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Hey everyone,
It’s been cold November rain in Toronto where we all walk around shiver-singing Guns N’ Roses.
But I’m writing this from sunny Costa Rica just before I give a speech. This is my fifty-third speech of the year and I’ve met many of you that way. Btw, if you’re near Toronto, a local town is reading The Book of Awesometogether so I’ve got a public event coming up. Hope to see some of you there.
Also, everyone’s putting out Christmas gift guides and most of them make me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit. I read one this morning recommending I buy artisanal glass gummy bears and $250 goop eye cream.
So … I wrote my own.
It’s called “10 Unconventional Gifts-ukah To Give This Christmas-ukah” and I hope you like it. With a few big writing projects in the tank I’m getting back into my writing rhythm so I’ll start sending more new pieces out soon.
And now, ze books,
Neil
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1. Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded Worldby Michael Harris. If loneliness is like “alone and sad” then solitude is like “alone and happy.” Michael Harris peels back the layers of this incredibly subtle life skill to show us why it’s crucial to master, what gets in the way, and how we can reorient ourselves in the distraction machine. I needed this book. I loved this book. And both halves of my brain were scratched because Michael’s a captivating writer with an arty flick-of-the-wrist style who also knows how to navigate the world of research and science. (For a sample of his writing check out this great piece he wrote in The Globe & Mail called I Have Forgotten How To Read.)
2. It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanson. Do you remember that old Woody Allen joke from Annie Hall? “Those who can’t do, teach, and those who can’t teach, teach gym.” Now, my dad and my wife are teachers, so I don’t agree with that, but I like that he was trying to shine a little light on the gap between “doer” and “sayer.” Because most sayers are not doers… and most doers are not sayers. Jason Fried is both. He’s CEO of Basecamp, an active and popular business with twenty straight years of profits, and he’s a captivatingly counterintuitive thinker and writer. I recommended his book Reworklast year. And this book follows in those footsteps – lambasting the “warrior mentality” of 100-hour-work-weeks of the world in favor of a refreshingly fulsome view of the whole person. Do you want to hang out with Jason and me? If so, sign up right here. I reached out to him and he’s agreed to do a private online webinar / Q&A just for readers of my book club. I’ve never done this before so it’s an experiment to see if it makes sense to try this with other authors.
3. The Red Balloon byAlbert Lamorisse. One of the most soulful conversations I’d had so far on my podcast 3 Books was with Mitchell Kaplan, a real life bookselling Yoda, who founded and runs the independent chain of eight Books and Books bookstores in Florida. (Including one in Key West run by Judy Blume!) I asked Mitchell: “If you could delete it from your brain, which book would you most want to read again for the first time?” And he said this book. I said I knew it… but then I bought it and realized I didn’t. A 1950s picture book based on a film that's loaded with TLC. (I guess that’s why it’s still selling seventy years later.) Beautifully shot black-and-white images of a bullied loner schoolboy who befriends a giant red balloon. The striking images and weaving storyline make it unlike any children’s book I’ve read. The balloon gets him in trouble at school! His mom throws it out! The bullies stone it! And what happens in the surprise ending? Well, if I told you that I’d be robbing you of discovering why Mitchell picked it to answer my question.
4. Gmorning, Gnight! by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonny Sun. Who else has the Hamilton soundtrack blaring at home? Talk about a gift to the world. When artists blow up the way Lin-Manuel did I always find their little side projects fascinating. Often it’s a bomb, occasionally it’s a hit, but either way it’s worth applauding because it means the artist doesn’t care about the shoebox the world is stuffing them into. Well, turns out long before Hamilton premiered, Lin-Manuel was opening and closing his writing days with little bits of Twitter poetry, and this book collects the best batch of them and pairs them with the crazy Canadian polymath Jonny Sun’s smooth n’ curvy drawings. An inspiring combo. Here’s what I wrote about the book on Twitter.
5. In The Garden of the North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolff. At 2:20am EST on December 7th we will have our next new moon. Zero slivers of moon in the sky for the darkest dark possible between moon phases. And that’s the exact minute I’ll be releasing Chapter 18 of 3 Books with the incomparable, incorrigible, indefatigable David Sedaris. I was lucky enough to spend a couple hours with David in the back of his limo between his hotel, media hits, and live bookstore reading. And one thing we talked about was this book. David calls Tobias Wolff the greatest living American short story writer. Me, I’d never heard of him. And yet here it is: the only book of short stories I have ever read from cover to cover. They’re that good. Every tale swerves you into some dramatic family scene that’s full of surprise and hits you in the gut. A bit artsier and less commercial than the (also incredible) Alice Munro.
6. Is This Guy For Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufmanby Box Brown. A couple years ago I got up in this soapbox and went on and on about Tetris by Box Brown. I then went back and read his Andre the Giantand found myself slightly less transfixed. Sadly, I was even less transfixed by this newest one. It could just be me not caring too much about Andy Kaufman, maybe. Why mention it then? Because, honestly, everybody should read Tetris and I just wanted to talk about Tetris again. Here's an interview with Box Brown about it.
7. 1990 Kenyon Commencement Speech by Bill Watterson, author of Calvin and Hobbes. Sometimes the Internet serves you up a delicious gem. And this commencement speech by the notoriously media-shy Bill Watterson is a gem. He gives a great life lesson on the power and importance of self-learning and talks about why ads use corporate money to smear artistic incentives. I don't have (and never will have) any ads, sponsors, or interruptions on 3 Books, 1000 Awesome Things, The Institute for Global Happiness, Neil.blog, or any other project I do. Yes, it's a lot of lost profit potential. But, it also means I get to write, say, and do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, forever. So Watterson's take, in the form of career and life advice, was balm for my soul.
