A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
This book gives an academic’s overview of Stoic philosophy. It is written with an emphasis on practical advice, though there is also quite a bit of historical context added in. The main pieces of advice were negative visualization, internalizing goals, and voluntary discomfort. There were also many other points that weren’t as general, but still [...]
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The Road to Serfdom
Hayek is a legendary figure in the debate over economic policy. In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek provides extensive arguments in favor of what he calls “liberalism”, which he notes has become to mean the opposite of what it originally meant. His definition of liberalism is based on the same root as “liberty”, which is [...]
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Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
This book contains two parts: 1. Theory and History, 2. Current State. The first part was a good overview of Rand’s philosophy and had some interesting arguments for capitalism. The second part was mostly a rant with less interesting content. The chapters are each independent articles, some written by other authors, so there is some [...]
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Just Work
This book discusses the issue of work in general, that is the fact that most people are effectively forced into jobs that they may or may not want to be in. The book upset me at the beginning when it seemed to advocate a guaranteed minimum wage for everyone without discussing the implementation at all. [...]
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What is Zen
This was a really short little book that talks about some of the basic concepts in Zen. It is the type of book that doesn’t try to be comprehensive or organized, but just picks and chooses a few of the more interesting things to discuss. Watts does a good job of making Zen more understandable [...]
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The Way of Zen
Although this book wasn’t organized the way I would have preferred, it still did contain a great deal of insight into the philosophy of Zen Buddhism. I was able to piece together a fairly detailed picture of Zen by compiling scattered notes from several different chapters. ★★★★★
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The Unabomber Manifesto
I totally agree with the gripes that he had about society, but I completely disagree as to the scale of the problem and his proposed solutions. He acted as if there was no way to enjoy life given the problems of society, but I think there is still plenty of room for living an enjoyable [...]
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In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays
I was initially drawn to this book while looking for support for my argument that “future worship” is a major problem. I really liked the main essay, particularly the pin factory example that illustrates the problems with the labor market when people are too willing to work long hours. Unfortunately some of the other essays [...]
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Dhammapada
I wasn’t too impressed by this short scripture that preaches the importance of virtue, particularly temperance. It seemed to be a collection of very primitive philosophy, akin to some of Christ’s teachings. ★★★★★
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The Prince
The Prince was written as a practical guide for how to be a successful ruler. It discusses issues like balancing the appeasement of the citizens and military, and in what cases it is beneficial to build forts or distribute arms. Many historical examples are cited in support of the arguments. Although the work is famous [...]
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