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Hey everyone,
First off: Thank you!
Our Book of Awesome came out two months ago and you’ve helped it get off to a roaring start. We’ve clocked onto seven bestseller lists and are now six weeks in a row on The Globe’s International Non-Fiction list. To me this just means the book is slowly finding its people – even despite the confusing cover which is making a lot of people say “Didn’t I read this ten years ago?” If you don’t have a copy, please grab one here. And here’s a little Love page I threw online with loads of interviews, podcasts, and features that have come out from the likes of NPR, Maria Shriver, and The Current.
Also! I like to kick off Januarys by reminding you I have four email lists: this monthly book club, a lunar podcast update, an every-other-Wednesday bit of inspiration, and, yes, a daily awesome thing delivered every single night at midnight. All my emails remain 100% ad, sponsor, and commercial free as I aim to fill both our lives with good vibes. Click here to adjust your dosage.
Now let’s get to the books!
Neil
1. Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury. (L/I/A) I didn’t start this book club newsletter 75 months ago with the intention of becoming a books evangelist. And yet here we are! 57% of Americans read zero books for pleasure last year. Zero! TikTok is eating our brains and our ability to concentrate on deeper pleasures. I feel it, too. And see it everywhere. I just finished a bunch of Costco book signings and books square footage feels down 50% since before the pandemic. Airport bookstores are telling me they’ve shrunk book displays in favor of candy and phone accoutrements. We have to fight for books! Am I overreacting? Well, maybe, but I did just read Fahrenheit 451 – the mesmerizing 158-page love letter to books and the surprisingly-close-feeling dangers that mass echo chambers pose for society at large. Quick plotline: A book-burning firefighter grows further apart from his Airpods-wearing wife and encounters a curious teenager on his street who jars something loose. Thus begins a frenetic story with our hero skirting the law in favor of finding out what life is like outside the algorithm. Heart-thumping, abstract, evocative, with a pulsing story that ends somewhere near where The Road begins. I had never read it before and recommend this 60th (!) anniversary edition featuring an Introduction from Neil Gaiman. Blow billows on your reading habit. Highly recommended.
2. How To Calm Your Mind: Finding Presence and Productivity in Anxious Timesby Chris Bailey. (L/I/A) I met Chris Bailey six or seven years ago in a hotel lobby in Ottawa and remember seeing him just full-body-lying-down on a fancy purple velvet couch reading a thick hardcover. With the first page ripped out and stuffed inside as the bookmark, a somewhat horrifying habit he's had for years. Chris exuded a bubbly energy and we began a friendship where I’ve been lucky to see him continuously evolve his craft. His first book came out in 2016 and was called The Productivity Project, and it catalogued his ludicrous year testing out every productivity hack he could. (If that style of self-help-searching is up your alley I’d recommend bookmarking this Guardian archive of “This Column Will Change Your Life” by Oliver Burkeman.) Chris followed up that book with Hyperfocus in 2018 -- which has done outstandingly well. And now he returns, post burnout and anxiety attack, with a simple guide to calming your mind. So how do you calm your mind? Well, I might suggest avoiding non-fiction altogether (LOL) and just getting into nature, calling someone who loves you, journaling, or getting into your body with a long walk or a yoga class. Chris says many similar things: get off phones, get outside, lower dopamine, increase analog -- but he leads us there with a great dose of left-brain-scratching research and a, yes, calm tone that makes this a perfect read for right now. A generous offering for the overwhelmed.
3. Cinema Speculationby Quentin Tarantino. (L/I/A) What’s the best way to make things happen? Lean in. That’s it! That’s the secret. Just lean in. Try. Give it a shot. Naval Ravikant says “The real performance enhancing drug is giving a damn.” Might flop, might fail, but at worst … you’ll learn. And, at best, surprises and delights you never would have expected fill you up and serve as nitro to keep going. I leaned into podcasts in the max zone of “everyone doing a podcast” a few years ago. I knew nothing about podcasts! (You can hear firsthand in Chapter 1.) All I knew was I loved books and wanted to use them as some kind of pole to vault up into the world of talking wisdom. My goals for the show were more than realized after Quentin Tarantino came on to chat about his 3 most formative books before his first novel came out – the highly-addictive and wildy fresh novelization of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood which was one of my Best Books of 2021. And now, a few years later, he just put out his first non-fiction book and, get this, even wrote about coming on 3 Books … in the book! (See what he wrote here.) Now, if you’re a 70s movies nerd, this book is basically written just for you. But even if you’re not Tarantino’s writing is rocking and rolling as always and this book will give you the gift of listening to your nerdiest movie nerd pal on an epic late-night geekout. We need more people with this kind of energy in the world. The energy of being far, far away from social media and then just laying eggs of solid gold every now and then. Tarantino has famously and repeatedly said he’ll only make 10 movies which means we have precisely 1 remaining. But as long as he keeps writing books we’ll be enjoying his artistic output for years. Listen to my chat with Quentin Tarantino here.
4.Bridge to Terabithiaby Katherine Paterson. (L/I/A) A touching story about first friendships and first loves. This book has been “almost picked” a few times by 3 Books guests so I picked it up to see what the fuss was about. A vivid tale of sixth grader Jess growing up in rural Virginia in the 1960s between four sisters and his evolving friendship with Leslie who moves next door. I found it a bit stilted but it did explore many themes ahead of its time – gender, death of a child, first affections. And did so in an honest and unblinking way. The ending felt neutered and there were a lot of loose ends I wished were expanded to make this a richer meal but, all in all, if you want to escape to a farm in the 1960s for a couple hours – this does just the trick. Thom Yorke sang “I wish it was the 60s, I wish I could be happy” in "The Bends". Well, we can’t transport our bodies but we can transport our minds. Do you have a favorite 60s or 70s novel you might suggest? Just reply and let me know!
5. I Always Think It’s Forever: A Love Story Set in Paris as Told by An Unreliable but Earnest Narratorby Timothy Goodman. (L/I/A) Timothy Goodman grew up with a single mom in an all-black neighborhood in Ohio in the 1980s. He started painting homes after high school and discovered a love affair with the craft. He moved to New York for design school and has evolved into a suddenly-everywhere “doodle artist” who designs everything from hotel lobbies to garbage trucks to Kevin Durant’s new shoes. His very first book – this one! – comes out in three days and is a graphic memoir sharing an earnest story about millennial love. What’s remarkable about the book is his attention to detail: endlessly-rhyming couplets, pop-pop-pow staccato artistic interruptions, and a fun flip through the heart and mind of an introspective and philosophical expressionist artist. There's a deep sea swirling in this man's beautiful heart. I love Timothy’s work and am excited to share he'll be my next guest on 3 Books on the exact minute of the next full moon. When’s that? Look up to the sky! Subscribe for free on Apple or Spotify.
6. The Common Goodby Robert Reich. (L/I/A) I am revisiting this book as I think about trust in society. How much we’ve lost. How we can get it back. How much we're going to need it in the years to come. Think of a beautifully safe small town where nobody locks their doors. Now imagine the first person who comes through breaking and entering. Pretty easy pickings! Nobody locks their door! Now trust plummets. Arms race erupts. Locks! Security systems! Video cameras! This type of trust evaporation and arms racing has happened everywhere and Robert Reich gives an incredibly lucid portrait of exactly what happened when to get us where we are now. I call it trust, he calls it the common good, but either way, this is a vital read to help understand the world we live in. Highly recommended. (Sidenote: If this area interests you, check out my 2019 SXSW talk “Building Trust In Distrustful Times.” )
7. How To Be Love(d): Simple Truths for Going Easier on Yourself, Embracing Imperfection, & Loving Your Way To A Better Lifeby Humble The Poet. (L/I/A) Kanwer Singh, aka Humble the Poet, has had a fascinating path over the past few years. He went from public school teacher to reaching the upper echelons of Internet stardom – amassing millions of followers around inspirational posts on self-love, body acceptance, and social justice – and yet he’s managed to hold onto all of it with a very loose and humble grip. This book continues his gift of sharing with deep vulnerability – check out his book launch post! -- as he continuous to seek and share. I really admire him. Here's a sample quote from Page 164 under the Chapter heading "Be What You Love, Not What Loves You": "Humble The Poet the creative made dope shit, but Humble The Poet with the big social media following got paid to wear clothes, use technology, and attend movie screenings. Creating was nutrition for my soul but being famous paid the bills and was junk food for my ego.... I was no longer doing what I loved, I was doing what made people love me." (PS. Humble’s 3 most formative books are Death Blossoms by Mumia Abu-Jamal, God's Debris by Scott Adams, and The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma.)
8. Tiny Buddha's Inner Strength Journalby Lori Deschene. (L/I/A) Way back in the Pleistocene era of blogging, there was a noble brood of 14.4-modem-bauding pilgrims trying our darndest to just, you know, put stuff out there. Social media hadn’t hoovered up all the content yet so blogs like 1000 Awesome Things, Cake Wrecks, Stuff White People Like, Fail Blog, or I Can Has Cheeseburger were where you went for an afternoon laugh or little jolt of inspiration. Most blogs from that era are extinct! Gone the way of the stegosaurus. And yet … some persist. (It’s perhaps like I wrote in You Are Awesome: "What we often think of as evolution 'destroying and replacing' the past is actually 'transcending and including'.") Which blogs are still here? PostSecret, The Bloggess, Marc and Angel, and, yes, Tiny Buddha. Lori Deschene is one of those original mighty bloggers who wins serious props for longevity. Now she's adding this Inner Strength Journal to her offerings. It's a handy toolkit of questions to serve as a little guiding force when you hit the bumps. She writes in the Intro "As someone with a history of PTSD, depression, and bulimia, I've questioned not just my will to go on but my capacity." She then explains that she put together this journal to help manage strong emotions and prioritize self-care. Simple ideas, habits, and exercises to help channel and find inner strength.
9. Gilgameshby Herbert Mason. (L/I/A) Chapter 99 of 3 Books is one of my favorites. Me, you, and a motley crew of book lovers hanging out with the singular Doug Miller inside the piled-to-the-sky used and rare Book Mecca that is Doug Miller Books. Jingling doors, surprise phone calls, floors creaking as people walk through -- it’s an aural escape into cozy bookstore land if you have a long drive or walk coming up I invite you to join us. One of Doug’s pearls of wisdom is that bookstores let us find what we aren’t searching for. The power of browsing, the surprise of the unexpected, that still doesn’t truly exist online. (Maybe we're even getting further away from it?) That’s what led me to finding this $2.99 copy of Gilgamesh -- the four-thousand-plus-year-old epic -- recaptured and distilled fifty years ago by Harvard scholar Herbert Mason. A quick poetic read offering wonderful insight into our oldest elements of storytelling and neverending human struggles around grappling with death, longing for friendship, and our desire for mystical guides. Storytelling has evolved but ones surviving thousands of years are worth checking out.
