1. Walkable City: How downtown can save America, one step at a timeby Jeff Speck. Suddenly the whole world is grounded. Whether you’re a hero working the front lines or quarantining yourself for the greater good, I’m guessing your primary method of transportation has suddenly become your feet. I’m a big fan of long walks and in non-quarantined times I try and spend a day or two a week going untouchable and bringing out my inner flâneur. I absolutely loved this book about walkability and its power to completely transform our health, our planet, our economies, and our communities. Jeff Speck presents The General Theory of Walkability which explains how, ‘to be favored, a walk has to satisfy four main conditions: it must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting’ and calls pedestrians ‘an extremely fragile species, the canary in the coal mine of urban liveability.’ I can’t recommend this punchy, well-researched, and witty book enough. The world is changing and can’t help but feel like Jeff Speck’s ideas will be a big part of where we’re heading.
2. Berlin by Jason Lutes. I remembering visiting my friend Chris Kim at his Boston apartment years ago when he passed me his copy of Maus by Art Spiegelman. That OG graphic novel about the holocaust completely blew me away. I sadly never had a chance to return it so it sits on my shelf today and has since been joined by incredible work by artists like Alison Bechdel (Fun Home), Adrian Tomine (Killing & Dying), and Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis). However, I am pretty sure I have never read a graphic novel with the level of layered emotional, character, and plot complexity of this nearly 600-page wonder. I am not surprised Jason Lutes spent 22 years writing and illustrating it. If you’re like me, the graphic novel will take 50-100 pages to get into as new people and storylines keep popping out of nowhere but once you get a loose grasp on the dozens of characters you will absolutely get lost in it. Berlin was the progressive center of Europe during the Weimar Republic of 1918-1933 where ‘creativity, political thought, and sexual liberty burned bright before being snuffed out under the bootheel of fascism.’ This is a story of that time. If you have a craving right now to walk onto the Holodeck, press a button, and live somewhere else for a while, this is the book for you. Highly recommended.
3. What Is Hinduism?by Mahatma Gandhi. I felt bad for Gandhi the other day. This book was sitting in the dollar bin outside a used bookstore and I picked it up thinking he deserved better than that. What is Hinduism? I’m glad you asked. This thin book is a series of short, clear essays he contributed to magazines throughout the 1920s with titles like “What is Hinduism?”, “Equality of Religions”, “Non-Violence”, and “God and Congress.” Considering how much I’ve seen and read about Gandhi it seemed high time I read some of his own words. I think in general if I notice myself reading about someone (or resonating with quotes from someone) over and over I should pick up one of their own books. New Life Policy.
4. Matildaby Roald Dahl. Which Roald Dahl book should a child read as their very first? Kevin the Bookseller told me in Chapter 44 of 3 Books that he’d suggest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, or Matilda. I agreed with the first two but had never read Matilda. So I bought it. And now I have. What do I think? Well, while it finishes with a flourish I found it mostly An Unfortunate Series of Sadistic Events starring Matilda’s school principal. Sorry Kevin, but I gotta round out my Top 3 with The BFG instead. (Note: Kevin did add the first Roald Dahl book to The Top 1000 and it was, strangely, none of these three.)
5. Think Like A Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Lifeby Ozan Varol. I love Ozan Varol. He’s a rocket scientist turned award-winning professor, author, and podcaster. (I just did a rare AMA on his wonderful Famous Failures podcast.) More than that he’s a brilliant mind, a warm and kind heart, and the exact type of spirit we need putting resilient vibes into the world right now. I don’t envy anyone launching a book right now with so many festivals and bookstores closed but I am hoping this book picks up steam. I think it will and it absolutely deserves to because there’s just an endless series of brain nuggets chapter by chapter. There’s a reason Adam Grant put it as #1 on his list of 20 leadership books to read in 2020.
6. The Nuclear Family Was a Mistakeby David Brooks. This cover story from the March issue of The Atlantic is a history of how we live together (that almost reads like a chapter excerpt from Sapiens) as well as an incredibly well-argued push to broaden and deepen our community connections today. Are you feeling the neighborly love through Coronavirus everything? This is a push to lean into that drawn from the simple fact that we always used to. From the article: “Americans are hungering to live in extended and forged families, in ways that are new and ancient at the same time. This is a significant opportunity, a chance to thicken and broaden family relationships, a chance to allow more adults and children to live and grow under the loving gaze of a dozen pairs of eyes, and be caught, when they fall, by a dozen pairs of arms. For decades we have been eating at smaller and smaller tables, with fewer and fewer kin. It’s time to find ways to bring back the big tables.”
7. Lie With Meby Philippe Besson. Translated from French by Molly Ringwald. “Yes, that Molly Ringwald,” read the handwritten cue card on the Staff Picks wall at Toronto indie bookstore Type Books. (PS. Toronto folks -- call Type! They're taking phone orders and delivering.) That’s where I first discovered this gem about a hidden love affair between two teenage boys in rural France in 1984 which timewarps from the past to today told as a first-person memory by the author. That summary means nothing, though. Put it this way: This book will twist and squeeze your heart in so many ways all leading up maybe the most emotionally exquisite final page of any novel I’ve ever read. André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name, says “Two young men find each other, always fearing that life itself might be the villain standing in their way. A stunning and heart-gripping tale.” This book is a true masterpiece.
8. The Wallcreeperby Nell Zink. Do you ever have a friend come visit you from out of town and then you take them to one of your favorite local bookstores to browse for a while and you end up buying each other one of your favorite books and you feel like it’s a super fun thing to do because it’ll give you both a memory of the trip and of your friendship forever but then after they leave and you actually open up and read the book you find you like parts of it but you don’t totally love it in fact you don’t really love it at all and you don’t really know what to make of it but you don’t want to insult your friend who has told you it meant so much to them so you sort of plod through it so you can definitely say you read it if they ever ask but just sort of never really mention it again? Me too. Sorry Rob.
9. For The Love Of Books: Designing and Curating a Home Libraryby Thatcher Wine & Elizabeth Lane. Do you have a lot of time on your hands right now? Time to finally organize all your bookshelves! I suggest grabbing this wonderful book to help. My friend Joey Coleman sent me this book and I am so grateful he did as it widened my understanding of the value of a home library. Beautiful prose on book history complements incredible photos throughout.
10. Mister Rogers Neighborhood. I felt the need to interrupt the book list by mentioning that five free (and commercial free) Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood episodes are posted on MisterRogers.org every other Monday.
11. The Dog of the South by Charles Portis. Charles Portis is a writer’s writer. People like Donna Tartt, Stephen King, and Roald Dahl line up to praise him. His voice is a completely original deadpan bonkers. Dave Barry first told me about him and he picked this book as one of his most formative. Portis wrote only five novels total until his death last month including True Grit, his most famous. But this book seems like a good one to start with. In it, Ray Midge is attempting to track down his wife Norma who has run off to Belize with her first husband which leads into a mad caper through the Southern US and Mexico with a band of wild characters.
