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A review by reachersaid_
How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life by Massimo Pigliucci
1.0
When I started this book, I expected a philosophical manual on Stoicism, at the end of a most underwhelming read however, what was delivered was a poorly written and thinly disguised self-help book.
It started out decently enough though, a brief history of the philosophy, followed by an examination of its main tenets. All the good in it was contained in the first 20% and even then there were traces of the navel-gazing to come. Everything after... shockingly poor.
Never have I seen an author miss the mark so much. The decision to write this in first-person only served to show how flawed the author is, all of his biases and prejudices were laid bare. A better title for this book should have been "How to be Massimo Pigliucci", every chapter was littered with entirely boring and braggadocios anecdotes of a man who evidently thinks himself an embodiment of humility, modesty and fine character. You would see interesting chapter titles that ended up being neither informative or thought-provoking, for someone who never missed the opportunity to tell the reader how non-religious he is, the whole book had an air of boring preachiness about it.
I consider myself lucky to not have had this book and this author as my introduction to Stoicism, that would certainly have killed my interest.
It started out decently enough though, a brief history of the philosophy, followed by an examination of its main tenets. All the good in it was contained in the first 20% and even then there were traces of the navel-gazing to come. Everything after... shockingly poor.
Never have I seen an author miss the mark so much. The decision to write this in first-person only served to show how flawed the author is, all of his biases and prejudices were laid bare. A better title for this book should have been "How to be Massimo Pigliucci", every chapter was littered with entirely boring and braggadocios anecdotes of a man who evidently thinks himself an embodiment of humility, modesty and fine character. You would see interesting chapter titles that ended up being neither informative or thought-provoking, for someone who never missed the opportunity to tell the reader how non-religious he is, the whole book had an air of boring preachiness about it.
I consider myself lucky to not have had this book and this author as my introduction to Stoicism, that would certainly have killed my interest.