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]

  • Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey [4]

  • Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War [10]

  • Virgil, The Aeneid

Classics - Secondary

  • Dodds, E.R., The Greeks and the Irrational [4]

  • Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution [18]

  • Wasson, Hoffman & Ruck, The Road to Eleusis [4,16]

Comparative Mythology

  • Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

  • 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]

  • 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]

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]

  • Lovecraft, H.P. - the collection of your choice [8,12,14]

  • 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]

  • 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

  • Hearts of Iron IV [11,13]

Poetry

  • Keats, John, The Complete Poems [4]

Popular Science

  • 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]

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]

  • Simmons, Dan, Hyperion

  • Watts, Peter, Blindsight [11]