Sharon Lebell is the author of several inspiring philosophical books which are translated into Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, and German and are available in popular audio editions.  She is co-author with Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast of a meditation on time, The Music of Silence:  A Sacred Journey Through the Hours of the Day, which was packaged with Sony Record's runaway 5-million-copy bestselling CD "Chant" by the Monks of Santa Domingo de Silos.  Sharon Lebell's essays and reviews on philosophy, linguistics, travel, and books have appeared in a wide range of popular magazines and newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Utne Reader.

    A few years ago her book The Art of Living, an original interpretation of the hitherto little known 1st Century Stoic philosophy of Epictetus, became an international sensation.  Sharon Lebell was a guest on the BBC and was profiled in feature stories appearing in USA Today, the New York Times,  Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Dallas Morning News, and in many other major North American newspapers. She has also been a guest on several popular radio talk shows and has been a sought-after speaker about Stoicism's uncanny relevance to our lives today. Stoicism has been trumpeted by the media as a harbinger of the next major wave in the emerging popular morality-based spirituality and Sharon Lebell is the author of the first — and only — contemporary, easy-to-read version of Stoicism's key exponent. 

   

    Sharon Lebell has built her life and livelihood around "rescuing philosophy from philosophers," freeing important, popularly overlooked philosophical  ideas from arid, archaic language and obfuscation. The explosive success of her two books about Epictetus proves that philosophy need not be forbidding. In Sharon Lebell's hands the originally practical, earthy spirit of Stoic philosophy comes alive, making available to all this great tradition's wealth of helpful inspiration and timeless life guidance.

    Sharon Lebell just finished her forthcoming book THE BEST POSSIBLE LIFE: WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO LIVE IT, whose message is that the best possible life is a life of logos (meaning), arete (the potential for virtue or excellence in all of us that cries forth for expression), and Apatheia (in the Stoic construction) or Ataraxia (as the Epicureans would say) (peace of mind, freedom from anxiety, a settled heart).  This new book is as compelling as it is accessible to a reader looking for a sophisticated self-help book.

     Based on the imperishable wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Sextus Empericus, the nucleus of the book is "The Nine Classical Prescriptions for an Ideal Life." The ancient Greek moral philosophers saw themselves as doctors whose teachings were meant to be tonics or remedies for the soul. Sharon Lebell has selected the one best remedy or prescription for living that each of the 9 philosophers espouses. Taken together, as a unified discourse or "program" these prescriptions help us adjust our lives right here and right now in the situation we find ourselves in — in the direction of the best possible life.

   

    Sharon Lebell is also a master player of the hammered dulcimer, a stringed instrument of ancient middle-eastern origin. With her books and musical composition and performance she seeks to accomplish the same purpose:  to spread a little sweetness and ease into the world.