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Books podcasts were talking about in October 2020
Throughout October 2020, podcasts such as Modern Wisdom, The Realignment, and StarTalk Radio focused heavily on practical philosophy, modern leadership failures, and the intersection of science and culture. On Modern Wisdom, the host spoke with Massimo Pigliucci about his work A Field Guide to a Happy Life and How to Live a Good Life, exploring the application of Stoic philosophy to daily routines. Pigliucci also referenced related Stoic texts, including Arrian's Enchiridion and Brian Johnson's writing on Epictetus's role ethics, alongside Larry Baker's modern interpretation of Stoicism. On The Realignment, host Reeves Wiedeman discussed his investigative book Billion Dollar Loser, which chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork, highlighting corporate hubris and economic volatility. Additionally, StarTalk Radio featured Neil deGrasse Tyson discussing the connections between music and physics in relation to work by his colleague Stefan Alexander. The connecting thread among these October episodes was the examination of human behavior through structured systems, whether through ancient philosophical guidebooks designed to govern personal happiness, contemporary business autopsies revealing systemic corporate overreach, or theoretical explorations bridging jazz and physics to understand the universe.
Modern Wisdom
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A Field Guide to a Happy Life
Discussed“we might as well just keep on talking about stoicism the stoic the stoic guide to a happy life 53 brief brief lessons for living why'd you write this”
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It's a God Thing
Discussed“the thing my friend and colleague larry baker who wrote a new stoicism uh did a similar thing with the entire stoic system”
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Arrian: Anabasis Alexandri, books V-VII ; Indica
Discussed“um for instance if if you pick up the first the very opening of the anchor reading uh it says some things are up to us other things are not up to us”
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Arrian's Voyage round the Euxine Sea
Discussed“and if you actually if if you get anything other than caridion or of the field guide the new the new version that would be it if you just get that one and incorporate it into your daily life that's just just that one is going to change things for you”
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The Lives of Brian
Discussed“this comes out of what is sometimes referred to as epictetus role ethics uh there's a wonderful book about just about that aspect of stoicism over the patriarchs philosophy by brian johnson who is a colleague of mine at fordham university and he wrote a book on the rolatex of epicurus”
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How to Live a Good Life
Discussed“150 pages pocket sized your vader may come to take with you uh anywhere else that people should go and check out massimo”
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Mirror Thinking
Discussed“recently had fiona murden on who's cognitive psychologist a new book it's called mirror thinking which is exclusively about the mirror system”
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Elevate
Discussed“i've actually just finishing up a course on it because the thing i get asked about the most i i put a couple resources and elevate on this and questions you could ask”
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Political Theorists in Context
Discussed“get yourself a copy of elevate otherwise chris sparks he has an experiment without limits and there's some great work worksheets in that”
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The Lonely Century
Discussed“and i think there's a book that's up on the big shelf up there the lonely century by noreena hertz uh talking about this loneliness epidemic that we've got at the moment”
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The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Discussed“Now it would have to be something like the almanac of naval ravicant which you could pick up and put down something like the psychology of money by morgan hausell again like short perhaps more aphoristic stuff or just fiction that you're not really that asked about”
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Pierce Brown's Red Rising: Sons of Ares Omnibus
Discussed“just find a good fiction series like red rising is amazing... also pierce brown the author of red rising is coming on here once he finishes the next book in the series”
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How to Decide
Discussed“How to decide simple tools for making better choices will be linked in the show notes below”
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How to Take Smart Notes
Discussed“uh oh i was actually taking notes from this book how to take smart notes uh which was actually about all of this like recall stuff”
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The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Discussed“but can you tell us how you came to write the tattooist of auschwitz”
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Stories of Hope
Discussed“actually i promise we're going to get into stories i hope which is a new book”
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If Not Now, When?
Discussed“Oh absolutely same with our premier leavey's book too you know night in particular”
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Listening Well
Discussed“and then when silke came out or was coming out i was in koshita in slovakia doing some research for finishing off silker's book”
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Tribu de mentores
Discussed“only yesterday tim ferriss guy that wrote the four-hour work week and the four-hour chef and the four-hour body this unbelievably well-known new multiple times new york times best-selling author”
The Realignment
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Billion Dollar Loser
Discussed“So Reeves, you've just authored 'Billion Dollar Loser', the epic rise and spectacular fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork.”
StarTalk Radio
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V. Alexander Stefan: The FAUSTEF TRILOGY (Faustef: the Master Guardian of the Creation: the 22 Sibling Universes)
Discussed“stefan is a professional level jazz musician although he is a physicist on faculty here at brown university i should have said that differently he's also a jazz musician so he wrote that book the jazz of physics or the physics of jazz or something”
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The Five Ages of the Universe
Discussed“so uh there's a colleague of mine who wrote a book the five ages of the universe and his last name is adams you can look it up”
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
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Midnight's Children
Discussed“There was the one book that i've never finished with salman rushdie midnight's children because i couldn't i didn't understand where the hell the man was”
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
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Happy Sexy Millionaire
Discussed“I've just finished writing my book um not trying to plug it although happy sexy millionaires happy sexy millionaire available on all bookshelves”
The Jordan Harbinger Show
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Psychic Blues
Discussed“oh everything in my book psychic blues is true”
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Total Darkness
Discussed“in my book total darkness which is available at my website”
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Chasing the Light
Discussed“yeah a lot of this is in the book We're trying to sort of get people to get really interested and then go out and buy it yeah the name of it is chasing the light”
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Oliver Stone
Discussed“uh i learned a lot wrote a book It was not successful It was not accepted for publication but i had my heart in it”
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Difficult Conversations
Discussed“I'm planning on reading difficult conversations and radical candor so that i can better communicate with them”
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Radical Candor
Discussed“I'm planning on reading difficult conversations and radical candor so that i can better communicate with them”
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Abq
Discussed“He then told me the next step would be to get this book called the go giver by bob berg”
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Silently Seduced
Discussed“i do have a book recommendation it just happen to be reading this book it's called silently seduced when parents make their children partners”
Timcast IRL
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Behind the Mask of Facebook
Discussed“and by the way tim i am working on a book It's gonna be called the behind the mask of facebook and so it should be coming out in the next couple months”
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A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History
Discussed“joseph mathis says i'm presently developing a new left movement that's rooted in realism check out anti-marxist and realist philosopher manuel delanda good book to start with a thousand years of non-linear history”
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The Artilect War
Discussed“because i'm obsessed with the art elect war which is this book uh by hugo de garis that's about how ai is going to take over and you can either be a cosmist or a terran which is you know support ai taking over or not um and i am horrified of ai”
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A Place Called Waco
Discussed“A couple people came out like david thibodeau came out He wrote a great book about it Highly recommend”
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I Am Legend
Discussed“you know like i i always think about i am legend where they're like we have this cure for cancer everybody takes it It's fine no problem and then suddenly you know there's like the last person on earth is will smith”
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Lyndon B. Johnson
Discussed“i mean i'm reading uh lyndon b johnson's book right now about 1968 so one thing that he did during the race riots is they put troops on the ground”
Lex Fridman Podcast
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Permutation City
Discussed“um i i could give these these two i'll just throw out uh there's sci-fi uh permutation city um great things to start thinking about copies of yourself and then um that is uh greg egan”
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A Fire Upon The Deep
Discussed“fire upon the deep is interesting”
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Bronze Age Mindset
Discussed“and if you want the controversial one bronze age mindset”
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The System
Discussed“really i was listening to robert reich's the system he was talking about oligarchy versus democracy”
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New Right
Discussed“he is the author of dear reader the unauthorized autobiography of kim jong-il and the new right a journey to the fringe of american politics”
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Ostracism
Discussed“i read a book called ostracism and this wasn't scientific but basically the author was a psychiatrist at college whatever and he had one of his colleagues they did an experiment”
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The Idea of Decline in Western History
Discussed“and there's an amazing book by arthur herman called the idea of decline western history i it's one of my top 10 books where he goes through every 20 years how there's a different population that say it's the end of the world”
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The Red Decade
Discussed“there's a great book by eugene lyons called the red decade they all knew they every atrocity that uh was done under stalinism was excused in the west”
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Revolution 1989
Discussed“there's an amazing book called revolution 1989 it's like the most beautiful book i've ever read by victor sebastian”
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The Russian Revolution
Discussed“it's like the most beautiful book i've ever read by victor sebastian he's a hungarian author”
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The Machiavellians
Discussed“the machiavellians by james burnham uh this is a book about how politics works in reality as opposed to how people imagine it working”
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A Renegade History of the United States
Discussed“um thaddeus russell's book a renegade history of the united states his thesis is that it's the degenerates that give us all freedom”
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Their Eyes Were Watching God
Discussed“she wrote their eyes were watching god a couple of other books she was just an amazing amazing figure”
The Rubin Report
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Name of the Rose
Discussed“Right, then I referred to a book, well originally a book but then a movie. The Name of the Rose, if you remember The Name of the, did you see it Dave by the way?”
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Notorious RBG
Discussed“And the whole wall of books is like, even before Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, it was like RBG, the notorious, and you know, all Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton and then Chelsea Clinton.”
Pod Save America
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What It Takes
Discussed“Yeah the uh the plagiarism joke probably killed with the 50 swing voters who have read what it takes uh speaking of killing swing voters like what are your plagiarism”
