Afterword: For Further Exploration

There is no substitute for your own first-hand encounter with Nietzsche's books, preferably in chronological order:

• 1872 — The Birth of Tragedy
• 1876 — Untimely Meditations
• 1878 — Volume I of Human, All Too Human
• 1879 — Volume II, Part I of Human, All Too Human
• 1880 — Volume II, Part II of Human, All Too Human
• 1881 — Daybreak
• 1882 — Books I-IV of The Joyful Learning
• 1883 — Parts I & II of Thus Spoke Zarathustra
• 1884 — Part III of Thus Spoke Zarathustra
• 1885 — Part IV of Thus Spoke Zarathustra
• 1886 — Beyond Good and Evil
• 1887 — Book V of The Joyful Learning, with an Appendix of Songs; On the Genealogy of Morals
• 1888 — The Case of Wagner; Twilight of the Idols; The Anti-Christ; Ecce Homo

A complete, bilingual collection of Nietzsche's poems is available in The Peacock and the Buffalo by James Luchte.

Among the vast literature on Nietzsche's life and thought, I have found the following to be especially insightful: When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin Yalom; Nietzsche in Turin by Leslie Chamberlain; Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist by Peter Berkowitz; Pious Nietzsche by Bruce Ellis Benson; and Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by Rüdiger Safranski.

Songs of Zarathustra is the second volume in a six-movement suite of books I'm writing on the art of living:

1. The Tao of Roark: Variations on a Theme from Ayn Rand (2012)
2. Songs of Zarathustra: Poetic Perspectives on Nietzsche's Philosophy of Life (2018)
3. The Upland Farm: Thoreau on Cultivating a Better Life (2017)
4. Letters on Happiness: An Epicurean Dialogue (2013)
5. Gods Among Men: A Novel of Pyrrho and Alexander the Great (forthcoming)
6. Complete Thyself: Aristotle on Human Fulfillment (forthcoming)

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