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Hey everyone,
A big swelling thank you to those who’ve taken a chance to check out 3 Books with Neil Pasricha (iTunes / Stitcher / Google Play). You guys shot it into the Top 100 podcasts in the world and I’m pumped to share Chapter 3 on the full moon this weekend. (Want to know who my next guest is? He's the only author I've reviewed three books by in this book club...)
Lincoln In The Bardoby George Saunders. What would you do in this situation? You’re a little kid. You’re at your grandma’s house. You and your cousins are upstairs in the attic. Somebody pulls a dusty, old board game off the top shelf. Nobody has seen it before. Nobody has played it before. One person pulls off the box cover and everyone notices two things immediately. First, there are no instructions. They are missing! And the second is that the board game looks very interesting and complicated – there are parts and pieces and drawings like you’ve never seen! And a few common elements like a board and timer. It’s clear that if you and your cousins want to play it’s going to take a lot of patience to figure out the game. But it also looks like the investment may really pay off in how fun the game looks. So, the big question: do you play? Or would you put it back on the shelf? Lincoln in the Bardo felt like that boardgame to me. I ended up playing. And it was ultimately worth the massive investment in figuring out the rules. What’s it about? A tiny piece of truth forms of the underpinning. On the day President Abraham Lincoln’s 11-year-old son Willie Lincoln died of typhoid, Abe was reported in newspapers to have visited the tomb on horseback multiple times over the night just to pick up and hold his son’s body. The “bardo” is the term for spirits caught between our existence and the afterlife and this book is – wait for it – told from the perspective of the invisible cacophony of ghost voices stuck yelling at each other from the bardo in that crypt. It is magical and mystical and wild and wonderful and the beauty rises and rises and rises as you keep going. Spellbinding.
Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothingby Judy Blume. Do you reread the books you grew up with? I heard Gretchen Rubin (an upcoming 3 Books guest!) say she re-visits and re-reads those books during stressful times. I liked that and pulled out my torn and tattered copy of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. I was a bit surprised the book completely holds up. Fudge is still a loveable monster who eats his brother’s turtle. A classic.
Understand Rap: Explanations of Confusing Rap Lyrics That You & Your Grandma Can Understandby William Buckholz. Exactly what it says on the tin. A small book with sharp design that uses a stilted emotionless translation for rap lyrics. “I got rubber band banks in my pocket” from “Whatever You Like” by TI. What? “I carry such large amounts of cash that a wallet would quickly wear out as it would be stretched beyond capacity … the money clip is pushed beyond its mechanical limits as well. Therefore, a large rubber band will be employed, as it can expand with increased capacity.” Ha! Want another? “I was strapped wit’ gats when you were cuddlin’ a cabbage patch.” from Forgot About Dre by Dr. Dre. “When you were still a child and had no concerns other than playing with dolls in the comfort and safety of your home, I was carrying guns to defend myself in my dangerous urban neighborhood.” Not sure if this one makes our Enlightened Bathroom Reading series but it’s close.
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovichby Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. One day in the life of an ordinary prisoner of a Soviet forced labor camp in the 1950s. Dark, hypnotic, fascinating read which was one of the first inside accounts published of the Stalin regime. It ultimately led to the author getting exiled from the country and, on the plus side, winning the Pulitzer Prize.
Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligenceby Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb. In my final year of my undergrad business degree a fresh young professor stepped into our classroom to teach the big capstone strategy course. We eyed the guy with suspicion. He looked about a year older than us. But he won us over in a flash – dancing around the room, cold-calling randomly, and speaking with an articulate passion for strategy and business. He was a “zoom out” professor in the best sense. His name was Ajay Agrawal and this month his first book came out. It’s a doozy and I swallowed it in one big gulp. Do you feel like you don’t know enough about AI? I do. I mean, I read the great Wait But Why article by Tim Urban (another upcoming 3 Books guest!) but … what next? Well, what’s next is this book. Published by Harvard Business Review Press, it’s an excellent primer on the business and commercial implications.
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamedby Jon Ronson. Did you ever listen to Serial? I only caught a couple episodes but Ronson’s writing style reminds me of the show. You hear his voice from above as he experiences something, goes on a journey to dig in, and then tries to make sense of it all. This book explores the history of public shaming and the reemergence of it on a mass scale with the Internet. I’m not quite sure how Ronson managed to score interviews with people like Jonah Lehrer who became aplagiarism castaway and Justine Sacco who sent a bad joke out to 170 followers on Twitter before getting on an 11-hour flight… and then landed to discover she’d been fired and had become the #1 trending topic on Twitter while she was on the plane. A great exploration of shaming history and wades confidently into the complex emotional issues surrounding how we think about power to the people.
Herding Catsby Sarah Andersen. I love Sarah Andersen. And not just because of this incredible cartoon about books which you absolutely should go check out right now. She’s the cartoonist behind Sarah’s Scribbles which addresses anxiety, social awkwardness, mental health, millennialism, and becoming an adult.
Whenby Dan Pink. I had a chance to spend a morning with Dan last year when we were onstage back to back at an event together. I was nervous. He’s the legendary business icon with books like A Whole New Mind and Drive. Then he proceeds to go onstage and talk about how he’s not sure about stacking up to “that awesome guy.” Yeah, right. Cue a wizard-like performance as he held the room in the palm of his hand with a combo of stage presence, big laughs, and sharp insights. True business theater. His new book offers an antidote to the tidal wave of “how to” books with perhaps the first-ever “when to.” As always from him, great research and insights.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Here it is! Maybe the best ever book on writing. I found this a lot stronger than Bird by Birdwhich provoked minor anxiety in me with its endless list of writing stresses. King shares his mental models for writing, demystifies the process, and speaks in a snappy manner about how to actually do it. The first half of the book is his optional memoir (still lots of fun) and the second half is the part on writing. What’s in the middle? An incredible little five-page interstitial called “What Writing Is” which blew my mind. A professor at Southeastern University must have felt the same way as he posted those same five pages here. A great gift for anyone who writes or wants to write more or better.
