I'm on the back end of Zarathustra at the moment, hence moving onto something a bit stronger. I tend to flick between different books by any given author in order to assimilate their ideas, so I might add Birth of Tragedy at the same time - thank for the recommendation. I'd like to get through all of Nietzsche's key writing in the next couple of years.
I've thought about reading Schopenhauer as I understand he's a great complement to Nietzsche's work - I'll see where I get to with Nietzsche first. Camus is somewhat related as an absurdist compared to Nietzsche/Schopenhauer's existentialism, but a bit more optimistic about the possibility of meaning.
I'm tempted to dig into Plato as the problem of universals is a philosophical topic that I value greatly, and his theory of forms is basically its origin story.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche (esp. Walter Kaufmann preface edition). It's an energetic, angry, poetic, and often rambling tour de force on mankind overcoming its smallness. Halfway through you'll start wondering if Nietzsche is a genius or a lunatic, and the answer is Yes.
Don't start with Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It's all parables told in an old testament style that's hard to comprehend without already knowing what Nietzsche is about. I read The Gay Science first, and I thought it was a good starting point. It covers his big ideas and has the famous "God is dead" aphorism in it.
Reading Nietzsche is like breathing in cold mountain air. Some people can handle the cold, others can't. He's not for everyone, as he makes it intentionally clear.
He was a stark individualist that put into question a lot of the building blocks of liberal democracy, such as the notion that all men are equal. I don't agree with all of what he puts forth but he is without a doubt one of the most dynamic and influential thinkers of the 19th century and still relevant to read even today.
If you're interested in reading him, start with Twilight of the Idols and Beyond Good and Evil. If you like those two then you can delve into some of his other work such as the Antichrist, On the Geneaology of Morals, Human, All Too Human, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Yeah, that's probably a better summary of his attitude towards Nietzsche. Thanks for the recommendations. I have read most of Beyond Good and Evil, but am not too familiar with his thought except secondhand.
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