Ryan Holiday Audiobooks

Marcus Aurelius for people with modern schedules, distilled in Stillness Is the Key

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.6/5 average

10 listener ratings

Who is Ryan Holiday?

Ryan Holiday, born in 1987, is an American marketer and author who first made his name by writing books and promoting them through decidedly non-traditional methods. His debut, Trust Me, I’m Lying, published in 2012, laid out those marketing techniques with disarming candour.

Since then he has become known for something grander: marketing Stoicism itself, repackaging the ancient philosophy – particularly as advocated by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius – as a lifestyle for modern people. Books such as The Obstacle Is the Way (2014) and Ego Is the Enemy (2016) built the case, and whatever one makes of philosophy as a product, the operation has been undeniably effective. It helps that the underlying material is two thousand years of sound advice.

Ryan Holiday in audiobooks

Our catalogue carries Stillness Is the Key, and this is material pitched, quite deliberately, at modern people with modern schedules – Stoicism translated for the commute and the gym rather than the seminar room, which makes audio its natural home. Holiday’s gift is packaging: taking Marcus Aurelius and company and turning them into lessons a listener can actually hold onto by lunchtime. Purists may wince, and fair enough. But for UK listeners who would never otherwise go near the Stoics, this is an unusually painless way in – come for the calm, stay for the reading list it quietly hands you.