About
Ancient Coping makes short audiobooks that put the problems men deal with now in front of the people who wrote about them first, and writes the Letters and What to Say to go with them.
Ancient Coping is a small independent audiobook publisher. It's part of Oderweb d.o.o., a company based in Velenje, Slovenia. Each audiobook takes one problem, like anger, rejection, money, a death, a difficult boss, and one thinker or school who dealt with it: Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Epicurus, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Laozi, Aristotle. They run about forty minutes and they're on Spotify. Every book has a free sample on its page here, and new subscribers get a first chapter free.
We make them short on purpose. Most people dealing with something hard don't need a twelve-hour history of philosophy. They need one clear idea, the words of someone who lived it, and something to do about it this week.
Everything on this site is edited and reviewed by the Ancient Coping editorial team. The Letters and the guides in What to Say are each built on one of our audiobooks: they take a question people genuinely ask, answer it with the ideas from that book, and say which book they come from.
Nothing on Ancient Coping is written as clinical advice. None of it replaces a therapist, doctor or counselor who knows you and your situation.
Narrator
Stephen Knowles narrates Ancient Coping audiobooks. If you've listened to one of our books, his is likely the voice you heard.
These books get played on the commute, at the gym, on a long drive, or late at night when a problem won't let go. Stephen reads them the way you'd want a hard truth delivered: plain, steady and unhurried, so the old words have room to land.
Ancient Coping isn't therapy, a crisis service or a substitute for medical care. Stoicism is a way of looking at things, not a reason to tough out something you shouldn't have to carry alone. If you're in crisis or thinking about hurting yourself, call or text 988 in the US (veterans: dial 988, then press 1), or find a free helpline in your country at findahelpline.com. If you're not safe at home, the US National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, free and confidential, for men too.
Write to hello@ancientcoping.com. We read everything, and we're always glad to hear which books and letters helped, and which thinkers and problems you'd like us to take on next.
Oderweb d.o.o., Šaleška cesta 2a, 3320 Velenje, Slovenia.
See also our privacy page.