Person
Every book Riva Tez recommended on podcasts
Riva Tez's appearance on How I Write portrays her as an independent thinker with a profound appetite for foundational classics, historical research, and provocative literature. Preferring active, deep learning over passive media consumption, Tez frequently champions foundational texts, noting that she would rather read Homer's Odyssey a hundred times than watch Netflix, and placing Virgil's Aeneid among the crucial classical works that explore timeless human drives. Exploring themes of longevity and human potential, she recommends Alan Harrington's The Immortalists to imagine a society stripped of mortality. Tez also discusses her ongoing engagement with Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, noting that she has repeatedly revisited the novel over the years to extract new insights. Furthermore, she demonstrates a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity by discussing Constantin von Tischendorf's discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus in the context of ancient manuscript history, Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists in relation to her mother's art historical research, Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer for its raw emotional honesty, and Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho to defend edgy, transgressive fiction. Through these diverse works, Tez outlines an intellectual life built on rigorous reading, historical inquiry, and uncompromising individual thought.
Books recommended by Riva Tez
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The Aeneid
The Aeneid is a foundational classical Latin epic poem written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, telling the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled to Italy and became the ancestor of the Romans.
Recommended“And if you read Euripides, Or like poetry, if you read the Odyssey, right, which I'm sure you have, or the Aeneid. In that, which is in my, on my mind, like the next, like the next level of foundational books after like the Bible”
Where to get it
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The immortalist
The Immortalist is a philosophical and speculative book by Alan Harrington that investigates the human desire to conquer death and imagines what society might look like in the absence of mortality.
Recommended“There's a great book actually called Alan by Alan Harrington called The Immortalists. You just talks about what society would look like if you'd, if you'd like, got rid of mortality”
Where to get it
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The Odyssey
The Odyssey by Homer is an ancient Greek epic poem that follows the arduous ten-year journey of Odysseus returning home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.
Recommended“Like, I'd rather read the Odyssey a hundred times than watch Netflix. Like, I am not looking for passive entertainment.”
Where to get it
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American Psycho
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis is a satirical psychological horror novel that explores the depraved and hyper-materialist life of a wealthy New York City investment banker named Patrick Bateman.
Discussed“Like Bret Easton Ellis, like when they wrote American Psycho, it was also like an edgy book, right, like it glorifies violence, all this kind of stuff, but it's fiction.”
Where to get it
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Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is a philosophical novel that presents the author's objectivist philosophy through a dystopian narrative about society's most productive individuals going on strike against collectivism.
Discussed“I think we've had this conversation previously, which is that I've probably read Atlas Frye, like every two years, but like 15 years. Right. And I look back and I wish that I'd understood it better as a teenager”
Where to get it
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Codex sinaiticus
Discussed“And the oldest New Testament, there's lots of fragments of the New Testament, but the oldest claiming New Testament, like entire copy, um, Codex, the Codex Sinaiticus, which was discovered in the late 19th century by a biblical researcher called Constantine Tischendorf”
Where to get it
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The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 14th century, detailing a diverse group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury.
Discussed“William Morris did the Canterbury Tales. Like, have you seen these books? Oh, it's just so beautiful.”
Where to get it
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Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller's autobiographical novel Tropic of Cancer offers a raw, unfiltered look at the bohemian lifestyle of an American writer struggling in Paris during the Great Depression.
Discussed“I read The Tropic of Cancer the other day. You read Tropic of Cancer, it's like, it goes from extreme explicitness, it's like a train of thought of like a man.”
Where to get it
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Vasari's Lives of the Artists
Discussed“It's currently studying Vasari's lives as an artist, like an account of like 16th century Italian artists. And one of the ones she's studying is Masaccio”
Where to get it
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| Riva Tez: Becoming A Free Thinker | How I Write | 2023-10-18 | 9 |