Reading List for Gods Among Men

Last Updated: 2024-01-18

In preparation for writing Gods Among Men, I am slowly reading about 400 books and articles...

Philosophy

• Algra et al. (eds.) - The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy
• Allinson - Chuang Tzu for Spiritual Transformation
• Annas and Barnes - The Modes of Scepticism
• Annas and Barnes - Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism
• Ames - Wandering at Ease
• Augustine - Confessions
• Bailey - Sextus Empiricus and Pyrrhonian Scepticism
• Balfour - Taoist Texts
• Barnes - The Toils of Skepticism
• Barnes, Brunschwig, Burnyeat, and Schofield (eds.) - Science and Speculation
• Batchelor - After Buddhism
• Batchelor - The Awakening of the West
• Batchelor - Buddhism without Beliefs
• [x] Batchelor - Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
• [x] Batchelor - Secular Buddhism
• Batchelor - Verses from the Center
• Batchelor and Batchelor - What is This?
• Bates - Pyrrho's Way
• [r][x] Beckwith - Greek Buddha
• Benson - Socratic Wisdom
• Berry - Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition
• Bett (ed.) - The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism
• Bett - How to Be a Pyrrhonist
• [r][x] Bett - Pyrrho, his Antecedents, and his Legacy
• Bett - Sextus Empiricus: Against the Ethicists
• Bett - Sextus Empiricus: Against the Logicians
• Bett - Sextus Empiricus: Against the Physicists
• Bett - Sextus Empiricus: Against Those in the Disciplines
• Branham Bracht and Goulet-Caze - The Cynics
• Brennan - Ethics and Epistemology in Sextus Empiricus
• Bodhi - The Connected Discourses of the Buddha
• Bodhi - In the Buddha's Words
• Bosman - "The Gymnosophist Riddle Contest (Berol. P. 13044): A Cynic Text?"
• Botten - Herakleitos
• Brumbaugh - The Philosophers of Greece
• Burnet - Early Greek Philosophy
• Burnyeat and Frede - The Original Sceptics
• Bynner - Tao Te Ching
• Carus - Tao Te Ching
• Cartledge - Democritus
• Chan - Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy
• Chen - Tao Te Ching
• Chiesara (ed.) - Aristocles of Messene
• [r][x] Clayman - Timon of Phlius
• Cleary - The Essential Tao
• Cleary - Immortal Sisters
• Cleary - Wen-Tzu
• Cole - Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology
• Collins - The Sociology of Philosophies
• Conze - Three Phases of Buddhist Thought in India
• Cooper - "Arcesilaus: Socratic and Skeptic"
• [x] Cooper - Pursuits of Wisdom
• Cronk - Tao Te Ching
• Crosby - The Measure of Reality
• Cupitt - Emptiness and Brightness
• Cupitt - Solar Ethics
• Cupitt - Taking Leave of God
• Curd and Graham - Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy
• Cutler - Cynicism from Diogenes to Dilbert
• Davids - The Questions of King Menander
• Dehaene - Consciousness and the Brain
• Deng - Scholar Warrior
• Desmond - Cynics
• Desmond - The Greek Praise of Poverty
• Diels - Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker
• Dilcher - Studies in Heraclitus
• Dillon - The Heirs of Plato
• [x] Diogenes - Lives of the Ancient Philosophers
• Dobbin - The Cynic Philosophers from Diogenes to Julian
• Dorandi - Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
• Dudley - A History of Cynicism from Diogenes to the 6th Century AD
• Emmanuel (ed.) - A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy
• Eusebius - Praeparatio Evangelica
• Evola - The Doctrine of Awakening
• Feng and English - Tao Te Ching
• Flintoff - "Pyrrho and India" (Phronesis 25 (1): 88-108, 1980)
• Floridi - Sextus Empiricus
• Fogelin - Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification
• [x] Fonsdal - The Buddha Before Buddhism
• Freeman - Ancilla to the Presocratic Philosophers
• Frischer - The Sculpted Word
• Fung - Chuang Tzu
• Galen - An Outline of Empiricism
• Garfield - The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way
• Garfield - Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy
• Gibbs and Cheng - Lao-Tzu
• Gill and Pellegrin - A Companion to Ancient Philosophy
• Gombrich - How Buddhism Began
• Gombrich - What the Buddha Thought
• Gottschalk - Heraclides of Pontus
• Graham - Texts of Early Greek Philosophy
• Graham - Chuang Tzu
• Graham - Tao Te Ching
• Graham - Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking
• Greco - The Oxford Handbook of Scepticism
• Guthrie - A History of Greek Philosophy
• Haase (ed.) - Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (vol. 2)
• Hankinson - The Sceptics
• Harvey - Introduction to Buddhism
• Harvey - Introduction to Buddhist Ethics
• [r][x] Havelock - Preface to Plato
• Henricks - Tao Te Ching
• Herrigel - Zen in the Art of Archery
• Hoffman - A Case Against Reality
• Hussey - The Pre-Socratics
• Isaeva - Shankara and Indian Philosophy
• Ivanhoe - Tao Te Ching
• Ivanhoe and Kjellberg (eds.) - Essays on Skepticism
• Kalupahana - History of Buddhist Philosophy
• Jarratt - Rereading the Sophists
• Jones - Nagarjuna: Buddhism's Most Important Philosopher
• Kahn - The Art and Thought of Heraclitus
• Kalupahana - A History of Buddhist Philosophy
• Kalupahana - The Philosophy of the Middle Way
• Karamanolis - Plato and Aristotle in Agreement?
• Keyser and Irby-Massie - The Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists
• Kimura - Tao Te Ching
• King - Buddha Nature
• Kingsley - Ancient Philosophy
• [r][x] Kirk and Raven - The Presocratic Philosophers
• Kuzminski - Pyrrhonism
• Lafargue - The Tao of the Tao Te Ching
• Lakoff - Philosophy in the Flesh
• Lampe - The Birth of Hedonism
• Lau - Tao Te Ching
• Lau and Ames - Yuan Dao
• [x] Lee - Epistemology after Protagoras
• Lee and Kim - Yin and Yang of Life
• [x] Le Guin - Tao Te Ching
• Lewis - The Abolition of Man
• [x] Derek Lin - The Tao of Daily Life
• Derek Lin - The Tao of Happiness
• Derek Lin - The Tao of Joy Every Day
• [x] Derek Lin - The Tao of Success
• [x] Derek Lin - Tao Te Ching
• Lin Yutang - The Chinese Way of Life
• [x] Lin Yutang - The Importance of Living
• [x] Lin Yutang - The Pleasures of a Nonconformist
• Lin Yutang - The Wisdom of Laotse
• Lom - The Limits of Doubt
• Long - Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy
• Long - "Timon of Phlius: Pyrrhonist and Satirist"
• Lynn - Tao Te Ching
• MacEvilley - The Shape of Ancient Thought
• Machuca (ed.) - Pyrrhonism in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy
• Machuca and Reed (eds.) - Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present
• Magee - Ultimate Questions
• Mair - Experimental Essays on Chuang Tzu
• Mair - Notes Toward a Complete Translation
• Mair - Wandering on the Way
• Mates - The Skeptic Way
• Mensch - Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
• Mendis - The Questions of King Milinda
• Miller - Buddhist Existentialism
• Mitchell - Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience
• Morgan - Tao the Great Luminant
• Nagarjuna - Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way
• Nails - The People of Plato
• Nanamoli - The Life of the Buddha
• Nanavira - Clearing the Path
• Navia - Classical Cynicism
• Navia - Diogenes the Cynic
• Nietzsche - Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
• Nussbaum - The Therapy of Desire
• Olfert - Pyrrhonian Skepticism as a Way of Life
• [x] Plato - complete dialogues (see Aristotle readings)
• Polito - The Skeptical Road
• Popkin - The High Road to Pyrrhonism
• Popper - The World of Parmenides
• Puett - To Become a God
• Radhakrishnan - Upanishads
• Rahula - What the Buddha Taught
• Reale - A History of Ancient Philosophy
• [x] Reed - "Skepticism as a Way of Life"
• Rescher - Paradoxes
• Roth - Original Tao
• Rutt - The Book of Changes
• Ryan and Deci - Self-Determination Theory
• Salomon - The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhara
• Sandywell - Presocratic Reflexivity
• Santayana - Scepticism and Animal Faith
• Sayre - The Greek Cynics
• Sayre and Boas - Diogenes of Sinope
• Schofield, Burnyeat, and Barnes (eds.) - Doubt and Dogmatism
• Sextus Empiricus - Against the Ethicists
• Sextus Empiricus - Against the Mathematicians
• Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism
• Sider and Obbink - Doctrine and Doxography
• Siderits - Buddhism as Philosophy
• Sim - Remastering Morals with Confucius and Aristotle
• Simpson - Religion and Philosophy in Ancient Egypt
• Sinnott-Armstrong - Pyrrhonian Skepticism
• Slingerland - Effortless Action
• Slingerland - Trying Not to Try
• Smith - Revaluing Ethics
• Sprague - The Older Sophists
• [x] Spranzi - The Art of Dialectic between Dialogue and Rhetoric
• Stiker - Essays on Hellenistic epistemology and ethics
• Tarán - Speusippus of Athens
• Van Dijk - Ainoi, Logoi, Mythoi
• Vazquez - Reason in Check
• Vogt (ed.) - Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laërtius
• Walser - Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture
• [r][x] Warren - Epicurus and Democritean Ethics
• [x] Watson - Chuang Tzu
• Watson - Mo Tzu
• Welch - Taoism
• West - Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient
• Westerhoff - The Dispeller of Disputes
• Westerhoff - The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy
• Westerhoff - Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka
• Wheelwright - Heraclitus
• Wildberg - "Cynicism, or: Philosophy as a Way of Strife"
• Williams - Buddhist Thought
• Williams - Mahayana Buddhism
• Wong - Cultivating Stillness
• [x] Wong - Lieh-Tzu
• Wright - Why Buddhism is True
• Wu - Butterfly as Companion
• Wu - Tao Te Ching
• Xuanzang - Great Tang Records of the Western Regions
• Zafiropoulos - Ethics in Aesop's Fables
• Zilioli - The Cyrenaics
• Zimmer - Soul Made Flesh
• Ziporyn - Chuang Tzu

History

• Allen - The Persian Empire
• Altekar - Education in Ancient India
• Arrian - Anabasis of Alexander
• Assmann - Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt
• Assmann - The Search for God in Ancient Egypt
• Balcerowicz - Early Aceticism in India
• Basham - History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas
• Baumer - History of Central Asia
• Baxter and Sagart - Old Chinese
• Beckwith - Empires of the Silk Road
• Bodde - Essays on Chinese Civilization
• Borza - In the Shadow of Olympus
• Bosworth - Conquest and Empire
• [x] Bowden - Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle
• Boyce - A History of Zoroastrianism
• Boyce - Zoroastrians
• Broad - The Oracle
• Bronkhorst - Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism
• Bronkhorst - Greater Magadha
• Brosius - The Persians
• Brown - Onesicritus: A Study in Hellenistic Historiography
• Burkert - Greek Religion
• Cartledge - Alexander the Great
• Cawthorne - Alexander the Great
• Clark - Zoroastrianism
• Connelly - Portrait of a Priestess
• Cunningham - The Ancient Geography of India
• Dong - Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn
• Doniger - On Hinduism
• Faxian - Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms
• [x] Fontenrose - The Delphic Oracle
• Fontenrose - Python
• Fox - Alexander the Great
• [x] Freeman - Alexander the Great
• Garland - The Greek Way of Life
• Green - Alexander of Macedon
• Grousset - The Empire of the Steppes
• [x] Hamilton - The Greek Way
• [x] Hamilton - The Echo of Greece
• Heckel - The Last Days and Testament of Alexander the Great
• Heckel and Tritle - Alexander the Great
• Herodotus - Histories
• Heschel - The Sabbath
• Hoddinott - The Thracians
• Höistad - Cynic Hero and Cynic King
• Holt - Alexander the Great and Bactria
• Holt - Into the Land of Bones
• Kitto - The Greeks
• Kulke - A History of India
• Lamotte - History of Indian Buddhism
• Ling - The Buddha
• Marshall - A Guide to Taxila
• Martin - Ancient Greece
• Morgan - Athletes and Oracles
• Mukherjee - Ancient Indian Education
• Naiden - Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life of Alexander the Great
• Navia - Classical Cynicism
• Navia - Diogenes of Sinope
• Needham - Within the Four Seas
• Nilsson - Cults, Myths, Oracles, and Politics in Ancient Greece
• Oates - Babylon
• Parke and Wormell - The Delphic Oracle
• Plutarch - Alexander
• Prakash - Political and Social Movements in Ancient Punjab
• Prince - Antisthenes
• [x] Reich - Who We Are and How We Got Here
• Renault - The Nature of Alexander
• Roisman - Brill's Companion to Alexander the Great
• Rolle - The World of the Scythians
• Samad - The Grandeur of Gandhara
• Schaefe - Education in Ancient India
• Schaefe - The Historical Buddha
• Schiff - Cleopatra
• Sedlar - India and the Greek World
• Singh - A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India
• Stark - Alexander's Path
• [x] Stone - The Trial of Socrates
• Stoneman - Alexander the Great
• Stoneman - Legends of Alexander
• Tarn - The Greeks in Bactria and India
• Thapar - Early History of India
• Vassiliades - The Greeks in India
• Wheeler - Flames over Persepolis
• Wood - In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great
• Worthington - Alexander the Great
• Worthington - By the Spear
• Xenophon - Anabasis
• [x] Xenophon - Apology
• Xenophon - Cyropedia
• Xenophon - Hellenica
• [x] Xenophon - Memorabilia
• Xenophon - Symposium
• Xuanzang - Great Tang Records of the Western Regions
• Zaehner - The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism

Science

• [x] Barrett - How Emotions Are Made
• Brewer and Kabat-Zinn - The Craving Mind
• Churchland - Conscience
• Churchland - Neurophilosophy
• Churchland - Touching a Nerve
• Haier - Neuroscience of Intelligence
• Hoffman - The Case Against Reality
• Hohwy - The Predictive Mind
• McGilchrist - The Master and His Emissary
• McGilchrist - The Matter with Things:
• Mercier and Sperber - The Enigma of Reason
• Perin - The Demands of Reason

Fiction, Fables, Parables, Poetry

• Aicher - A Confession
• anonymous - La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes
• Austen - Emma
• Austen - Pride and Prejudice
• Bakker - The Prince of Nothing
• Barth - The Floating Opera
• Barth - The End of the Road
• Blanchot - Thomas the Obscure
• [x] Borges - Ficciones
• [x] Borges - Labyrinths
• Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
• Bradbury - Martian Chronicles
• Brontë - Jane Eyre
• Brontë - Wuthering Heights
• [x] Chiang - Stories of Your Life
• Caldwell - Glory and the Lightning
• Cameron - Alexander: God of War
• de Camp - An Elephant for Aristotle
• [x] Camus - The Fall
• [x] Camus - The Stranger
• Cather - O Pioneers
• Cather - The Song of the Lark
• Cather - My Antonia
• Cather - Lucy Gayheart
• Cather - Shadows on the Rock
• Céline - Journey to the End of Night
• [x] Chiang - Stories of Your Life
• [x] Chopin - The Awakening
• Coelho - The Alchemist
• Coetzee - Elizabeth Costello
• De Beauvoir - The Mandarins
• Deng - Chronicles of Tao
• Dezso - Much Ado about Religion
• Dharma - Panchatantra
• Dickens - David Copperfield
• Dickens - Great Expectations
• Dostoevsky - The Adolescent
• [x] Douglas-Klotz - Sufi Stories
• Duggan - Besieger of Cities
• Duron - Alexander the Great
• Dzielska - Hypatia of Alexandria
• Eco - The Island of the Day Before
• Eco - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
• [x] Eco - The Name of the Rose
• [x] Eliot - Adam Bede
• Eliot - Daniel Deronda
• Eliot - Middlemarch
• Eliot - The Mill on the Floss
• Eliot - Romola
• [x] Eliot - Silas Marner
• Ellison - Invisible Man
• Fielding - Tom Jones
• [r][x] Gaarder - Sophie's World
• Gardner - The Wreckage of Agathon
• Gibbs - Aesop's Fables
• [x] Gibran - The Prophet
• Goethe - The Sorrows of Young Werther
• Goethe - Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
• [x] Golding - The Double Tongue
• Henderson - Telling Tales on Caesar
• [x] Hesse - Demian
• [r][x] Hesse - The Glass Bead Game
• Hesse - The Journey to the East
• Hesse - Klingsor's Last Summer
• Hesse - Narcissus and Goldmund
• [r][x] Hesse - Siddhartha
• [x] Hesse - Steppenwolf
• Homer - Iliad (tr. Lattimore)
• Homer - Odyssey (tr. Lattimore)
• Holt - Alexander at the World's End
• Huxley - After Many a Summer
• [x] Huxley - Brave New World
• Huxley - Island
• James - What Maisie Knew
• Keller - Green Henry
• [x] Khan - Twenty Jataka Tales
• [x] Koestler - Darkness at Noon
• Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
• Le Guin - The Beginning Place
• Le Guin - The Birthday of the World
• Le Guin - Buffalo Gals
• Le Guin - Changing Planes
• Le Guin - The Compass Rose
• [r][x] Le Guin - The Dispossessed
• [x] Le Guin - The Found and the Lost
• Le Guin - A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
• Le Guin - Four Ways to Forgiveness
• [x] Le Guin - Lavinia
• [x] Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness
• [x] Le Guin - Orsinian Tales
• [x] Le Guin - Searoad
• [x] Le Guin - So Far So Good
• [x] Le Guin - Unlocking the Air
• [x] Le Guin - The Unreal and the Real
• [x] Le Guin - The Wind's Twelve Quarters
• Le Guin - A Wizard of Earthsea
• Le Guin - The Tombs of Atuan
• Le Guin - The Farthest Shore
• [x] Levinson - The Plot to Save Socrates
• [x] Lewis - Till We Have Faces
• Lightman - Einstein's Dreams
• [x] Lin Yutang - Famous Chinese Short Stories
• London - Martin Eden
• London - The Sea Wolf
• Longfellow - Flow Down Like Silver
• [x] Lucian - A True Story
• Mandredi - Alexander: Child of a Dream
• Mandredi - The Sands of Ammon
• Mandredi - The Ends of the Earth
• Mann - The Magic Mountain
• Marshall - The Conqueror
• Mitchison - The Young Alexander
• Morris - The Sacred Band
• Müller - Buddhist Parables
• Murdoch - The Bell
• Murdoch - Under the Net
• Nicastro - Empire of Ashes
• Olivelle - The Five Discourses on Worldly Wisdom
• Olivelle - The Pancatantra
• [x] Paton Walsh - Knowledge of Angels
• [r][x] Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• Pressfield - The Virtues of War
• Priante - Lesbia Mia
• Read - The Green Child
• [r][x] Renault - Fire from Heaven
• [r][x] Renault - The Persian Boy
• Renault - Funeral Games
• Renault - The Last of the Wine
• Renault - The Mask of Apollo
• Renault - The Praise Singer
• Rihani - The Book of Khalid
• St. Jean - Clotho's Loom
• Santayana - The Last Puritan
• Saunders - Tenth of December
• [x] Shah - The Hundred Tales of Wisdom
• [x] Shakespeare - Timon of Athens
• Shaw - The Jatakas
• Slabbert - Modern Tao Stories
• Stendhal - The Red and the Black
• Stephenson - Anathem
• [x] Stephenson - Snow Crash
• Sterne - Tristram Shandy
• Stifter - Indian Summer
• Stoddard - The Morgesons
• Stoneman - The Greek Alexander Romance
• Stylianos - The Lost Chronicles of Alexander the Great
• Suri - The Death of Vishnu
• Tarr - Bring Down the Sun
• Tartt - The Secret History
• [x] Tolstoy - The Death of Ivan Ilyitch
• [x] Tolstoy - Hadji Murad
• Tolstoy - Resurrection
• Tolstoy - War and Peace
• Towler - Tales from the Tao
• Tufail - Hayy ibn Yaqdhan
• Tullis - The Master's Plan
• [x] Van Over - Taoist Tales
• [x] Voltaire - Candide
• [x] Walton - The Just City
• [x] Walton - The Philosopher Kings
• [x] Walton - Necessity
• [x] Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Wilder - The Ides of March
• Wolfe - A Man in Full
• [x] Wong - Seven Taoist Masters
• [x] Wong - Tales of the Taoist Immortals
• [r][x] Yalom - When Nietzsche Wept
• [x] Yourcenar - The Abyss
• [r][x] Yourcenar - Memoirs of Hadrian
• Yu - The Journey to the West

Writing, Literary Criticism

• Arana - The Writing Life
• Bell - Plot and Structure
• [x] Bradbury - Zen in the Art of Writing
• Brooks - Story Engineering
• [x] Campbell - The Hero with a Thousand Faces
• Card - Characters and Viewpoint
• Cather - On Writing
• Collins - Getting into Character
• Cron - Wired for Story
• [x] Dillard - The Writing Life
• Edgerton - Hooked
• Gardner - The Art of Fiction
• Gardner - On Becoming a Novelist
• Hemingway - A Moveable Feast
• Jeffers - Apprenticeships
• King - On Writing
• Koontz - How to Write Bestselling Fiction
• Lamont - Bird by Bird
• [x] Le Guin - Steering the Craft
• Logan - The Encyclopedia of the Novel
• Maass - Writing the Breakout Novel
• McKee - Story
• Madden - A Primer of the Novel
• Moretti - The Way of the World
• [x] Orwell - Why I Write
• Rand - The Art of Fiction
• Saunders - A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
• Sontag - At the Same Time
• Stein - Stein On Writing
• Vogler - The Writer's Journey
• Woolf - A Room of One's Own

[x] denotes books I've read

[r] denotes books I need to re-read or further reference

Peter Saint-Andre > Writings > Pyrrho