If You Only Read a Few Books This Year, Read These
The Daily Stoic
Daily Stoic | Backyard Ventures
4.5 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 February 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most people don’t read that many books, maybe a few a year at most. So if you’re only going to read a couple books this year, the decision of which ones you choose becomes really important.
In today’s episode, Ryan shares a handful of books he’s confident are worth your time. They’ve changed him, made him better, and he believes they’ll make you better too in a lot of different areas of your life.
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📚 You can grab all the titles mentioned in this book at Ryan’s bookstore, The Painted Porch.
On Character by Stanley McChyrstal
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy
A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We've just been feeling like a little claustrophobic in our house lately. |
| 0:03.5 | Like as our kids are getting older and our stuff is getting older, it's just like our space is not working. |
| 0:10.1 | So we're kind of reorganizing, not just at home, but at the office. |
| 0:14.4 | We've been making some room for some new employees here at the office and then also just redecorating a little bit. And the first place we checked |
| 0:22.4 | was Wayfair, because it is a one-stop shop for all kinds of decor stuff, office furniture, |
| 0:29.1 | organizers, bookcases, even blankets and pillows. Wayfair's huge selection makes it easy to find |
| 0:35.8 | exactly what's right for you. And their site is super easy to use, |
| 0:39.3 | and you can navigate with all these different filters to find exactly what you're looking for down to the exact size and material you want. |
| 0:45.2 | And that's how we found all the stuff that is now decorating our house and the bookstore. |
| 0:50.6 | Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this year for way less. |
| 0:54.7 | Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. |
| 0:57.4 | That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com, Wayfair, every style, every home. |
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| 1:04.2 | Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. |
| 1:07.4 | Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with |
| 1:11.8 | easy customizable themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products |
| 1:16.6 | out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time, from startups to scaleups, |
| 1:21.9 | online, in person and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. |
| 1:27.1 | Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. |
| 1:32.7 | Welcome to the daily stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, |
| 1:40.4 | courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. |
| 1:47.0 | Most people don't read a lot, right? A few books a year at most. |
... |
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