At least among the philosophy books I’ve read, there seem to be two prevalent styles: The checklist and the novel. An example for a frame of reference would be Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Gay Science. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a novel, with the characters exposing the philosophy that the author is trying to get at in a more gradual and natural way. The Gay Science is a straightforward laundry list of the author’s thoughts on various topics. George Orwell’s 1984 is in the novel style, Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny seems to be its equal and opposite checklist style book. A novel like Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead shows us characters that are purpose-built archetypes of philosophical ideals that the author conveys and clarifies through the events of the book. Sun Tzu’s checklistian The Art of War gets straight to the point, explaining a strategy or concept concisely, then moving on to the next. Maybe calling things checklist-style sounds too derogatory, but I really don’t mean for it to be. It all just depends on how you prefer to digest your philosophy.