I hope you are having a great day!

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I’d like to share a couple of ideas and one of my favorite books.

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The idea is to spend some time early in the day with a book that was written before the invention of the printing press. This idea comes from Perry Marshall – the gist of it is that the books that survived before the invention of the printing press had to be hand copied, and the sheer amount of effort that this process takes tells you something about the value of the books.

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If you want to start your day grounded in timeless truths, this category of books is a great place to look.

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But there is one caveat: the particular translation you get makes a huge difference. I have two versions of the Tao Te Ching. One is Zen gibberish, the other one is delightful and frequently just the right thing to read.

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Here is one of my favorite books – “The Art of Living – The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness” – a new translation of the teachings of Epictitus, one of the great Stoic philosophers. It is a short book full of short chapters. This translation is by Sharon Lebell.

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Sharon Lebell is a musician – she plays a one of a kind five octave hammer dulcimer. She is also a scholar of philosophy and a writer. She lives in California and continues to write and do talks about Stoic philosophy and other topics.

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When I travel, this is one of the books I take with me. I’ve also taken advantage of the blank pages to add some of my favorite quotes from other people:

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I memorized the George Bernard Shaw quote a while ago but I come back to this to make sure I am remembering it right.

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So this book for me is a pre and post Gutenberg collection of ideas…

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There are plenty of other pre Gutenberg books out there and they are all worth checking out if you can find a good translation.

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So – that is what I have for you today – I hope you found this useful… If for some reason you don’e see the pictures, let me know and I will send them to you…

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Have a great day!