Bibliography
We mention a lot of books on our podcast, so thought we’d bring them together here.
They’re all excellent unless otherwise noted.
Classics - Primary
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics [6]
Augustine, City of God [22,25]
Orosius, Seven Books of History Against the Pagans [25]
Plato, Dialogues [26]
Tacitus, Annals [20]
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War [10,25]
Virgil, The Aeneid
Classics - Secondary
Dodds, E.R., The Greeks and the Irrational [4]
Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution [20]
Comparative Mythology
Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
von Däniken, Erich, Chariots of the Gods? [23]
Frazer, The Golden Bough, in twelve volumes if you’re rich both financially and in time, and a single abridged volume if not [7,12,27]
Tolkien, J.R.R. On Fairy-stories [7]
Vallee, Jacques, Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers [2]
Exploration
Bolton, Tom, London’s Lost Rivers: A Walking Guide [6]
David, Wade, One River [1]
David-Néel, Alexandra, Magic and Mystery in Tibet [5]
de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine, Wind, Sand and Stars [18]
Fantasy
Borges, Jorge Luis, Collected Fictions [12]
Howard, Robert E., The Conan the Barbarian collection of your choice, or just watch the superb 1982 Schwarzenegger film (they’ve just released a 4K print) [8,9]
Leiber, Fritz, Swords Against Death [8,26]
Pratchett, Terry, the Discworld series - we’re split between whether to recommend you start with Equal Rites or with Thief of Time [7,8,9,12]
de Saint-Exupéry, Antoine, Le Petit Prince [18]
Sapkowski, Andrej, Sword of Destiny - a good starting point for the Witcher series. See also seasons 1 and 2 of the Netflix show, and the Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt computer game [7]
Tolkien, J.R.R., Lord of the Rings. Also acceptable is the extended edition of the Peter Jackson film trilogy [7]
History - Beginner
Beevor, Anthony, Stalingrad [26,27]
The Bible (KJV obvs) [20,21,22]
Clarke, Kenneth, Civilisation: A Personal View (television series, all on YouTube) [26]
Diacu, Florin, The Lost Millennium: History’s Timetable Under Siege [25]
Elsner, Jas et al., Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions [22]
Holland, James, The War in the West, Volume I: Germany Ascendant 1939–1941 [18]
Holland, Tom, Dominion [20]
The World at War (best watched on VHS) [26]
History - Fiction
Clavell, James, Shōgun: A Novel of Japan [28]
Fomenko, Anatoly, History: Fiction or Science (The New Chronology Volume I) [25]
History - Intermediate
Garnett, George, The Norman Conquest in English History Volume I: A Broken Chain? [20]
Guillaume, Alfred, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah [21]
Macdonald, Michael C.A., Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia [21]
The Koran (see if you can get the old Penguin edition from before the Salman Rushdie affair - it presents the surahs in chronological order, so it’s much easier to see the development of the prophet’s thinking) [21]
Schoeler, Gregor, The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read [21]
Tyerman, Christopher, The Debate on the Crusades 1099-2010 [20]
Manifestoes
Calasso, Roberto, The Ruin of Kasch [27,28]
Dugin, Aleksandr, Foundations of Geopolitics [25]
Herzog, Werner, Every Man Against Himself and God Against All: A Memoir [25,28]
Little, John, The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer [19]
Mishima, Yukio, Sun and Steel [19,28]
Okakura, Kakuzo, The Book of Tea [28]
Tanizaki, Junichiro, In Praise of Shadows [28]
Poetry
Anon., ‘The Ruin’ - Anglo-Saxon poem that can be found in Crossley-Holland, Keven, The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology (among other places) [25]
Keats, John, The Complete Poems [4]
Popular Science
Hoyle, Frank & Wickramasinge, Chandra, Evolution from Space: A Theory of Cosmic Creationism [23]
Koch, Christof, The Feeling of Life Itself [17]
Morgan, Elaine, The Descent of Woman [14]
Rovelli, Carlo, Helgoland: The Strange and Beautiful Story of Quantum Physics [12]
Stamets, Paul, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms [16]
Psychology
Carse, James P, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility [13]
Jung, Carl, Answer to Job [5]
Jung, Carl, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky [2,5]
Peterson, Jordan, 12 Rules for Life (and assorted lectures before he went weird and boring) [13]
Pollan, Michael, How to Change Your Mind [11]
Reading List for EP24: What is Money?
Kindly provided by Artem
Easy Introduction:
Coggan, Philip, Paper Promises: Money, Debt, and the New World Order
Continuation:
Bagehot, Walter, Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market
Eichengreen, Barry, Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System
Kuroda, Akinobu, A Global History of Money
Peacock, Mark, Introducing Money
Smithin, John (ed.) What Is Money?
Schizo Deep Dive:
Goodhart, Charles, Money, Information and Uncertainty
Ingham, Geoffrey, The Nature of Money
Simmel, Georg, The Philosophy of Money
Schumpeter, Joseph, Treatise on Money
Moseley, Fred (ed.) Marx’s Theory of Money: Modern Appraisals
Avoid:
Graeber, David, Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Science Fiction
Banks, Iain M., the entire Culture series actually, but start with Excession if you’re a nerd and The Player of Games if you’re not [2,13,28]
Conan-Doyle, Arthur, The Poison Belt (and other Professor Challenger stories) [23]
Hoyle, Frank, The Black Cloud [23]
Simmons, Dan, Hyperion [6]
Watts, Peter, Blindsight [11,23,27]
We sometimes mention blogs, too
The Intrinsic Perspective (especially the post called Baldwin in Brahman) [19]