A book review from The Movie Snob:

I had always wanted to read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and a brand-new translation by C. Scot Hicks and David V. Hicks, titled "The Emperor's Handbook," was the catalyst that finally got me to do it. It is a slender volume, and the translation very readable, so it's not a difficult read. I found it very interesting, although there is a substantial amount of repetition of the key points of Marcus Aurelius's Stoic philosophy. One dominant theme, for example, is the effort to overcome the fear of death through the use of reason, which the Emperor visits over and over again. The importance of living according to reason rather than the passions or appetites, and in harmony with nature, is another. In fact, those two themes struck me as the overriding themes of the whole work. In all, I quite enjoyed this window into an ancient and not-yet-forgotten school of thought.