Book review: The Stoic Challenge, by William Irvine

Imagine you get to the airport, ready for a (you think) well deserved vacation to Paris. As I will be doing soon after finishing the first draft of this essay. You have a long experience in traveling internationally. You pack your bags following a comprehensive checklist. You get to the airport with plenty of time to spare, maybe even enough to indulge in a glass of red wine before boarding your plane.

Then the flights board updates and your flight is listed as cancelled! What? This is terrible! How am I going to get to Paris? I have to leave on that plane. It’s a catastrophe if I don’t get on it. And so forth.

Welcome to the Stoic Challenge, a new book by Bill Irvine, subtitled “A Philosopher’s Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient.” In fact, the book begins and ends with two airport-related situations, though not exactly along the lines described above.

Irvine is not new to writing about Stoicism. His A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy was the very first book on modern Stoicism I have ever read (followed very closely by Don Robertson’s Stoicism and the Art of Happiness: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life, now in its second edition).

This new book is not a comprehensive introduction to Stoic philosophy, though it could pick the curiosity of…