Philosophy for living
Big questions about how to live, from writers who make them readable.
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Start here
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl, 1946
A psychiatrist on what kept people alive in the camps: a reason to go on.
Named one of the ten most influential books in the US in a 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club. Source: Wikipedia
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Essays
Michel de Montaigne, 1580
The man who invented the essay, thinking out loud about everything. Dip in anywhere.
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How to Live: A Life of Montaigne
Sarah Bakewell, 2010
Montaigne's life and ideas in twenty short answers. The best way into him.
National Book Critics Circle Award, biography.
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At the Existentialist Café
Sarah Bakewell, 2016
Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus and friends, as people and as thinkers.
Long read, about 448 pages
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The Trial and Death of Socrates
Plato, c. 399 BC (written later)
Socrates defends a life of questions, then faces death calmly. Four short dialogues.
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The Happiness Hypothesis
Jonathan Haidt, 2006
Ten old ideas about the good life, tested against modern psychology.
Medium length, about 320 pages
How we pick. A person picks every book here, not an algorithm, and each one says why. No ads, affiliate links or paid placement.