Once upon a time at my former employer, I sat in a meeting regarding a book recommendation group that I had started. My counterpart to this meeting was a chipper HR rep who oversaw my group (and several other employee interest groups as well). She offered the idea that along with my usual stream of recommendations, that I occasionally throw in a few posts revolving around authors and books I dislike. Originally, I was skeptical of the idea; the thought of having to force myself to read books that I would not like just for the sake of a roast seemed unappealing. After all, the idea required several hours of reading and note-taking in the margins of said book, followed by more time required to sharpen my pitchfork and unleash my disdain onto the page. This level of upfront effort did not seem to be worth the payoff. Being the foolhardy writer that I was back then, I did not take the suggestion seriously.
This conversation happened nearly two years ago, and I had thought nothing of it until recently. However, something happened. I was reading one of Ryan Holiday’s latest books Discipline is Destiny when I came to a sad realization; much of this is recycled content from either his previous works or his podcast. Just like that, my fandom of this author was starting to wither away right in front of my eyes. The apple did not fall far from the Robert Greene tree.
I’ve been an avid reader of Ryan Holiday’s books for the last few years. Some of his earlier works on the topic of Stoicism are deeply profound, and I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t benefited from them. In particular, Stillness is the Key is (in my opinion) his absolute masterpiece; if you’ll only ever read one book from Ryan Holiday, make sure it’s that one. Coming in a very close second in terms of how well he grips the reader and the relevance of the examples he uses is The Obstacle Is the Way. These two works from Holiday are fantastic, as is Ego Is the Enemy, even if that book was a bit more simplistic in nature than the other two titles. All three of these books flew off of the shelves and made Ryan Holiday a household name, and a god-among-men in the realm of modern nonfiction writers.
I began listening to his podcast episodes that were long-form discussions with guests. They were informative, thought-provoking and were an appealing way to optimize a workout, chore session or commute to work. Truthfully, I still feel this way about his podcast. However, Ryan Holiday frequently cross pollinates his inspirations across these two mediums. On the surface, this isn’t a bad thing; consistency over time is commendable. With that said, I’m starting to grow a little weary of reading (or in subsequent works, re-reading) the same stories about Babe Ruth’s alcoholism, Eisenhower’s smoking, JFK’s sexual addiction/the Cuban Missile Crisis, Teddy Roosevelt’s sickly upbringing to his embrace of the strenuous life (shout out to Brett McKay!), or literally anything Churchill did. I’ll admit that Holiday features stories from a few more non-Roman historical figures, but the names I just mentioned are definitely the backbone of his roster. The men listed, along with their feats and vices are discussed time after time. I found myself quickly jotting frequent podcast story in the margins of his latest book; I’ve read it and heard it so many times from Holiday himself that I could quickly glance through the passage without actually missing anything of value. After all, this is about the tenth time I’ve sat through this lecture.
The baffling thing is that Holiday doesn’t need to rely on re-using his older material (a taboo if he were a comedian). After all, he is the man who pretty much single-handedly revived an entire generation’s interest in philosophy; Holiday has been far more effective at this than any philosophy class or TV talking head could ever dream of being. History is littered with examples of those who lived-and openly violated-the four Stoic values of courage, justice, temperance and wisdom. Given that Holiday is now a mainstay on numerous bestseller lists, it is likely that he can hire a research assistant or two to help him dig for different historical figures that have extolled (or disobeyed) the values he writes about. Holiday claims that he writes these books in a series, though it seems like he writes with no assumption of any returning readers whatsoever (and hence the examples would be brand-new to them). These two thoughts contradict each other. Until the ad nauseam repetition stops, I can no longer recommend his books to others.
With that said, we can address the root cause of this recycling of stories: his self-imposed schedule of book launches. Holiday has frequently discussed on his podcast that he plans on releasing one book every year until he has covered all four of the cardinal values of Stoicism. Given that it typically takes much longer to even get a single book published, Holiday’s pace is nothing short of absolutely grueling, even among those that love to write (the few who remain). Seeing that he is working under a tremendous time-wall, it makes sense from an efficiency standpoint for him to keep returning to the Babe/JFK/Eisenhower/Churchill well until it runs dry. Combine this ruthless writing schedule with his frequent paid speaking gigs, his bookstore (which I would visit despite my hatred of most bookstores), and his podcast schedule, and it’s no wonder that he’s strapped for time-and examples.
“Well Dan, if you’re done kicking an author that you used to love, we’re all ears for a solution” a reader of mine will bark. It’s okay for Holiday to take a little more time between book launches in order to feature a more novel cast of examples and situations. As great as Teddy Roosevelt was, there is more to history than just him and his cohorts. Holiday has certainly built up enough of a readership over the years that his supporters would surely survive a 12-month gap between book launches without evaporating. If J.K Rowling took more time in between her final three Harry Potter books and still had them sell like hotcakes, then Holiday’s customers (an adult audience as opposed to the largely-adolescent following of Rowling at the time) can wait a similar amount of time between titles. Besides, Ryan Holiday essentially has the Stoicism-and likely the entire philosophy market-cornered, so it’s not like he has a major threat of losing market share overnight. Holiday could bolster his case for Stoicism as well if he presents a different roster of historical cases, rather than relying on his current limited inventory of historical greats.
Save your $25 and listen to his podcast for free-you won’t miss out on anything.
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