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By Farid, founder of StoryShots ·
Most "best philosophy books" lists are syllabi: Kant, Hegel, a thousand pages before you get anything usable. This is the other kind. Ten books you can finish, that change how you handle a bad week, ranked by how much they give a reader who isn't taking an exam. The Stoics dominate the top because the Stoics wrote to be used.
If you only read one: Meditations. A Roman emperor's private notes to himself. They were never meant for you, and they're better for it.
Strictly speaking it's a journal, kept by the most powerful man alive, about how to stay decent while everything around him fell apart. Read it in any order. The advice about what you control and what you don't is two thousand years old and hasn't been improved on.
Full book: roughly 5 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
Seneca writing to a friend about time, grief, wealth, and dying well. Warmer than Marcus and more practical. If Meditations felt cold, start here instead.
Full book: roughly 9 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
A psychiatrist's account of the concentration camps and the idea he built from them: you can't always choose what happens, you can always choose what it means. Short, and the most read book on this list for a reason.
Full book: roughly 5 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
Plato to Dewey, one thinker per chapter, written for people who'd never read any of them. It's nearly a century old and still the best single introduction. Read it to find out which of the others you actually want.
Full book: roughly 20 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
A former slave's handbook on freedom. Shorter and blunter than Marcus or Seneca, arranged as instructions. The whole of Stoicism in an afternoon.
Full book: roughly 2 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
The secular case for Buddhist psychology, argued from evolutionary biology: the mind was built to keep you dissatisfied, and meditation is the only tool that lets you see it doing it. The most useful book here for anyone allergic to religion.
Full book: roughly 10.5 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
A motorcycle trip across America that turns into a long argument about what "quality" is. Baggy and self-indulgent in places, and it changed a generation's idea of what a philosophy book could look like. Read it slowly or not at all.
Full book: roughly 15 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
Nearly everything humans build is a way of not thinking about dying. Becker's argument won a Pulitzer. It's bleak, and it's hard to unsee. Read it after the Stoics, who give you something to do with the information.
Full book: roughly 12 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
The hardest book on the list and the one most people quote without reading. A prophet comes down from a mountain to announce that God is dead and humans must make their own values. It's written as parables and easy to get lost in, so reading the summary first helps you see where Nietzsche is heading.
Full book: roughly 11 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
A novel, and the best argument about God, freedom and guilt ever put in one. The Grand Inquisitor chapter alone is more philosophy than most textbooks. It's also very long. Give it the first hundred pages before you decide.
Full book: roughly 37 hours. Summary: 5 minutes, free
Want something usable this week: Meditations, then Epictetus. Want warmth: Seneca. Want a map of the whole field: The Story of Philosophy. Want the hard stuff: Nietzsche, then Becker. Want it in a story: Zen and the Art, or Karamazov if you have a month.
Meditations. It's short and needs no background. Every page is about something you'll face this week.
Meditations for the original, The Art of Living by Epictetus for the shortest version, Letters from a Stoic for the most readable.
No. The Story of Philosophy gives you the timeline if you want it. Everything else on this list stands alone.
Related lists: The 10 Best Books for Men, The 10 Best Fiction Books
