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Hey everyone,
How you holding up?
Our place has been full of midnight fevers, junkyard dog coughs, and screams from the basement. "More tissues! More tissues!" Poor Leslie has gone down with the ship. Been the ship, really. She was, however, in top form on her first-ever feature podcast. We just dropped it as a Bookmark called "Tips to Be a More Peaceful Parent."
I also released a longform "live from New York" conversation with human rocket ship Sahil Bloom. And on the next full moon (Monday!) I'll be dropping a chat with Ralph Nader. Still fiery! Btw: If you're new to the pod start with David Sedaris, Brené Brown, or Quentin Tarantino.
Last thing! Our Book Of Awesome – the first awesome book in a decade, written collectively with all of you! – drops in paperback on Tuesday. It's got a new HOT PINK cover and I put a review in below. Grab a copy for you or someone you love right here.
The world does not want us to read books! Every screen seduces us farther away from the deeper, richer world of compressed wisdom waiting for us in the pages. I love our reading rebellion. If you know someone who'd like to join us send them here.
Here are my book recommendations this month!
Neil
1. It's OK To Be Angry About Capitalism by Bernie Sanders. I remember reading a New York Times Op-Ed by Bernie Sanders a few years ago called "The Foundations of American Society Are Failing Us" and being struck by the clarity, concision, and power. Apex communicator! (He just wrote another Op-Ed four days ago called "Justice for the Palestinians and Security for Israel.") Do you see what I mean? The world is just so messy, blurry, and overwhelming and we need penetrating voices – master distillers! – to offer us clear views. Bernie is one 82-year-old elder doing just that. This book contains ten passionate, rallying-cry chapters that smartly fold together stories, research, and reminders about big laws that were headline news for a few weeks a few decades ago but have disappeared as news. The result is some kind of slow, almost grotesque, pan shot of the state of the US. Chapter sub-heads include phrases like "Health care is a human right, not a privilege", "Children should be taught to think – not educated to be cogs in the machine", and "Political reform requires alternatives to a for-profit media system that dumbs down and diminishes debate in America." Each chapter is its own manifesto and I found my heart beating faster and faster while reading. "If someone were to offer a senator $100 to vote for or against a piece of legislation," he writes on Page 116, "it would, by any court of law, be considered a 'bribe.' Taking that bribe could land that person offering it – and the senator taking it – in jail. If that same person were to put $100 million into a super-PAC for that senator, their spending would be considered perfectly legal. It would also, if successful, win the donor a very close and grateful relationship with a very powerful elected official." We know truths like this, but Bernie has a way of spelling them out in arresting ways. "Made you look", he always seems to be saying. "Our struggle is against a system where the top twenty-five hedge fund managers in the United States pocket more money than 350,000 kindergarten teachers." Exactly. Or how about on Page 124 when he shows how the US spends more than double, per capita, on health care than the UK, Canada, France, or Germany, and yet ranks at the bottom on longevity, accessibility, and coverage. "In other words, we are getting a terrible return on our huge expenditure on health care." You can skip around the book. I flipped past some rehashes of election campaigns or specific bills but loved the more elevated macro-level ideas he borrows from countries around the world such as the zoom-in on learning from Finland's education system. (Spoiler alert: elevate teaching standards through pay and trust, reject standardized testing, ban for-profit private schools, etc.) The book shares how the US got where it is – and what can be done to unwind a lot of the damage. Do I agree with everything? Of course not. Books aren't brains – they're views. But there aren't many views more pointed, sharp, and passionate than this one. Highly recommended.
2. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig. A hundred years ago Stefan Zweig was one of the highest selling and most translated writers in the world. This is the first book I've read by him and I can safely add: For good reason! He had a tumultuous life. In 1934 he fled Austria for England as Hitler was gaining power but then, years later, ended up listed in the 'Black Book', which convinced him to flee further to Brazil. I imagine him writing this tight, gripping 84-page "one long boat trip across the Atlantic" novella on his … long boat trip across the Atlantic. It tells the story of a group of people who encounter the chess world champion on their boat! They challenge him to a game! He soundly defeats them! But then … another challenger emerges with a haunting past and the story swerves wildly. A short book to help you get back on the reading train. Vivid, welcoming, and a pace that accelerates as the story goes on. This is Zweig's last book and was submitted to his publisher just two days before he and his wife died by suicide in Rio.
3. Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. Do you know the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas? I thought I did! But I think I really just knew that one line – "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light" – from like a dozen different movies. I never ingested it, you know? Fanned it in slowly like perfume. Because that's what it deserves. It's a stunning bit of writing. I suggest reading it here and then listening to Dylan Thomas reciting it here. If you feel something there I think you'll love the high-flying literary acrobatics in this much longer 1954 BBC radio play transcript that Dylan wrote just before his death at age 39. This is truly one of the most wild things I've ever read. I found it hard to take in more than a fraction of what was going on -- but the words, you'll see, they just keep pulling. Under Milk Wood is a 95-page fast-paced "day in the inner lives" of a small Welsh town. That's it! But the wordplay, the twisting – it's got a vibe like Lincoln in the Bardo (04/2018). Here, take a look, this is two pages near the beginning, featuring an inner conversation between Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard and her two dead (though still alive in her mind!) husbands, Mr. Ogmore and Mr. Pritchard:
Mr Ogmore: I must blow my nose.
Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard: In a piece of tissue-paper which I afterwards burn.
Mr Pritchard: I must take my salts which are nature's friend.
Mr Ogmore: I must boil the drinking water because of germs.
Mr Pritchard: I must take my herb tea which is free from tannin.
Mr Ogmore: And have a charcoal biscuit which is good for me.
Mr Pritchard: I may smoke one pipe of asthma mixture.
Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard: In the woodshed, if you please.
Mr Pritchard: And dust the parlour and spray the canary.
Mr Ogmore: I must put on rubber gloves and search the peke for fleas.
Mr Pritchard: I must dust the blinds and then I must raise them.
Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard: And before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its shoes.