- Dishonesty Is The Second-Best Policy and Other Rules to Live By” by David Mitchell
- “Michael Palin In Venezuela” by Michael Palin
- “Happiness: Lessons From A New Science” by Richard Layard
- “The People on Platform 5” by Clare Pooley
- “Encyclopaedia of Narrow Gauge Railways of Great Britain and Ireland” by Thomas Middlemiss
- “Moscow Coup: The Death of the Soviet System” by Martin Sixsmith
- “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged Thirteen and Three-Quarters” by Sue Townsend
- “The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole” by Sue Townsend
- “Adrian Mole: The Collected Poems” by Sue Townsend
- “How To Live Like A Stoic” by Tom Hodgkinson
- “The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass aged 37 3/4” by Adrian Plass
- “This Present Darkness” by Frank Peretti
- “Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes” by Daniel Everett
- “Brutal Scotland” by Simon Phipps
- “Idler XXX: Thirty Years of The Idler, A Visual History” by Tom Hodgkinson
- “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- “British Railways Mark 1 Coaches” by Keith Parkin
- “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius
Started: 15th April 2026
Finished: 11th July 2026
3/5 stars
I read this in bits over quite a long period, reading it from cover to cover, but that’s probably not the best way to read it. The contents are probably best (unsurprisingly) meditated over in small chunks, and I suspect I’ll revisit it in that way at some point.
Sometimes it feels a bit random, but there’s some gems of wisdom in here, and in some ways it reminds me of bits of the Old Testament. It mentions Roman gods in various places, but generally feels quite “secular”. It’s a Stoic classic, so everything is a bit hardcore in terms of discipline and self-denial, but it’s generally an interesting read. Fascinating that something so old has survived, and remains relevant and interesting today.