Episode · The Daily Stoic · 2026-01-09
Ryan Holiday & Sebastian Junger: books mentioned on The Daily Stoic (Jan 2026)
Sebastian Junger On Being Addicted To The Illusion of Control" | Daily Stoic Podcast
Ryan Holiday recommended In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger, and discussed Tribe by Sebastian Junger, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Sebastian Junger discussed The Raw and the Cooked by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Insurgent Mexico by John Reed.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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In My Time of Dying
In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger is a 2024 memoir where the author reflects on a harrowing near-death experience and confronts the concept of an afterlife.
Recommended“Sebastian Younger is the number one New York Times bestselling author of most recently in My Time of Dying, which is one of my absolute favorites.”
Where to get it
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Tribe
Tribe by Sebastian Junger is a reflective examination of social cohesion, community, and the psychological impacts of modern isolation compared to traditional societies.
Discussed“Like you you talked in Tribe about what life must have been like for people who weren't constantly aware that it was 12:30.”
Where to get it
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The Raw and the Cooked
Discussed“And I remember I I brought I don't know why they just didn't beat me up right then and there but I brought Cloud Levy Strauss. Yeah. Right. Uh and the raw and the cooked I think it was.”
Where to get it
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Insurgent Mexico
Discussed“He wrote a book called Insurgent Mexico and there's a there's a paragraph that the that describes the tropa ponchovia's troop.”
Where to get it
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Blood Meridian
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is a harrowing and visceral historical novel that depicts the extreme violence and bleak reality of the American West through the harrowing journey of a runaway teenager known as the kid.
Discussed“Oh, that is a famous paragraph, right, from Blood Meridian.”
Where to get it
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For Whom the Bell Tolls
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway is a classic novel centered on the Spanish Civil War and the harrowing experiences of Robert Jordan, an American volunteer attached to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
Discussed“There's a obviously you know for whom the bell tolls by Hemingway and you know the sort of like central drama of it is this is a night before this military operation where Robert Jordan I think his name is the the narrator or the the main character.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“Yeah, I I wrote a book, Freedom, which I see over there next to you on the table. I just couldn't find Tribe. I love Tribe also.”
“I looked at in in my book Freedom, I looked at a gang in Chicago in the 1960s.”