its ideals, made him many enemies on the Left.

Worth a quick read, here.

Presence & Presentation

Charisma and the power of great fiction writing

Some people “never read fiction”. Life, it seems, is too short for its frivolity when there remain Great Books to be read.

Yet, well-written fiction has the power to bring emotion and experience to life, accelerating (vicariously) the individual experience. And, as psychologists know, a deeply imagined experience has the same effect as one directly experienced. Hence, the power of visualisation in sport (and life) coaching.

Here’s a fantastic, case study, example from the Art of Manliness’s Brett McKay.

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Recommended blog
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Small but important thoughts…

…from Patrick Rhone.

Mostly here: Rhoneisms at PatrickRhone.net.

But also here: TheCramped.com – Celebrating The Unique Pleasures of Analog(ue) Writing.

And his books, here: PatrickRhone.com. Looking back, I see I read Patrick’s Some Thoughts About Writing back in 2014, so I’ve been following him since before then.

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Now thinking like a Roman emperor – @DonJRobertson

Highly recommended!

This week, I finished Donald Robertson’s new book How To Think Like a Roman Emperor. And, what a remarkable book it is.

It succeeds in being a practical introduction to Stoicism whilst combining biography, history, psychotherapy and philosophy. Each chapter uses a period in Marcus’s life to illustrate an issue, for example, conquering desire or relinquishing fear. It describes Marcus’s situation, then demonstrates Stoic exercises that deal with the topic in question.

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Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince
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Who’s afraid of Machiavelli? – BBC

Should everyone, or at least every sovereign professional, read Machiavelli’s notorious book, The Prince?

From the BBC’s Imagine series, this programme explores the history and contemporary impact of Nicolo Machiavelli’s most famous book.

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