The Daily Stoic Podcast: BONUS | The Book Ryan Holiday Keeps Coming Back To

Date: December 27, 2025
Host: Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures
Guest: Ryan Holiday
Episode Focus: Stoicism, the power of reading, and Walker Percy's The Moviegoer

Episode Overview

This bonus episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast centers on Ryan Holiday’s long-standing affection for The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, a novel he returns to over and over. The discussion, extracted from his appearance on the "Old School" podcast with Shiloh Brooks, delves into the novel's modern existential themes, their alignment with Stoic philosophy, and the broader significance of reading as a form of dialogue with the past. Ryan and Shiloh explore the meaning of “the Search” in Percy’s novel and consider how literature serves as a vehicle for grappling with questions of meaning, fulfillment, and spiritual malaise in contemporary life.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Why a Bookstore and the Power of Selection

• Ryan shares his personal approach to curating his bookstore's collection—only stocking books he and his wife have read and loved. This ensures every recommendation comes from genuine passion.
  • “I really like books that are old, that are maybe a little less well known. But when you read them, you're like, how did I not know about this? That's my dream.” (05:14)

Reading as Dialogue with the Dead and a Superpower

• Ryan frames reading as a "superpower," offering access to the lives and wisdom of those who have come before.
  • “Reading is my job now, but even before I'd written my first book, I always thought of it that way... books are a way to talk to people who are not alive anymore.” (06:18)
• He cautions against speed-reading and emphasizes cherishing the experience.
  • “I think speed reading is a scam. I've not read any well read person that is actually a speed reader.” (08:28)

Introduction to The Moviegoer and Its Resonance

• The Moviegoer is described as Ryan’s favorite novel with deep Stoic themes.
• Summary of the plot:
  • Not a traditional story but an “internal pilgrimage” of a young man (Binx) searching for meaning amidst modern comforts and routines. The protagonist manages existential despair through distractions, paralleling the contemporary struggle with busyness and superficial pleasure.
  • “It's a novel about a pilgrimage. But he doesn't really go anywhere. It's about this internal search.” (10:45)
• Ryan emphasizes the novel’s uncanny relevance to modern readers, despite being written in the 1960s.

The Existential Condition: “The Search” and “Everydayness”

• “The Search”—Binx’s pursuit of meaning despite having achieved material comfort. Ryan frames this as emblematic of the shift from problems of scarcity to problems of purpose in postwar America.
  • “He's done what everyone has told him his whole life, and he feels very empty... medicating himself with busyness, with work, with the movies.” (11:16)
  • “This is the invention of sort of mass culture and mass consumerism... all these problems that plagued the previous generations mostly of scarcity, of danger… he’s in this seemingly modern world and yet having solved for those problems, it seems what's popping up is the problems that the previous generations didn't struggle so much with.” (17:23)
• “Everydayness”—a persistent theme of malaise and banality, described in philosophical terms:
  • The routine of “idle talk” and habits that mask a lack of meaning.
  • “When I awake, I awake in the grip of every dayness. Every dayness is the enemy. No search is possible... Only once in my life was the grip of everydayness broken when I lay bleeding in a ditch.” (Binx, quoted by Host, 23:44)
  • Ryan draws a comparison to Camus’s existential novels and credits Percy’s philosophical depth.
    • “We credit Camus as being a sort of novelist and philosopher... Walker Percy gets fully enough credit for having done something very similar.” (23:44)

The Illusion of Fulfillment: Wealth, Pleasure, and Alienation

• Host and Ryan dissect how achieving the traditional markers of success—career, money, women—leave Binx (and others) unsatisfied.
  • “He's trying to, as one philosopher said, like, distract himself with pleasure to compensate for an absence of meaning.” (21:30)
  • “He is interested in them only up until a point, and then when he gets what he wants, it immediately ceases interest, ceases to interest him.” (21:54)
• Ryan notes a generational rift:
  • Older characters take meaning, duty, and faith for granted; younger ones question everything, much to the bafflement of their elders.

Character Studies: Binx and Kate

• Kate’s parallel journey:
  • Also suffers from emptiness; her existential crisis is channeled into visible mental illness and depression.
  • Both Kate and Binx feel they’ve let down their families despite their privileged situations.
  • Kate’s car accident becomes a metaphor for being jolted awake from existential numbness.
    • “Kate sort of talks about how the greatest moment of her life was this car accident because not only did it extricate her from this marriage... but life seemed real and exciting for the first time.” (29:43)

The Role of Religion and Stoicism

• The novel is deeply infused with Catholicism and Stoicism, reflecting Percy’s own beliefs.
  • Yet, for Binx, these frameworks prove unsatisfactory in filling the void.
• Ryan shares a pivotal quote from Binx’s aunt that captures Stoic resolve in the face of life’s uncertainties:
  • “I don't quite know what we're doing on this insignificant cinder, spinning away in a dark corner of the universe... a man must live by his lights and do what he can and do it as best he can. In this world, goodness is destined to be defeated. But a man must go down fighting. That is the victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.” (Ryan Holiday reading, 34:47)
  • Ryan notes: The characters’ spiritual resilience doesn’t translate to Binx, highlighting the ongoing search for adequate sources of meaning.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On reading as deep work:
  • “You go through sort of seasons with reading and you try to find ways to squeeze it in, but you squeeze it in because it's important.” (08:41, Ryan Holiday)
• On modern emptiness:
  • “He's a kind of paragon of human life at the cusp of modernity...with such good teeth, with such fresh smelling armpits, his life is relatively meaningless.” (16:01, Host)
• Philosophical Reflection:
  • “There's something both timeless and very timely about that kind of inflection point and cultural divide.” (19:58, Ryan Holiday)
• On Stoicism & Duty:
  • “But a man must go down fighting. That is the victory. To do anything less is to be less than a man.” (34:47, Ryan Holiday quoting the aunt)

Key Timestamps

• 02:23 — Ryan introduces the Painted Porch Bookstore and his book recommendation philosophy.
• 05:02 — How book selection works at The Painted Porch.
• 06:18 — Reading as a “conversation with the dead” and why it’s essential.
• 10:45 — Ryan summarizes The Moviegoer and what drew him to it.
• 17:23 — Host and Ryan discuss “the Search” and differences between generations.
• 23:44 — Host reads the “everydayness” passage; Ryan compares Percy to Camus.
• 29:43 — Kate’s character, trauma, and awakening through crisis.
• 33:29 – 34:47 — Religion, Stoicism, and their (in)adequacies in the novel.
• 34:47 — Ryan reads the aunt’s Stoic-inspired passage on purpose.

Tone and Style

The conversation is reflective, personal, and deeply philosophical, blending literary analysis with resonances from Stoic thought and lived life. Ryan Holiday’s passion for books and philosophical inquiry is palpable, and the tone remains accessible while probing existential questions, making philosophical inquiry feel immediate and urgent.

Summary for New Listeners

If you have not read The Moviegoer, this discussion illuminates why the novel continues to matter—both as a personal touchstone for Ryan Holiday and as a timeless diagnostic of the malaise and longing at the heart of modern life. Ryan and Shiloh Brooks explore not only what makes the book philosophically rich, but also how its questions remain vital for anyone searching for meaning amid comfort, distraction, and spiritual uncertainty. The episode offers a moving argument for the enduring power of books—and reading—as guides through our own internal searches.