Best literary letters according to redditors
We found 46 Reddit comments discussing the best literary letters. We ranked the 27 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 46 Reddit comments discussing the best literary letters. We ranked the 27 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Yeah as /u/engesaurus says, small manageable bits. Don't try and conquer everything all at once. Your transition is your own, and will be unique to you. You can choose to follow how others have chosen to go through their own when it gives you strength, and ignore where it doesn't feel right for you. Feel free to ignore anything I say, its just there if you want it.
Youtube Trans Personalities can be pretty helpful as there are several people who are currently still going through their own transitions and are really up on modern transition issues. Chase Ross and Aaron Ansuini are great for a Transmasculine/Man perspective (I love to watch them even though I am a Trans woman myself, as its great to see how similar the experience is, while being different. I find it very validating and informative, but also relaxing as it means I can stop thinking about my own troubles for a while) and Stef Sanjati is fantastic for a Trans Woman perspective, hands down, she has the best advice I know. There are videos out there to cover almost any topic you can imagine and give you advice and similar experiences to learn from. I personally don't have a Non Binary youtuber I follow so I don't want to recommend any without experience of them, but im sure there are plenty out there.
There are several big boulders that you probably already know are lurking on the horizon. Legal Document Name change stuff, NHS/Private doctor transition stuff, Hormones (If you want them), Gender Therapy, Surgery options (If you want them). Each one can be huge topics to research, and there is a wealth of good info out there that the trans community has gathered, but each one can be pretty scary to start with, so its good to space these out and only approach them one by one when you are collected together enough to deal with the anxiety and stress that getting into them might cause. Once you get into one, break it down into chunks and figure out plans of how you're going to get to where you want. Some things can be done super quickly, some things take steps that will need to be planned out over the next 2-3 years. You choose the pace, and how fast or slow you want to go.
If you are Trans fem, [To My Trans Sisters]
(https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Trans-Sisters-Charlie-Craggs/dp/1785923439) is an amazing resource for starting out. So much inspiring stuff in there for a new girl on the block. I can not recommend it enough. Seriously feel free to ignore everything else I say, and just get tihs book. It has 100 letters written by the top trans women in their respective careers, including atleast one in the UK Military - Caroline Paige who served as an out Transgender woman for 15 years (and 20 before that in the closet) in the RAF flying Helis in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its filled with their own advice to you, the reader, their new younger sister.
Speaking of siblings. By coming out, you have just joined a giant family of sisters, brothers and siblings. You will never be alone. We all are here to support you and each other. If you ever need help or advice, you only need to ask, we've all been there in some form or another, we were all baby trans once. The trans community has had to forage for itself for so long that it has so much strength and solidarity. There are a lot of different trans specific subreddits which are also worth checking out if you want to find communities to engage with.
Getting together a support network is probably the biggest thing I'd advise, over the internet is good, but real face to face contact is best. People who you can hug, who can hug you back and go on a walk with you in the park. By coming out, you are starting a new page. New rules. It might surprise you who suddenly becomes the strongest friend to you. Reach out to people from your past, or from the present and forge bonds if you can. Now you're able to be yourself properly, you can truly be honest with yourself, and with others, and that can be a huge difference. There will come days where its all a bit much and you need to lean on someone briefly for emotional support. You don't need to shoulder this burden entirely in the dark. The bigger your support team, the more you can accomplish. Finding a big Trans sibling who can give advice and check on you in the early days can also be great.
Be kind to yourself. Don't expect things to be fixed right away, and don't hate yourself when things go slower than youd like. Baby steps every day, and concentrate on survival. Expect yourself to have bad days, build safety nets in advance, safe coping mechanisms, no matter how silly or short term, are still important. Early on, I would bribe myself with a nice item of clothing each time I did something big and scary. Some days you might not be prepared enough to leave your bed, be gentle, don't force yourself if something feels bad. Your mind and body take years to adjust away from the lifetime of institutionalized gender that has been forced on you. I found it helpful to do one thing everyday, so if I couldnt progress with things like legal documents or medical woes, I would do exercises that would specifically target my hips, thighs, and butt.. anything that allows you to show yourself "I'm working on it".
Know that the aware, awake part of you, that you consider you, is generally like a third of you. There is an silent two thirds which is communicating to you through dysphoria (if you suffer from it), through dreams, through general feelings, through subconscious actions. Try to listen to what those parts of your body want as well. The subconcious side of you is generally a better guide of your gender identity as it doesn't try to explain things away. But it does require patience to hear.
Read up on [Dissociativeness and Depersonalization] (https://genderanalysis.net/2017/09/themes-of-depersonalization-in-transgender-autobiographies-jan-morris/) as mental conditions. They are super super common for trans people to do with their subconcious minds being unable to process their physical bodies. As you come out and accept yourself as your real gender, you may find a lot of things suddenly pop up out of no where. Intense emotions may run wild on your ass, and it can be beautiful (support network!)
Quit smoking, hard drugs and alcohol, anything that stresses your liver. These are normally big coping mechanisms that a lot of late appearing trans people use before they come out, but afterwards those things are going to show up heavily in medical tests and delay transition (or endanger it entirely).
Finally, know that things are going to change. Sexuality, dress sense, gender presentation, gender identity.. give yourself time and space to explore things. You don't have to pin anything down right away, and you're allowed to change your mind as you go. Go with what feels right now. If it changes, in the future, then go with what feels right then.
You are starting a beautiful journey. It can be scary, and anxious, and who knows where its going, but it can also at times be exciting and make you feel more alive than youve ever felt before. Physical changes are only one part, there is so much more to enjoy and explore. There is a lot of power to be gained from your transition and what it teaches you. You've already proven yourself to have personal strength by simply figuring out you're trans, and pulling your ass up, out of the fires by yourself. That is no small task and a badge of honour. Right now you're in baby trans phase, ask questions, read current blogs, find role models, stay open, don't feel you have to jump into arguments with transphobes right away. Sit on the sidelines for now, and let other Trans folk take up that fight for now. See the links and articles they refer to. See how they handle the bigots and figure out what works and what doesnt.
If you are a Trans Man, you are a man. If you are Trans Female, you are a woman. If you are Non Binary then you are a Non Binary person. You don't need to do a single thing, change a single thing about yourself to prove that to anyone. You don't owe anyone anything. You don't have to answer any question you don't want to. You don't have to change the world if you don't want to, just figure out who the best you you can possibly be, that you possibly would want to be, and work towards that, day by day.
Good luck lovely. If you ever want to chat I'm just a PM away.
❄️🌸⚪️🌸❄️
Why pick and choose when with wikisource you can have them all for free?!
I began with On The Shortness of Life and then bought Letters from a Stoic. I haven't been disappointed yet.
So this question has been around for most of human existence, the awesome thing is people have written about their solutions about it various philosophies. I'm sure you have heard the term "stoic" or "stoicism" this is what you're asking about. Stoicism usually is associated with remaining unconcerned in the face adversity - which is essentially what you're asking for. The philosophy itself goes much deeper, than just telling you to be unconcerned, it instead asks fundamental questions about why we have concerns for things, and what should concern us.
My favorite book is "Letters from a stoic" by Seneca, it has insightful passages like so
> For Stilbo, after his country was captured and his children and his wife lost, as he emerged from the general desolation alone and yet happy, spoke as follows to Demetrius, called Sacker of Cities because of the destruction he brought upon them, in answer to the question whether he had lost anything: "I have all my goods with me!" There is a brave and stout-hearted man for you! The enemy conquered, but Stilbo conquered his conqueror. "I have lost nothing!" Aye, he forced Demetrius to wonder whether he himself had conquered after all. "My goods are all with me!" In other words, he deemed nothing that might be taken from him to be a good.
> We marvel at certain animals because they can pass through fire and suffer no bodily harm; but how much more marvellous is a man who has marched forth unhurt and unscathed through fire and sword and devastation! Do you understand now how much easier it is to conquer a whole tribe than to conquer one man? This saying of Stilbo makes common ground with Stoicism; the Stoic also can carry his goods unimpaired through cities that have been burned to ashes; for he is self-sufficient. Such are the bounds which he sets to his own happiness.
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Stoic-Epistulae-Morales-Lucilium-ebook/dp/B005NC0MGW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1510202972&sr=1-1&keywords=letters+from+a+stoic
Another excellent book to read is, "The Meditations" By Marcus Aurelius, which is essentially a book of small meditations like so
> I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.
and
> If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
and
> When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.
https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Modern-Library-ebook/dp/B000FC1JAI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1510202253&sr=1-1
So most of these works are ancient and the translation you get matters, which is why I included links, yes the grammar and language is obtuse and hard. There are more modern books on stoicism, but I prefer the original works for their character and prose.
Reading these and practicing this sort of thinking is a worthwhile and long journey, I've probably read "Letters from a stoic" 20 times by now, and I still get something new from it, and yet I realize how far I have to go. There are other similar philosophies which have similar approaches to dealing with hardship and developing a thicker skin. But this requires practice, so start reading and thinking about the concepts.
There's a book that retells Dion Fortune's magical efforts to protect Britain agains Nazi magic.
To my trans sisters is probably the best place to start. You are trans enough is a logical second, and Trans like me is good too.
Ugh more idiocy. Have fun!
https://twitter.com/LettersOfNote
Links to Amazon Book 1 https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Note-Collection-Correspondence-Deserving/dp/1452134251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479315313&sr=8-1&keywords=letters+of+note
Book 2 https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Note-Collection-Correspondence-Deserving/dp/1452153833/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1479315313&sr=8-2&keywords=letters+of+note
I'm not an expert on black holes, but I do have a degree in astrophysics, and I think you're misunderstanding the way black holes work. When they take in a lot of matter, they don't "send a ton of it back out." The only things that escape black holes are particles that tunnel through the immense gravitational potential (see Hawking Radiation), and it happens very slowly. The "pillars" you're describing are not made of matter escaping from within the black hole, but rather matter being ejected from the accretion disk without ever having entered the black hole, and there are a few competing theories of how exactly this happens (see Polar Jet).
But with all of that said, you're not the first person to have thought that black holes and baby universes might be related (see Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays).
Edit: fixed a sentence that I realized wasn't clear at all.
For criticism of HPL's works i would highly recommend:
Dissecting Cthulhu
A Subtler Magick: The Writings and Philosophy of H.P. Lovecraft
Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe
or any volume in the Lovecraft Annual
For Biography on Lovecraft:
H.P. Lovecraft: A Life
...or the expanded version of the above I Am Providence
And Lovecraft's letters (edited and compiled by Joshi) are really the best way to get deep into Lovecraft, although I'll warn you, you really are reading HPL's conversations with his friends, so there is a tremendous amount of biographical detail, but not a terrible amount in the way of talk about his own work. Some of the best:
Letters to James F. Morton
A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard
O Fortunate Floridian: H.P. Lovecraft's Letters to R.H. Barlow
Absolutely. If you're interested in the friendship between them, the collected letters between them have been published in a two-volume set by Hippocampus Press. They're 55 bucks together, but you can sometimes get them for less on eBay, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Means-Freedom-Letters-Lovecraft-Robert/dp/0984480293
http://www.hippocampuspress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_5&products_id=7&zenid=1cd889d3e25ff2304aff7d03300ab221
Some of Howard's best stories are set in the Lovecraft Mythos. Check out stories like "Worms of the Earth" and "The Black Stone." I'd suggest The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard if you're like to read more, though most are available-ish in the public domain:
http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Stories-Robert-E-Howard/dp/0345490207
At least in the US, you can find Eumeswil on Amazon here, although it's pricey for a paperback. I'd also recommend The Forest Passage, which sort of prefigures the idea of the Anarch.
As a side note, relatively extensive correspondence between Heidegger and Junger was finally translated and published (in 2016, but I haven't had time yet). All of it is Post-WWII, and I imagine there are some pretty revealing passages.
http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Progressive-Protesting-Understand/dp/1621570312
Ok, so with movies, the argument is always made (which I disagree with) is that it's difficult, since you can't sell targeting ONLY trans audiences.
What has been done is a few movies have been made with a high level of authenticity and truth, only possible through writers, actors, producers and various people involved. Trans characters must be played by trans actors.
Movies:
Queens at Heart, 1967 - Quite offensive and dated and a bit painful to watch, but trans girls speaking for themselves, mostly from NYC, at the time
Funeral Parade of Roses, 1969 - Documentary on LGBT+ people in Japan, esp trans people, at the time
Paris is Burning, 1988 - Documentary on the Ball Scene in the 1980s
[All About My Mother, 1999] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gSXcB7cltQ) - Debatable, somewhat
Boy Meets Girl, 2014 - Debatable, somewhat
Something Must Break, 2014 - Swedish with subtitles, a bit graphic if you can handle it
Tangerine, 2015 - Debatable, since you have messy SW cliches, but more relevant as people are getting forced on the stroll with SESTA/FOSTA now
Sense8, 2015 - The character of Nomi was done quite well.
A Fantastic Woman, 2017 - Spanish with subtitles
Pose FX, 2018 - Yes, it's a series, but really good
Books:
Nevada, Imogen Binnie, 2013 - Definitely made for a trans audience in mind
To my trans sisters, Charlie Craggs, 2017 - Definitely made for a trans audience in mind
*These are all only focusing on trans women, my apologies for not paying close attention to films on everyone else, I default to things I relate to, personally.
I suppose one could start, like a Nobel laureate who has been mentioned, with the argument from the intelligibility of the universe.
> March 30, 1952
> Dear Solovine,
> As always, I was delighted by your last letter. As for the changes proposed by you, I am in complete agreement.
> Carl Seelig is a good man. But he takes the task that he has undertaken far too seriously, alas, with the result that he bothers everyone. Tell him whatever you think best and pass over whatever you wish in silence. For it is not always good to be presented to the public nude—or rather neuter. Make your decisions but do not communicate them to me, for I do not wish to be mixed up, even indirectly, in this affair. I did of course answer a few positive requests.
> Now I come to the most interesting point in your letter. You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world (to the extent that we are authorized to speak of such a comprehensibility) as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori one should expect a chaotic world which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way. One could (yes one should) expect the world to be subjected to law only to the extent that we order it through our intelligence. Ordering of this kind would be like the alphabetical ordering of the words of a language. By contrast, the kind of order created by Newton's theory of gravitation, for instance, is wholly different. Even if the axioms of the theory are proposed by man, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the "miracle" which is being constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands.
> Therein lies the weakness of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but "bared the miracles." Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the "miracle" without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it. I am forced to add that just to keep you from thinking that—weakened by age—I have fallen prey to the parsons.
> All of us here are well, including Margot who, thanks to her operation, has developed more resistance. In the elaboration of the nonsymmetrical field theory I have found an important complement which determines the general equations of the field a priori just as the simple principle of relativity determined the equations of gravitation.
> With warmest regards to you both.
> Your
> A. E.
> I do not intend to go to Europe again in order to avoid being the central figure in a monkey farce. Besides, everything today is so close to each of us that there is less justification than ever for chasing after it.
> (Letters to Solovine: 1906–1955, pp. 117–9)
Your friend is not wrong, but he's only half right. He's also framing how one deals with the negative aspects of life poorly. One should do their best to minimize the bad in life, or at least its effects. And, when possible, turn allegedly negative things to one's advantage. One should also do their best to maximize the positive aspects. A lot of it has to do with your perspective and what you focus on.
Everyone has to support themselves somehow. If the only available work is something unpleasant or undesirable, focus on what it affords you and put effort toward getting into a line of work you appreciate more. You can't prevent yourself from ever getting sick, but you can do everything in your power to stay healthy. Healthy eating, an active lifestyle, and getting regular medical checkups all have their benefits. If someone assaults you and you are permanently injured, you're going to have to cope with that, yes. But I'm sure any school worth attending will make accommodations for a student who was assaulted presuming they were made aware of the circumstances.
So, yes, you will have to learn how to cope with the bad things. But you also need to learn how to maximize the positive. Work towards a career you enjoy. Build friendships. Chase your dreams. All that. People tend to write off encouragement and positive thinking, and focus on the negative. But life is what you focus on.
If you struggle with this, I have a few recommended reads for you.
I know this was an overly long response to your question, but I hope it helps. Learning how to cope well with life is one of the most important things a person can learn. I wish you, and your friend, well.
The OP specifically mentioned the hardback edition, which is going for $400-$450 on Amazon.
I agree that $36.38 isn't bad for the two-volume paperback edition, but even that might be beyond some people's means.
They look identical to me. Here are the Moral Letters and here are the Letters from a Stoic (look inside at the table of contents).
I've visited & stayed on Skye a couple of times, so this got me thinking about the transport & how awkward it would be to get a carriage on to the island by early ferry boats and how they would have fared on those roads! Google images might lead you to helpful sites faster than key word searches. I found this one:
http://exceptthekylesandwesternisles.blogspot.com/2010/02/
The journey is going to be a big deal, (meaning something you could use as a GM, or should at least mention).
I'm currently using the original Golden Dawn in a game I'm running. It's not about national & international politics, but the psychic defence of Britain in WW2 is mentioned in some books & sites I browsed when looking up other stuff. This kind of thing turns up on searches:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magical-Battle-Britain-Dion-Fortune/dp/1908011459
https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-british-occult-secret-service-the-untold-story.
Your presentation is very smart and I love that photo! I wish my write-ups were as neat!
Some players are more into history than others, but a lot of gamers seem to love military history, so I think that this will go down well. It seems like it will cover a variety of game experiences with something for everyone...period research, sneaking around, combat potential, scenic drama, intrigue, social interractions, supernatural etc.
I thought astrophysics sounded cool when I was 13, too.
Get her The Last Three Minutes and Stephen Hawking's Black Holes and Other Baby Universes.
And take her to a planetarium.
I spent all of 3 minutes doing a search, but came across this book: The Letters Of The Tsar To The Tsaritsa 1914-1917
The best source of information would be something like personal letters or diaries of people like the Royal family describing Rasputin or by Rasputin himself
How much such documentation survived the Russian Revolution, I don't know. Another issue is how much has been translated into English. Well at least this book.
But there are just so many political and personal agendas swirling around these figures when they were living and even after they died, it would be hard to cut through all that. So I think letters/diaries are the best place to start.
Your latter solutions are more appropriate for her birthday. The anniversary is about you both. Your first ideas are good ones.
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Letters-Great-Men-Vol/dp/1440496021
May be this would work, to offer some scope of your affection.
Speaking of redpill reading, I feel the need to shout out Jack Donovan here. Two of his books, "The Way of Men" and "Becoming a Barbarian" have been absolutely revolutionary for me. These are dangerous books, full of dangerous ideas. The former one, in particular, is an excellent primer in masculine virtue. I bet I've given half a dozen copies away. Read them, learn them, commit them to memory. Also recommended: "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius and "Letters from a Stoic" by the one and only Seneca.
You can find examples of this by reading the letters exchanged between Schrodinger, Fermi, etc back during the founding of Quantum Mechanics. There's a book titled "The Quantum Letters" that contains a good portion of the correspondence letters sent around that time. It's also an interesting read because it gives a more "human feel" to the people involved in the work and just how confused they were by the whole thing.
Edit: This might be part of the larger book I read a while back. Though I'm not completely sure.
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Wave-Mechanics-Correspondence-Schrödinger/dp/1453204687
In a more recent example you can find in Daan Frenkel's book "Understanding Molecular Simulations 1st edition" where he makes this distinction. See the Monte Carlo section if you pick this up.
It tends to appear more in older literature than newer ones because the two words have sort of merged together over the years.
Stochastic was meant to be an antonym to deterministic while random is suppose to refer to the inability to reasonably predict an outcome. While they seem to be the same a "random process" can be deterministic in nature such as a coin flip, but unpredictable for humans because of the large number of variables involved and thus random.
But you'll also find other people making the same distinction.
https://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2006/07/06/randomness-versus-stochasticit
>Stochastic is often used as counterpart of the word "deterministic," which means that random phenomena are not involved. Therefore, stochastic models are based on random trials, while deterministic models always produce the same output for a given starting condition.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Stochastic.html
There's also a distinction between probabilistic and stocatstic when talking about time dependency.
In his book called Black Holes and Baby Universes. He depicted a universe swiss cheeses by black holes, the termini of which balloon into baby universes.
The ancient world faced the question of meaning and purpose as much as us. In Marcus Aurelius' writings, I found the perseverance, nobility, and applicable philosophy that I craved after leaving the comfort of Mormonism.
For those who have suicidal thoughts, my primary advice would be to seek out a professional who can assist in working through this very serious time. You can work through it, and you owe it to your future self to persevere.
But as a supplement and a guiding life philosophy, I think Stoicism is a tremendously powerful tool. Perhaps it's not the only tool, but it certainly is one which can form a sturdy basis for weathering the existential stress and anxiety that is common to us all. We must deal with meaninglessness where we once had it clearly spelled out for us. Working through the transitory period of nihilism to something more stable and healthy is possible even within a non-theistic framework. Nature does not require our misery, so why should we be miserable in our existence?
I loved the maxims that are to be found in "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius and the other Stoic philosophers. Stoicism is a close kin to modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is used by therapists today, and the richness of the philosophical tradition lends a kind of poetic frame for a full life without self delusion. The stoic concepts are simple, seemingly obvious and easy to become familiar with, but the challenge is in applying them to your life.
If you're truly destitute of meaning and hope, try Stoicism. It helped Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale through his time as a POW in Hanoi, Vietnam for 7 1/2 years - where he was tortured 15 times, placed in solitary confinement for over 4 years, and in leg irons for 2 years. If anyone had a reason for hopelessness, it was him. He later wrote about his experience in "The Stoic Warrior's Triad" and "Master of my Fate", along with "Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus' Doctrines in a Labratory of Human Behavior". Imagine facing a seemingly interminable future of misery, but even in this darkness finding something so powerful that you survived and even thrived. That's the power of Stoicism.
In addition to getting a real therapist to work with, and not as a substitute mind you, read "Man's Search for Meaning" and go through the following links, starting at the top and working your way down. By the time you're done, I think you'll have a ready tool to use as you continue on with life outside Mormonism.
The Obstacle is The Way, by Ryan Holiday (a good entry text - don’t skip the reading recommendations at the back)
Letters from a Stoic, by Seneca
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius (Gregory Hays translation)
The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch (video)
“On the Shortness of Life" Four Hour Blog, Translated by John W. Basore, highlighted by Tim Ferriss
A long podcast conversation with Ryan and Tim Ferriss discussing Stoicism
Achieving Apatheia (slideshare), Ryan Holiday
A lecture series, Marcus Aurelius
The Stoic Life (website about stoicism)
Man in the Arena - Teddy Roosevelt
The Stoics would say pick a few books and master those first, before jumping into a whole bunch of different topics.
So start with the Enchiridion and Discourses and really sink your teeth into it. There's enough in there to last a long time. Read a discourse, think about it, write a summary, pick it apart with examples from your own life, and so on.
Seneca's letters would also be a good read for you at this age:
https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Stoic-Epistulae-Lucilium-Classics-ebook/dp/B002RI99KK/
Or just go for Amazon; it might not be exactly cheap but it's not hugely expensive either.
This is a review and partial excerpt from the essay/book.
https://www.amazon.com/Wahhabism-Critical-Essay-Hamid-Algar/dp/188999913X
I use to have a Harry Potter journal that had black pages like that and came with a gold gel pen, it was really cool. I have seen black binder pages that are exactly as you described, and journals. Like this
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Paper-Journal-College-Ruled/dp/179872409X/ref=mp_s_a_1_16?keywords=black+paper&qid=1564482816&s=gateway&sr=8-16#aw-udpv3-customer-reviews_feature_div
https://www.ssww.com/item/basic-black-filler-paper-OC1003/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsLa8rrjc4wIVl5OzCh0RYw75EAQYAiABEgL0mfD_BwE
HUGS love you sis! Hang in there!
I found a book that really helps me when I feel down. Its letters from our "big" sisters who have already transitioned and done great things to us younger trans women just starting out.