I struggled to read through the first half. Put it aside for a long time. Then slowly managed to progress. It became much easier to digest towards the end.

Massimo Pigliucci offers the readers a practical guide to practicing stoicism, an ancient philosophy that has helped people live a good life for centuries. The book provides a concise summary of the tenets of stoicism, a brief history of its origins and a practical explanation on applying the wisdom of the ancient romans and greek stoics.

The book is divided in three parts, "The Discipline of Desire", "The Discipline of Action" and "The Discipline of Assent" What is proper to want and not want, How to Behave in the World and How to React to Situations.

The last chapter has a list of exercises taken from Epictetus’ Enchiridion meant to be practiced daily.

I was exposed to Stoicism in college when I took a class called "Reason and Values" that literally changed my life. I always summarized the teachings as "Focus what you can control, let go of the rest" as well as "Work on your character, nothing else matters" Meaning that to live a good life you must strive to be a virtuous person, and understand what you value and work on that. Nothing else works, if you focus on money you won't ever have enough, if you externalize your happiness (you base your happiness on what others think) then you will always be miserable because you don't control what other people do.

This book was a good review of the Stoic teachings, it offers well-written explanations meant for anyone to pick up and start practicing. I like how the author does not claim that Stoicism is the "one true way" or that this is the "silver bullet" that will solve all people's problems. Rather this is a guide for living your best life by adopting what works and dropping what doesn't. It's a powerful worldview when combined with a scientific approach to understanding the Universe.

The book is too short and leaves out a lot of other stoic works, but for the purpose of being an introductory book, it's perfect.

JV

Much more dense than you’d expect a “how to” book to be. If you’re looking for something academic, this might be a good fit for you. I was more-so expecting this to be a book about implementing the stoic lifestyle into my own but it just didn’t really hit home for me like other books on the subject have.

Accessible, enjoyable, applicable.

There's a LOT of gold in this book, truly. However, something about the author's tone came across as arrogant to me, and his political views annoyed me as well. Hating on white males when you are one is trendy for those on the left side of the aisle right now, though, so.....okay. Had those little things not been in the book, I would have rated it much higher, because I truly love Stoicism and Epictetus's teachings, and this was a good book on how to apply all those things into our everyday lives.

Audible | I’m very interested in stoicism. The fundamentals of stoicism were written about and were interesting. The way they were presented was not the best for my particular learning style. I do enjoy the steps mentioned at the end and intend to write them down and practice.

This book was quite good. Pigliucci teaches us how to apply Stoic teachings to many areas of our lives. He ends the book with some practical spiritual exercises. It's always nice to walk away from a book like this with some actual actions you can take. I just learned he has a podcast and now I'm going to subscribe!