A Tour of My Stoic Bookshelf

A few weeks ago I posted a picture of my reading corner at home, and I had a request (from

Kyle Shepard

) for a closer look at my bookshelf. So I thought today I would share a closeup of some of my books. Here’s how I currently have my books organized by shelf:

• Stoicism

• Ancient philosophy

• Modern philosophy

• Spirituality

• Psychology

• Eastern philosophy

• History

• British literature

• American and world literature

• French and German literature

• Poetry

• Nature

• Art

• Linguistics

• Parenting

• Children’s books

• Middle grade books

Obviously I can’t detail every book on every shelf, but today I’ll show you my Stoic shelf. These are not all my Stoic books; I also have many on Kindle, so if you don’t see one here, it doesn’t mean I don’t like it. (Maybe that will be a tour for another day!) You’ll see I have both introductory books and more advanced ones side by side. Starting on the righthand side, here is the first section:

• Seneca - Selected Letters (Elaine Fantham)

• Epictetus - Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Robin Hard and Christopher Gill)

• Marcus Aurelius - Meditations (Robin Hard and Christopher Gill)

• Seneca - Dialogues and Essays (John Davie and Tobias Reinhardt)

• Stoicism and the Art of Happiness (Donald Robertson)

• 365 Ways to Be More Stoic (Tim Lebon with Kasey Pierce)

• How to Think Like a Roman Emperor (Donald Robertson)

• The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness (Epictetus and Sharon Lebell)

• The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher’s Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient (William B. Irvine)

• The Stoics Reader (Brad Inwood and Lloyd P. Gerson)

• Stoicism (John Sellars)

• Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (Brad Inwood)

• Seneca - Letters on Ethics (Margaret Graver and A. A. Long)

Just to note that I have multiple copies of Seneca’s works because when I first started studying Stoicism, I bought the abridged version of his letters and essays from the Oxford World’s Classics series. Later I needed a more complete version of his writing, so I started buying the University of Chicago Press series. This worked out really well for me and I would recommend it for others as well: start out with the shorter and more selective version, and then if you want to go deeper you can get the longer version.

• Seneca - On Benefits (Miriam Griffin and Brad Inwood)

• Seneca - Hardship and Happiness (Elaine Fantham, Harry M. Hine, James Ker, and Gareth D. Williams)

• Seneca - Natural Questions (Harry M. Hine)

• Der Weg der Stoa in der Führung (Alexander Zock)

• The Stoic Theory of Beauty (Aistė Čelkytė)

• Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (A. A. Long)

• How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life (Massimo Pigliucci)

• The Stoic Idea of the City (Malcolm Schofield)

• Stoic Serenity: A Practical Guide to Finding Inner Peace (Keith Seddon)

• Stoic Studies (A. A. Long)

• The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Brad Inwood)

• The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (Pierre Hadot)

• Stoicism Today: Selected Writings - volumes 1-4 (Patrick Ussher, Gregory B. Sadler, Leah Goldrick)

• Musonius Rufus - Lectures & Sayings (Cynthia King)

• Stoic Spiritual Exercises (Elen Buzaré) **there is no writing on the spine so you can’t see the title in the photo**

• Beyond Stoicism: A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers (Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, Meredith Alexander Kunz)

• Stoicism and Emotion (Margaret Graver)

• The Art of Living: The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy (John Sellars)

• A New Stoicism: Revised Edition (Lawrence Becker)

• Affekt und Wille: Senecas Ethik and ihre handlungspsychologische Fundierung (Stefan Röttig)

• The Voice of Virtue: Moral Song and the Practice of French Stoicism, 1574-1652 (Melinda Latour)

• The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition (John Sellars)

And since my Stoic shelf is getting so full, I pulled this one out to display on an emptier shelf (the cover is so pretty!):

• The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection (Gretchen Reydams-Schils)

I hope you find this tour useful as you select your own books on Stoicism. Again, there are many more books out there, and this is certainly not all of the Stoic books I own. But this might give you some ideas if you are building your own Stoic bookshelf.

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