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​The Reading List Email For January 25, 2026​

2026-01-25 · 20:26 UTC ·Ryan Holiday ·11 min read

Brief

Ryan Holiday’s January 25, 2026 reading-list email is a curated bookstore newsletter blending literary recommendations, current-events framing, and promotion for his shop, The Painted Porch. The strongest through-line is history as a lens for present politics: Holiday foregrounds Daniel Immerwahr’s How to Hide an Empire and Smedley Butler’s War is a Racket as useful context for renewed debates over U.S. power, territorial ambition, and intervention. He then moves through a mix of short civic-minded nonfiction, historical fiction, memoir, and literary fiction, emphasizing books that illuminate power, empire, public disgrace, and moral ambiguity. Technically, the newsletter is sparse on analytical method; its value is mainly in Holiday’s personal framing, named references, and cross-linking among works rather than any original reporting.

Several recommendations are specific and memorable. He calls Walter Isaacson’s The Greatest Sentence Ever Written an 80-page meditation on the Declaration’s first sentence, contrasts the American novelist Winston Churchill’s 1901 bestseller The Crisis with the more famous British statesman, and praises Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer for integrating American, Communist, and South Vietnamese viewpoints. The newsletter also functions as audience-building: Holiday launches a quarterly classics virtual book club, promotes signed editions, and shares themed recommendation clusters for history lovers, activism-minded readers, parents, and outdoor families. For a reader seeking deep technical or industrial insight, the piece is lightweight, but it may still surface worthwhile titles in history, geopolitics, and state power.

Cleaned source text

title: ​The Reading List Email For January 25, 2026​

author: Ryan Holiday

content_type: newsletter

publication: ryanholiday.net

published: 2026-01-25T20:26:48+00:00

source_url: gmail://19bf6d68278f8023

word_count: 2458

​The Reading List Email For January 25, 2026​

​Check out all the books in my January 2026 Reading List here.​

—Today’s newsletter is sponsored by_ _Money’s Best Car Insurance Tool_ _.

Well, here we are a month into the year…and what a calm and normal and not at all alarming month it’s been! We’re currently frozen in place here in Austin because nothing and no one can handle the cold (and that’s after spending the first two weeks of the year with the whole family battling one strain of the flu after another). From a reading perspective, though, I’m very far away. I spent most of yesterday reading another book about shipwrecks (one of my favorite categories, as you can tell). And then because of the events of the world, I went and grabbed a book that really changed my understanding of things when I read it a few years ago: _How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States_ by Daniel Immerwahr. As I’ve said many times, the best way to understand the present is to read the past and this book is an eye-opening and incisive look at America _beyond the continent._ Did you know America began claiming islands in the Pacific in the 1800s because they were covered in bird poop and that birdpoop was essential to making gunpowder? How did we end up with Alaska? Did you know that Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie were adamantly opposed to colonizing the Philippines? What was the thinking behind the global order–driven by collaboration instead of conquering–that emerged after WWII and made America the most prosperous empire in the history of the world? Sadly (and fascinatingly), the many lessons of this book are relevant again today with the saber-rattling over Greenland and regime change in Venezuela. I wish more people would read this book…Oh, and it wouldn’t be a bad time to recommend a book from a guy who saw a lot of this 19th and 20th century imperialism up close: _War is a Racket_ by Smedley Butler.

Before I get into this month’s reading list…We’re starting a quarterly classics virtual book club for The Painted Porch! My wife Samantha came up with the idea and I’m really excited about it because my life has been changed by both the well-known and lesser-known classics. If you want to read more this year, or to expand your reading genre, I invite you to join us at thepaintedporch.com/classics.

​ _The Greatest Sentence Ever Written_ __by Walter Isaacson

​Given the somewhat depressing and critical nature of the books I just recommended above, I thought I’d start the email off with a beautiful and short little book that I learned about two months ago when I got to do a Q&A with Walter Isaacson here in Austin. Walter Isaacson is one of the greatest living biographers (I calculated that I have read 4,000 pages of his books, including _Elon Musk_ _,__Einstein_ _,__Leonardo da Vinci_ _,__Steve Jobs_ _,_ and ___Benjamin Franklin_). This is far and away his shortest–just 80 pages–but it’s a wonderful meditation on the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Have we–has _any government–_ ever lived up to this idea perfectly? No. Did Jefferson even fully believe it? Almost certainly not. But our job is to take those ideas, those ideals and _bring them a little bit closer to reality._ This is a great book to read with your teenagers…or send to your local representatives.

​ _The Crisis_by Winston Churchill

​Ok, did you know there was another Winston Churchill? And that for most of the early years of the 20th century, he was way more famous than the future British statesman? In fact, in Winston Churchill’s early books, he went by Winston Spencer Churchill so that he would not be confused with the American novelist. I found out about _The Crisis_ because I read that General Fox Conner had recommended it to a young officer he was mentoring named Dwight Eisenhower. When I looked it up, I found out it was the bestselling novel in the country in 1901. And I’d never even heard of it! The copy I bought is an old clothbound edition. I can see from the book stamp that it was originally sold in London at a store called W.H. Smith & Son, and bought by someone named Katherine Luce from New York. If you’re a Civil War nerd, you’ll like this one. If you like big sweeping novels, you’ll also like it. Set in St. Louis, it’s a great bit of historical fiction that tells the story of a young man with abolitionist and Union sympathies. It’s got a huge cast of characters, including up close and personal looks at Sherman, Grant, Lincoln and a handful of others. It’s not the best writing ever done on the American Civil War (if you want that, you have got to read something, _anything_ from Bruce Catton. My personal favorite is _This Hallowed Ground_ _)._ It’s also a great reminder that certain forces, once played with, are very hard to contain.__ I also recommend reading both Sherman and Grant’s memoirs and as far as fiction goes, pick up Ambrose Bierce’s short stories. They are life-changingly good.

​ _American Canto_ __by Olivia Nuzzi

​Last year, I got a call from someone with a question about something I’d struggled with when I wrote my first book, _Trust Me, I’m Lying_ _._ “How do you write a memoir about yourself when you’ve screwed up…but also the system and the world you’re operating in is even more screwed up?” they asked. I’m not sure I got that right when I first wrote _Trust Me, I’m Lying_ (in fact, I’ll probably try to fix some of that when I work on the 15th anniversary edition), but I do know that writing the book was an important step toward processing and changing a big part of my life. Anyway, the person who called me was someone you might have heard of from the tabloids (or from her excellent political writing over the last ten years): Olivia Nuzzi. Olivia blew up her life and career when she had an affair with RFK Jr during the last election. Why someone would do such a thing, I cannot even begin to comprehend. He is, in my view, a deranged and dangerous person who has done unfathomable harm to our public health. But then again, people do all sorts of incomprehensible things in their personal lives. So when Olivia came on The Daily Stoic Podcast, I gave her a copy of _By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept_ _,_ which is a novel based on Elizabeth Smart’s consuming and tragic love affair with the married British poet, George Barker, for whom she bears multiple children and follows all over the world, even as it tears her life apart and he sacrifices nothing for her.__ One of the things Olivia talks about in _American Canto_ (and in our conversation on the podcast) is how to get through a crisis of your own making. How do you handle dishonorable things honorably, so that you can learn and grow? This book made me think of Jon Ronson’s _So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed_, because of course it’s crazy that she has taken almost all of the public opprobrium for the scandal…not the wealthy, powerful married man 39 years her senior who was running for public office (and now holding one of the most important positions in the government). I guess all this is secondary to what I should say about the book: _It’s really good._ She’s a great writer. She has a lot to say. The negative reviews, to me, were motivated by a lot of things (and similar to the experience I had with _Trust Me, I’m Lying_) that have nothing to do with what’s actually on the page. Regular people should read this book and will like it. We’ve got signed copies at The Painted Porch if you want them, and here is a video of Olivia and I talking about other great books as we walked around.

​ _The Sympathizer: A Novel_ __by Viet Thanh Nguyen

​Speaking of imperial adventures, my research on Vietnam continues. One of the tragedies (and mysteries) of Vietnam is not just everything that happened there, but that somehow the stories told about it are overwhelmingly one-sided. It has some echoes of the “Lost Cause” mythology that followed the Civil War, where the side that lost–the side that was largely responsible for the war happening in the first place–ends up doing most of the storytelling, perhaps because it was so psychologically traumatizing for them to lose. Yet undoubtedly, Vietnam was also traumatizing for _the Vietnamese,_ too _._ I was riveted by this novel because it sort of brings those two sides together. In fact, it brings all three sides with major characters who are American, Communist and South Vietnamese. The main character, as the title hints, is actually all three! He’s a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain (actually a double agent for the Viet Cong) who manages to make it to America after the Fall of Saigon. As he builds a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles, he secretly reports back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. I read this book over Christmas break and loved it. I’m onto the sequel next.

​ _The Ides of March: The Classic Epistolary Novel of Julius Caesar and Ancient Rome_by Thornton Wilder

​Ok, so I love _Memoirs of Hadrian_. I loved John Williams _Augustus_. I didn’t know that Thornton Wilder had also written a historical (and epistolary) novel about the Roman Empire but he did and I loved it, too. Obviously, you can read the _history_ about these figures, but there is something about fiction that allows for a glimpse of the inner life of Caesar or Augustus or Hadrian. What makes someone want to be the most powerful person in the world? What is it actually like to be that powerful? What does it do to your soul? These are questions that Marcus Aurelius gives us some clues about in _Meditations_ (as do the plays of Aeschylus and the biographies of Plutarch), but these novels give us something more–the playwright and the novelists’ insight into the human condition, into the nature of tragic and heroic figures. If there are other great novels like this, please someone let me know!

Misc

​I took my oldest to see Steve Rinella do a talk in Austin in late December. He loves Steve’s YouTube videos (his Africa hunt series was really good). I love Steve’s books, especially _American Buffalo_ and _Outdoor Kids in an Indoor World_. We brought Steve some books, including _Montaigne_ _,__Night of the Grizzlies_ _,__River of Doubt_ _,__The Stranger in the Woods_ __ and _The Notebook_. That’s actually been one of my favorite things lately, riffing on books on TikTok and Instagram. I recommended some of my favorite narrative nonfiction books: _In Cold Blood_ _,__Furious Hours_ _,__The Tiger_ _,__Day of Infamy_ __ and ___A Night To Remember_ _._ Books to make you better in 2026: _Moral Ambition_ _,__On Character_ _,__The Road to Character_ _,__The Book of Charlie_ _,__How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life_ _,__Phosphorescence_ _,__Bright Shining_ _,_ and _A Calendar of Wisdom_. Books for animal lovers: _Rin Tin Tin_ _,__Raising Hare_ _,__My Dog Skip_ _,__A Dumb Bird’s Field Guide To The Worst Birds Ever_ _,_ and _Meow_. For history lovers: _A Slave in the White House_ _,__The Power Broker_ _,__Ghost Town Living_ _,__Papyrus_ _,__Indian Givers_ _,__A World Lit Only by Fire_, and _These Truths_. And books for people who want to fight back and make a difference in the world: _Bury The Chains_, _Hope in the Dark_, _How To Fight Anti-Semitism_, _The 48 Laws of Power_, _Abundance_, _The Children_, and _Waging a Good War_.

Kids

​Speaking of Steve Rinella, if you’re looking for projects to do with your kids, his book _Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars_ is a great family book. We are back into Harry Potter here at our house, so my oldest and I are reading _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_. He’s also reading _The Boy Who Would Be King_ (a fable about Marcus Aurelius) back to me, which is a wonderful, amazing and surreal thing to experience–I wrote that book _to_ him during the early days of the Pandemic and now he’s reading a few pages of it back to me each night. My youngest remains obsessed with this book ___Spooky Lakes_ and with _Don’t Trust Fish_. We also read a few entries from _The Worst Birds Ever_ last night, too.

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As always, I appreciate you supporting my bookstore, _The Painted Porch_. Please note that because a lot of the books we sell are backlist titles, there can sometimes be delays in stocking/sourcing. And with that, I hope that you’ll get around to reading whichever of these books catch your eye and that you’ll learn as much as I did. Whether you buy them at _The Painted Porch_ or on Amazon today, or at your nearest independent bookstore six months from now makes no difference to me. I just hope you read!

You’re welcome to email me questions or raise issues for discussion. Better yet, if you know of a good book on a related topic, please pass it along. And as always, if one of these books comes to mean something to you, recommend it to someone else.

I promised myself a long time ago that if I saw a book that interested me I’d never let time or money or anything else prevent me from having it. This means that I treat reading with a certain amount of respect. All I ask, if you decide to email me back, is that you’re not just thinking aloud.

Enjoy these books, treat your education like the job that it is, and let me know if you ever need anything.

All the best,

Ryan