Last updated: April 2, 2026
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There’s something about stepping completely outside your normal life that makes you want to fill it with ideas. Not the kind of ideas that come from scrolling, or meetings, or the background noise of a workday, but the slower, weightier kind that only seem to arrive when you actually have space for them.
I leave for my sabbatical on August 3rd. Thirteen months, 21 countries, and a lot of long train rides, cafe mornings, and solo dinners. I’ve been thinking about what I want to read during that time, and I kept coming back to the same two themes: philosophy and self-improvement. Not in a “grind culture” way. More in a “who actually am I, and what do I want my life to look like” way.
I’ll be honest with you: I’ve always been a deep thinker. I think about society, about the flaws in how we live, about what it would actually take for us as a species to do better. I’ve had these conversations in my head my whole life. But when it came to sitting down with the actual philosophical texts? I’d only read a handful. There was always something more urgent, more practical, more immediately necessary pulling me away. That changes now.
Part of what nudged me in this direction was Ren, the musician. If you’ve spent any time in that community, you know his work isn’t just music. It’s philosophy set to sound. His lyrics wrestle with ideas you’d find in philosophy—identity, suffering, meaning and they sent me down a path of reading. When art sends you to books, you follow it.
Because I’m not working right now, and the sabbatical is still a few months out, I’ve decided not to wait. I’ve already started. Some of these I’m reading now, in the quiet stretch before departure, and I’ll carry the rest of the list into the trip itself.
This is my sabbatical reading list: 13 books on philosophy and self-improvement that I’ll be working through over the next 13 months. Every one of these books either deeply resonates with why I’m taking this career break, or it’s something I’ve always wanted to sit with slowly and never had the time. The plan is to write a full review of each book after I finish it, from wherever I happen to be in the world. So consider this the reading list, and watch for the reviews as they come.
The Self-Improvement Books
These aren’t hustle books. They’re more like quiet permission slips.1. The Courage to Be Disliked — Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
This is the book that started the whole list. Written as a Socratic dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, it draws on Adlerian psychology to make a case that feels almost radical: your past doesn’t determine who you are, and happiness is a choice, not a circumstance. It also argues that the need for others’ approval is one of the biggest sources of unhappiness in our lives.
I picked this one because a big part of why I’m taking this sabbatical is learning to stop living according to what I think I’m supposed to do. After 20+ years in corporate life, that’s not a small thing to unlearn. I have a feeling this book is going to hit differently when I’m reading it alone in a Prague cafe with nowhere to be.
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2. Man’s Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl
Frankl survived the Nazi concentration camps and came out the other side with a philosophy: meaning, not happiness, is what humans fundamentally need to survive and thrive. It’s a short book, less than 200 pages, but it’s one of those reads where you have to put it down every few pages and just sit with it.
I picked this one because I’ve been in a long season of grief, losing both my parents within the last decade, and Frankl’s ideas about finding meaning even inside of suffering feel important to me right now. I want to read this slowly, somewhere beautiful. And there’s something else: Auschwitz is on my itinerary. Frankl was held there. I plan to read this book before I go, and I expect standing in that place will mean something entirely different because of it.
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3. The Power of Now — Eckhart Tolle
This one pairs naturally with the Zen practice I’ve been building over the last couple of years. Tolle’s central argument is that almost all suffering comes from our relationship to time, either replaying the past or anxious about the future, and that the present moment is the only place we actually live.
I picked this one because a sabbatical is, in theory, an invitation to finally be present. No deadlines. No meetings. Just where you are. I want to read this somewhere slow, maybe during the long stretch in Thailand or Vietnam.
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4. Atomic Habits — James Clear
Don’t let the productivity-book reputation fool you. This one is really about identity. Clear’s core argument is that lasting change comes not from setting goals, but from building a picture of who you want to be and letting your habits flow from that. It’s less “do these five things” and more “decide who you are.”
I picked this one because a 13-month sabbatical is basically a blank slate for building new rhythms. Every few weeks I’ll be in a new place with new routines. I want to be intentional about what I build.
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5. The Artist’s Way — Julia Cameron
This is a 12-week program designed to clear creative blocks, built around a practice called “morning pages,” three pages of longhand stream-of-consciousness writing every morning before you do anything else. Cameron argues that most of us are blocked creatives who’ve been taught to distrust our own creative impulses.
I picked this one partly because of the memoir I’m working on, and partly because of the art and photography I want to bring back to the surface during this trip. The morning pages practice feels like something I could actually sustain during a long slow travel stretch.
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6. Daring Greatly — Brené Brown
Brown spent years studying shame and vulnerability as a researcher, and what she found upended a lot of her own assumptions. The central idea is that vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s actually the birthplace of courage, creativity, and connection. The book is full of data, but it reads like a conversation.
I picked this one because being far from home, alone, in new places for 13 months is going to require a lot of showing up without armor. I’d rather go into that with some framework for understanding what that actually means.
Get it on Amazon
The Philosophy Books
I’ve had a philosophical mind my whole life, but I haven’t always matched it with the actual reading. These are the ones I’ve been putting off for too long. I want to read them slowly, underline heavily, and maybe argue with them in my journal.7. The Allegory of the Cave — Plato (from The Republic)
If you haven’t encountered this one: Plato imagines prisoners chained in a cave, watching shadows on a wall and mistaking them for reality. One prisoner escapes, sees the sun, and comes back to tell the others, but they don’t believe him and want him gone. It was written around 375 BC and feels, somehow, like it was written last week.
I picked this one because leaving a stable career, a regular life, and everything familiar to travel the world alone is, in its own small way, walking out of the cave. I want to read this at the start of the trip, probably in London or Berlin, when the disorientation is fresh.
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8. Meditations — Marcus Aurelius
This is the private journal of a Roman emperor who never intended it to be published. He wrote it as notes to himself, about how to live, how to lead, how to stay grounded in the face of power and loss. It’s one of the foundational Stoic texts, but it reads nothing like a philosophy textbook.
I picked this one because I can open it to any page and find something worth sitting with. It’s the kind of book that rewards re-reading over years rather than a single cover-to-cover sprint. Perfect for a long trip.
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9. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — Robert Pirsig
Part road trip, part philosophical inquiry into the nature of quality and what it means to do something well. Pirsig weaves between a cross-country motorcycle journey and a deep, sometimes difficult exploration of Western philosophy. It’s a strange book, and I mean that as a compliment.
I picked this one because the travel framing makes it feel made for a sabbatical. Reading about a man working through big philosophical questions while literally moving through the world feels exactly right for where I’ll be.
Get it on Amazon
10. The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho
Yes, it’s everywhere. It’s everywhere because it works. The story of a shepherd following his “personal legend,” his deepest calling, across the world is simple on the surface and quietly devastating underneath. It’s a book about paying attention to what the universe puts in your path.
I picked this one because I want to read it when I’m deep in the trip, somewhere in Southeast Asia or South America, when I’ve had enough time away to actually feel the distance from my old life.
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11. Thus Spoke Zarathustra — Friedrich Nietzsche
This is the dense one on the list. Nietzsche wrote it in a kind of poetic, prophetic style that can feel challenging at first, but the ideas inside are extraordinary. The one that keeps drawing me back is amor fati, the love of fate, not just accepting what happens to you but genuinely embracing it as the material of your life.
I picked this one partly because of Ren. His music is soaked in Nietzschean ideas, and at some point I realized I wanted to read the source, not just hear it filtered through someone else’s art. And partly because taking a sabbatical at this particular point in my life, after a layoff, after grief, after a long stretch of not quite being myself, requires making peace with all of it. Nietzsche has a lot to say about that.
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12. When Nietzsche Wept — Irvin Yalom
If Zarathustra feels like too much of a plunge, this is a beautiful way in. Yalom imagines a fictional friendship between Nietzsche and Josef Breuer, one of the fathers of modern psychotherapy. It’s a novel, but it’s one of the best introductions to Nietzschean thinking I’ve come across, because the philosophy arrives through character and story rather than lecture.
I picked this one as a companion to Zarathustra. The two together paint a fuller picture than either one alone.
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13. Tao Te Ching — Lao Tzu
Eighty-one short verses. You can read the whole thing in an hour. And then you can spend the rest of your life re-reading it. The ideas about effortlessness, non-attachment, emptiness as a kind of fullness, and the value of not forcing things are deeply connected to the Zen practice I’ve been building, and they tend to surface in my mind at unexpected moments.
I picked this one to read in small doses throughout the entire trip, rather than front to back. One or two verses a morning with coffee, somewhere in the world, feels exactly right.
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A Note on Reviews
After I finish each of these, I’ll write a full review right here on the site. Where I was when I read it. What it opened up. What I disagreed with. Whether it held up to the expectations I’m carrying into it now. I’m curious to see which ones surprise me, and which ones I end up leaving unfinished somewhere on a nightstand in Hanoi. If you’ve read any of these, I’d love to know what you thought. Drop a comment below.Have a book that should be on this list? Tell me in the comments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read all 13 books on this list?
Not at all. The list is meant to inspire, not overwhelm. Pick one or two that resonate with where you are — philosophy, self-improvement, or practical motivation — and start there.
Are these books available on Kindle?
Yes, all 13 books are available for Kindle. Since I’ll be traveling for 13 months without room for physical books, I’m reading the entire list on a Kindle Paperwhite.
Which book should I read first if I’m just starting to plan a sabbatical?
Start with Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. It’s short, practical, and cuts through the fear of long-term travel better than anything else on this list.
Are these books useful even if I’m not planning a year-long trip?
Absolutely. Most of the philosophy titles — Meditations, Tao Te Ching, The Power of Now — are about how to live intentionally, regardless of whether you’re traveling.