Book Group

Book Discussion Group on “How to Live a Good Life”
This is a book discussion group by Paul Baier that meets in Newton, MA
Readings and meeting times listed on this Meetup website.

Group Goal and Meeting Format
  • The goal is to understand different views on how to live a good life. The group is aimed at adults age 45+. The key questions
    • What is a “good life”? How is it defined?
    • How do others advocate for finding happiness, contentment, and serenity?
    • Practically, how should one best manage career, family, friendships, community?
    • What can one learn from others about managing one’s life in their 40s, 50s and 60s?
    • What are different concepts of the meaning of life?
    • How does one age vibrantly and gracefully?
  • Format
    • 7p-8p Part 1: Moderated discussion 60 min
      • Goal is to understand what the author is saying. Start with 3-5 written questions
    • 8:p Part 2: Open discussion  30 min
      • Do I agree or disagree with the author? Why?
      • How does this reading change my view?
    • 8:30p end

Readings (aim for <2hours of reading time)

 We aim to use the same version of each reading to make it easier when referring to page numbers and to avoid translation issues (the links below are to a version sold on Amazon)
Completed Readings
  1. On Contentment, by Plutarch. Ask Paul for PDF version 
  2. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
  3. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
  4. On Friendship by Cicero and Aristotle's 3 Types of Friendship
  5. Living a Life that Matters by Harold Kushner
  6. On Old Age by Cicero
  7. Wait, What? by James Ryan
  8. The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz
  9. Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
  10. Letters to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
  11. The Manual or Enchiridion by Epictetus
  12. A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf
  13. Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  14. 75-year-old Harvard longitudinal study
  15.  Letter to Menoeceus by Epictetus
  16.  Ecclesiastes, Hebrew Bible
  17. Time of Our Lives, Mortimer Adler (summary of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics)
  18. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy (75 pages)
  19. The Happy Life: The Search for Contentment in the Modern World, by David Malouf
  20. How Will you Measure you Life? By Clayton Christensen
  21. The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bonnie Ware
  22. The Practicing Stoic by Ward Farnsworth
  23. Kieran Setiya, a MIT professor who analysis his mid-life crisis
  24. Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens; Chapter 20 End of Homo Sapiens
  25. Clayton Christensen: How Will You Measure Your Life?
  26. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus (2pages); Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klien
  27. Mortimer Adler, The Time of Our Lives (Summary of Aristotle's Ethics)
  28. Top 5 Regrets of Dying (blog post) by Bonnie Ware, a palliative care nurse
  29. Kieran Setiya, MIT professor who analysis his mid-life crisis
  30. Harvard Grant Study - 72 year study of 268 men on happiness
  31. Ecclesiastes and Plutarch "On Contentment"
  32. Emotional Agility (Susan David) and Mindfulness (Ellen Langer)

Other reading candidates
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