Shane’s Take — Lives of the Stoics

I’m a huge fan of stoic philosophy. In fact, I’d consider myself a stoic. I’m also a big fan of Ryan Holiday. Without his book recommendations, I wouldn’t have found some of the great books that I’ve read over the past few years. Given the title of the book, I was hoping to get more of the “art of living”. Instead, this book focuses heavily on the “lives of the stoics”. In fact, it’s a collection of mini-biographies of stoic philosophers in chronological order. There are some examples of how stoic beliefs shaped the decisions and lives of these followers, but it skews more historical than philosophical most of the time. I do appreciate that some of the lesser-known stoics were covered, but I don’t think that was quite enough to put the content on my favorite list.

I give this a *** out of *****