Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - May 2026

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

Scroll down to the pic for the books!

Or hang up here for a little mailbag.

As always just reply anytime to send me a letter. Here are a few:

Hi Neil,

I’ve been enjoying your emails for many years, and some of your books as well. Your message resonates with me.

In ​this email that urges to delete IG​ (which I agree with) I can’t help but wonder how Twitter is any different.

Thanks and all the best,

Esther

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Hi Esther!

Argh, yeah, just different in that I’m more addicted? I don’t keep either app on my phone but still sometimes compulsively log in from my laptop. I try and fully log out or ask Leslie to change my password!

Happy Saturday Neil!

It is your grade 10 Math Teacher... Mrs Hill : )

Just like you giving the parenting book to those having babies we as a family had a favourite COOKBOOK...it was ​Company’s Coming Jean Pare CROCKPOT book! While our kids were growing up we used to rate each recipe and work out the average score in our heads and I would record it on the page. As a busy family we enjoyed OVER 50 recipes from the book. And funny... I am gifting one to a young man (along with a crockpot) as he moves into his own place! Yours in Mathematical fun, Mrs Hill

PS... Leslie has ​wonderful taste in books​! You have found a great soul mate!

Mrs. Hill!

Wow, what a joy.

Mrs. Hill was the best math teacher.

To learn equations she’d take us outside to the parking lot and march us around saying them — memorizing them!

Mathematical fun, indeed. I’ll check out the crock-pot book with thanks. And love the ‘average family score’ LOL ... going to start doing that!

Hi Neil,

I have already put a hold at the library for ‘​The Power of Beliefs​’. I have started your ​read aloud recommendations​ with my son. He enjoyed ‘​Fantastic Mr Fox​’ and ‘​The Twits​’! Dahl’s highly binary good vs evil landscapes do well with my kid who loves commenting on “bad guys” and “good guys” in all media he consumes. We will see how our conversations evolve around the nuance that sometimes good/evil is not a clear dichotomy. I wanted to recommend a novel I just finished — ‘​The Raven Scholar​’ by Antonia Hodgson. It was a finalist for many awards, including the Hugo. It was intimidating to pick up from the library (643 pages is beyond my usual), but in that heft is an elaborate, fast-paced fantasy narrative with characters that surprise you. I know you enjoyed ‘​Dune​’ [​11/25]​, I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed that novel. Up next for me is ‘​Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids Sports—and Why It Matters​’ by Linda Flanagan. I’ll blink and my son who is almost 4 will be in school and then maybe in sports if he wants to….I don’t want to be the crazy mom in the stands!

Take care

Mel

Thanks, Mel! Such kind reflections and recos. Two more books to add to my list! I have been banned by my kids from screaming from the stands at their sports, btw. I always say I’m just yelling compliments! But even that was a bit too much... :)

Okay!

Now!

Let’s get to the books!

Neil

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1. ​Go Gentle​ by Maria Semple (b.1964). About 20 years ago I was living with my parents after college and on weeknights I'd get together with my old friends who either hadn’t left town or had moved back like me. We would meet at my friend H’s basement apartment in Oshawa, unwrap meatball with double cheese ​Quiznos​ subs (nobody had heard of calories or cared about them), and then slide in a DVD of ‘​Arrested Development​’, by far the funniest, fastest-paced show we had ever seen. Popping characters! Braided plotlines! Family drama with cheek, pop, and drips of wisdom. I would have never imagined twenty years later that one of the show’s head writers—the incredible ​Maria Semple​!—would become a favorite novelist today. I’m so grateful Maria aimed her mighty writing talents toward books. After chatting about Maria with ​Elan Mastai ​(‘​All Our Wrong Todays​’, ​04/17​), I read and loved ‘​Where’d You Go, Bernadette?​’—#2 in my ​Best Of 2018​!—and now I’ve just read Maria’s new book and fallen in love again. Several days in a row I read ‘Go Gentle’ into the wee hours, fell asleep with the book on top of me, then woke up and immediately started reading again. A book magnet! A fast-paced comic storyline wrapped around big thoughts on love, Stoicism, and a uniquely fresh tying-together of the two. Adora Hazzard (what a name!) is a middle-aged divorcée who has embraced Stoicism and been hired to teach it to the children of a super wealthy family. And then: there is an art heist! And a romance! And the challenges of abandoning her philosophy. Now, heads up: you might get disoriented reading this book. I did! Multiple times. But embrace the feeling. You are in steady hands. Let the novel endlessly fold open into the most exquisite origami. Tight, funny phrases pop throughout like “the conductor’s baldpate appearing to ringing applause” or Adora's daughter delivering “an eye roll so extravagant it could have thrown out her back” or when Adora herself “tripped the light fantastic across Fifth Avenue.” Twists, turns, endless throwaway lines on love just “... walk around naked in front of each other, gloriously at ease” throughout. Plus, Stoicism! Maria is a practicing Stoic—​listen to her wonderful chat w/ Ryan Holiday on The Daily Stoic​—and if you enjoyed books like ‘​The Art of Living​’ by Epictetus (​12/16​) or ‘​Letters From A Stoic​’ by Seneca (​05/21​), you’ll be happy to know endless lines from them are weaved in, too. A comic masterwork I highly recommend.

2. ​101 Letters to a Prime Minister​ by Yann Martel (b.1963) Tomorrow, at precisely 4:45am, the single hand on my ​Morley Moon Clock​ will be aimed at the moon at its very fullest. And that’s exactly when Chapter 162 of ​3 Books​ will drop, featuring my latest guest and one of Canada’s most distinctive literary voices, Mr. Yann (rhymes with ‘Juan’) Martel. The eminent Saskatooner is currently globetrotting in support of his new bestseller ‘​Son Of Nobody​’— a unique read full of pages that are split in half … the top halves a rediscovered ancient epic and the bottoms a set of footnotes telling the narrator’s life story. I was intrigued when I read Yann’s precisely-100-word bio on the delightfully rubbery-smooth jacket and noticed a full 34% of the words were dedicated to a book I’d never heard of:

Even ‘​Life Of Pi​’ only clocked in at 27%! What was this book!? Well, I bought it and discovered from 2007 to 2011 Yann mailed Canada’s then-​Prime Minister Stephen Harper​ a book every two weeks along with a letter on why he should read it. “Many books, many letters, one essential question hovering throughout: What sort of mind, nourished by what, do we want our leaders to have?” The project began after Yann was invited to Canadian Parliament during the fiftieth anniversary of the ​Canadian Council for the Arts​. During an extremely short recognition of all the artists in attendance, Yann noticed the Prime Minister didn’t acknowledge or even look at any of them. “Who is this man? What makes him tick? I asked myself. … There must be occasions when his thinking goes from the instrumental—how do I do this? how do I get that?—to the fundamental—why this? why that?” Yann recounts that Stephen Harper never breathed a word about what he reads except once, during the 2004 election cycle, saying his favorite book was the ​Guinness Book of World Records.​ Well, maybe that’s good! Because if Harper had thoroughly acknowledged his reading habits, Yann likely wouldn’t have spent four years mailing letters, mailing books, and putting together this gem. I love insane lists of curated books! There are hundreds of millions of books. And I deeply believe that in ​an era of infinite choice the value of human curation skyrockets​! To date, I’ve written ​115 issues of this book club​—basically every book I’ve read since 2016!—and on ​The Top 1000​ I’m chipping away on the ‘1000 most formative books in the world,’ which I'm planning to finish up on April 26, 2040. I love this book! The books Yann recommends are literary but varied and the letters are short—2-3 pages each—with Yann’s commentary and overviews. He ranges from ‘​Charlotte’s Web​’ by E.B. White (​02/20​) to ‘​Animal Farm​’ by George Orwell to ‘​Drown​’ by Junot Díaz to ‘​The Virgin Secretary’s Impossible Boss​’ by Carole Mortimer to ‘​Their Eyes Were Watching God​’ by Zora Neale Hurston (​06/20​) to ‘​Louis Riel​’ by Chester Brown. The sheer unrequited energy here is astounding. Harper never wrote back! But, who cares: To me this feels like you’re in ​Saskatoon​ and just opened the door of a little bookshop on a quiet side street. A bell rings above the door and a man with graying hair and round glasses looks up from his chair and smiles. Around the room you see 101 well-curated books on the shelves. Take one! Or pause and hold it while looking at the man and he will smile and spend five minutes telling you all about it and why it makes a great read.

3. ​Pizza Before We Die: An Eyewitness Account in Gaza​ by Hassan Kanafani (with Yasuko Thanh). Last month I had fun setting up some “Niece and Nephew Days”. I see my six nieces and nephews at birthday parties and family get-togethers but almost never 1-on-1, so I emailed their parents asking who was up for skipping a half day of school to hang out. This led to me picking up my 7-year-old niece Iya at lunch, heading to a local branch of the ​Toronto Public Library​ to read a pile of ‘​Elephant and Piggies​’, going out for perogies and chicken schnitzel, getting ice cream, going birdwatching in the drizzly rain (she ID’d her first ​Downy Woodpecker​!), and then walking over to ‘​Another Story Bookshop​’ where we sat on little stools reading books for the rest of the afternoon. The afternoon felt … normal. Walking around … in clothes. Buying and eating … food. The invisible blanket of safety. When we went to the front of the store to pay, I noticed a display on the counter. ‘Pizza Before We Die’? “It’s new,” the bookseller told me. “We just helped launch it.” She explained how a Canadian author found a series of Reddit posts by ​Hassan Kanafani​ who is in Gaza today and worked with ​Arsenal Pulp Press​ to shape the posts into a book. “We were trying to bring Hassan in via Zoom to the book launch but…” and then she paused, smiled sadly, and looked away. I picked up the book and got it. The fact this book exists feels like a miracle. Foreign media has been ​banned from Gaza since 2023​, ​115 media centres destroyed​, ​270 (!) journalists killed​. From the Introduction: “Gaza has sustained the heaviest aerial bombardment in history: one hundred thousand tons of explosives, equivalent to six Hiroshimas, dropped on an area eighty-five times smaller than Vancouver Island.” What’s the scale of the human devastation? From the Introduction: “The Lancet estimated Gaza’s death toll at 186,000” but “680,000 is the number ​Ralph Nader​ entered into the US Congressional Record, based on studies by doctors and epidemiologists that take into account deaths from disease, trauma, lack of clean water, lack of medicine, lack of food, and lack of shelter.” What’s the real number? We don’t know. We can’t! Nobody’s allowed to count. But those lacks are what you feel while reading. From Page 1 written on December, 2024: “I sit in the modest tent I share with my family, in one of Gaza’s crowded camps in the desert near the beach. The hanging piece of fabric separating me from my nearest neighbours barely conceals the view, let alone sound. Everyone can hear everyone else; there is no privacy at all. My neighbours stare at their empty table, which used to hold simple meals for their children. But today, there is no bread. The empty flour shelf stands as a silent witness to their long days of struggle.” From Page 43 from January 2025: “The first thing the survivors will notice is the vastness of their field of vision. Nothing obstructs the view—no houses, no trees. Just destruction, destruction, destruction. Massive expanses of rubble in every corner: thousands of tons of stones, shattered windows, wooden doors, glass, rebar, wallpaper, doorsteps, kitchen counter, refrigerators, washing machines, gas ovens, kitchen cabinets, utensils, bathroom fixtures, books, pens, clothes, children’s toys, all fused together in a surreal collage of devastation never before witnessed.” The book paints portraits like this—images you can’t shake—then zooms down to the people living in Gaza and their thoughts and worries and pains. From Page 45: “… individuals will become disabled, not war heroes in society’s eyes. A man will think twice before marrying his daughter to a young man who has lost his leg in the war. A young woman will hesitate a thousand times before exchanging glances with a man without arms. Most of these lives will fade away under the weight of pity, and people will almost forget why they were injured in the first place.” Hassan writes about devastating life in Gaza right now while showcasing little moments of bizarre humanity—like a woman searching for her home after an explosion or a man getting picked up by a taxi driver who had his own dead child wrapped in bandages in the back seat. The title of the book comes from the author overhearing two little girls talking about wanting to eat pizza before they die. After I dropped Iya off at home, I kept reading this book and was just left thinking about how lucky we are and how horrifying the state of life is around the world for so many today. A book to bear witness.

4. ​Me Talk Pretty One Day ​by David Sedaris (b.1956). I wrote ​a blog post this month​ about how I couldn’t get myself to sleep until I woke up, went to my basement, pulled out this book, and read ‘​You Can’t Kill The Rooster​’ by David Sedaris. My friend Shiv told me years ago she uses the pacing, comedy, and lulling rhythm of David’s writing to help fall asleep and I’ve followed her advice for years. This is David’s top-selling book of all time and a good place to start if you don’t know his stuff! Pair with ​my podcast with David in the back seat of his limo​ cruising around Toronto.

5. ​The Correspondent​ by Virginia Evans (b.1986). And now it’s time for this month’s Leslie’s Pick, a book read and reviewed by my wife Leslie. (​Full list of Leslie’s Picks right here!)​. Over to you, Les: “‘The Correspondent’ is a touching look into a woman’s life through her correspondence. A collection of letters and emails with incredible voice and honesty, to and from her best friend, her brother, her neighbours, her children—that together paint the picture of her life. It made me reflect on how each of our lives is dimensional, bittersweet, full of ups and downs, accomplishments, griefs, regrets, and joy. And it made me wonder how my life would be reflected through the (not so many letters but) many emails, texts, and voice notes I share with my dearest friends and family. A heartfelt look at one woman’s life with themes of healing, redemption, and forgiveness that was a welcome reflection on how we live our lives and process them.”

6. ​A Little More Social: How Small Choices Created Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection ​by Nicholas Epley (b.1974). Nick states the main point of this wonderfully well-researched book in the Preface: “… Sociality is a need on par with eating and sleeping … it’s likely to be far more important for your happiness than even money.” We know being social is important! Number one driver of human happiness. ​Phone a friend!​ Talk to strangers! So why do we sit silently together on trains and planes with everyone entombed in their own echo chamber and social media feeds? Well, it’s a bit confusing at first, but this book reveals the answer: the only thing we fear more than a bad outcome … is an uncertain one. One of many fascinating studies here shows people will pay less money for the chance to win a $50-100 gift card … than a $50 one. What? Yes! We hate uncertainty! We don’t want to try things where we don’t know what’ll happen. Conversations with strangers? That’s uncertain! We think it’ll go horribly wrong. In his talks, Nick asks people to pair up and ask each other two questions: “What are you most grateful for in your life?” and “Can you tell me about one of the last times you cried in front of another person?” Sounds tough! People do not think this will go well …. yet it does! Check out this graph from Page 51:

In general, our expectations around being proactively social are dead wrong. This graph comes from Page 69:

What sounds like a perhaps-obvious takeaway is given fresh life and energy with new research from University of Chicago professor and beaming beacon of kindness Nick Epley. This is a book to help push you, bit by bit, to being (yes) a little more social and a lot more happy.

7. ​The Onion newspaper​. Now back in print! What began in ​1988 back in Wisconsin​ and then turned into the regular “every Wednesday” publication for 30 years online (!) at ​www.theonion.com​ has now emerged back as an actual newspaper-newspaper. Mailed to your house! When my friend ​Austin Kleon​ (who has a ​new book​!) mentioned recently that he’s started subscribing to the The Onion’s print edition, I immediately wanted in on the action. It’s $99 a year and every month I get a dense 24-page full-colour paper mailed to my house serving as a roaring commentary on our world today. In News: “Palantir Acquires Pentagon For $800 Billion”, in Sports: “Nation Decides Baseball Too Fast Now”, and in Real Estate a listing for a home “Only 11 Hours From The Beach” (“With this practically coastal retreat, breathtaking ocean breezes and the soothing sound of waves are only a day-long car ride and a few state lines away, depending on traffic.”) I had hopes of leaving it lying around for my kids but, uh ... it’s still very NSFW. Maybe in a few years. You can get a subscription ​here​.

8. ​The Bed Of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms​ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Second Edition) (b. 1960) A dense book of aphorisms from the witty economist and author of ‘​The Black Swan​’ (​04/21​) with the underlying assumption that “So many things become easy to understand when you skip the explanations.” Too true! Wisdom, clichés—sometimes they just bop you on the head. In the “Notice” before the book begins, Taleb recommends “reading no more than four aphorisms in one sitting. It is also preferable to select these randomly.” Okay! That makes this a wonderful addition to ​Neil’s Enlightened Bathroom Reading List​. This book is full of gems like this from Page 32: “‘Wealthy’ is meaningless and has no robust absolute measure; use instead the subtractive measure ‘unwealth’, that is, the difference, at any point in time, between what you have and what you would like to have.” I love that! Or from Page 67: “The exponential information age is like a verbally incontinent person: he talks more and more as fewer and fewer people listen.” Who relates to that? Or from Page 76: “The tragedy is that much of what you think is random is in your control and, what’s worse, the opposite.” Many of these one-liners will roll around your brain for days. This is the second edition published in 2016 (updating the 2010 original) and it’s a wonderful pocket book of wisdom from a huge mind.

9. There is no nine! Just our regular loot bag of links. Who we ​spend time with as we age​. On reading books: ​Claude knows​. One year into ​Dallas's cell phone bans​. How many of Dan Go’s ​7 exercises to 'reverse aging'​ can you do? ​Maria Popova​ on ‘​the secret behind 20 years of daily writing​’. ​Rich Roll​ is doing wonderful ​new solo podcasts​. ​Pema Chödrön on Ezra Klein​. Clear 30 is an app to help ​people take a 30-day cannabis break​. Ever heard of “​rich face​”? Good news: ‘​The A.I. Job Apocalypse (Probably) Won’t Happen​’. My ​favorite pages from 'The Power of Beliefs'​. The ​right kind of ambition​. And I love Alex’s ​floor plan for his dream house​!

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - April 2026

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

I messed up.

I’m embarrassed.

I made such an obvious mistake.

After more than five years Instagram-sober on my phone I caved in and downloaded the app.

Why?

Well, I wrote ​a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney​ that suddenly went viral and reached over 600,000 people. (Became my ​most viral tweet​ in 17 years on Twitter!)

So, of course, I thought, you know, I’m on the soapbox now!

Prime Minister ​Mark Carney​, Ontario Premier ​Doug Ford​, Minister of Transport ​Steven MacKinnon​ are—I mean, I can literally see it—getting their channels completely flooded by my post.

I tagged them, everyone’s sharing it, and now 100s of people are asking for a ​Change.org petition​, so of course... I gotta start posting Instagram “Stories” to drive signatures on ​my petition​.

(Of course those wily devils at Facebook—I refuse to call it by their new company PR name—won't let me post Stories from desktop.)

So ... I downloaded it.

And I could suddenly feel my brain rotting.

(Which, no surprise, is exactly what ​it’s doing​.)

I was suddenly in ​Reese Witherspoon’s kitchen​, shopping in ​Target with Mel Robbins​, and I started feeling ... excited and agitated and titillated and … dopamine-y. So much loud music! So many hot takes. And skin! So much skin. Now! Wait! I’m dancing with Oprah! We are dancing! Why are we dancing! We don’t know! Wait! We are dancing because ... we ... she ... we ... oh my gosh we did it together ... we have officially crossed ​ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS ... ON INSTAGRAM!!!​

I felt myself slipping into ​total entertainment forever​.

Which, you know, I know about!

But knowing and doing are two different things.

The saga cost me at least one book read.

Probably more!

Because books don’t flicker. Don’t scream. They don’t do their hair and put on tight shirts and jump up and down getting pretend speakerphone calls with good news.

Delete Instagram.

You heard me.

Delete Instagram.

Do it.

Stop thinking about it!

Do it.

Don’t worry—they won’t actually delete your account.

You make them way too much money for them to do that.

But it’s a step.

Delete Instagram from your phone.

And come hang out in the real world.

Because reminder!

Happiness is not for sale on social media.

I say when we look back on our lives together—and I’ll be right here with you, I want to ​do 1000 of these​!—let's not reminisce about all that great scrolling we did decades ago … nor all the news stories we read in those stacks of yellowed newspapers in ours basements.

No.

When we look back let's geek out about all the books we read that are sitting on our overstuffed bookshelves.

That’s what I want to look back on.

That’s what I want us to spend time on.

Because we can’t compete with billions of dollars of research and AI specifically designed to steal our attention.

So ... let’s not.

Let’s delete Instagram.

Let’s ​sign the petition.​

Let’s pick up a book instead.

Solidarity!

Neil

PS. If you ​sign the petition​, please reply so I can thank you personally. Takes 30 seconds, no ads, no spam. Link goes to: ​http://www.change.org/billybishop​ (Thank you!)

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1. ​The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas​ by Machado de Assis (1839-1908). Translated by Américo Lucena Lage. So many letters on the cover of this book! What a garbled mouthful. I wonder if that visual overwhelm is why I left it languishing on my shelf for so long even after receiving it as a gift from my friend ​Wagner Moura​. He even included a little note!

And oh my: What ... a ... book. What a book! A stunner. A gem. A knockout! BAM. This is one of those books I feel like I was waiting to read my whole life. It was written in Brazil 145 years ago (145 years ago!) and yet somehow feels like it was written by a witty avant-garde comedy writer. Seriously, I kept asking myself: who wrote this? ​Lena Dunham​? ​Vladimir Nabokov​? ​Mordecai Richler​? It just has this air of a ballsy, confident, master wordsmith just toying with you—twistingly delightful puns, stunning narrative self-awareness, and a level of genre-shattering on par with ‘​The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales​’ by Jon Scieszka. OK, so: This book is a novel… written as though it’s a real memoir… that’s been written by a dead guy named Brás Cubas … just after he died of pneumonia. Um! What the hell? No, but stay with me here, because it somehow totally works. He lands this series of wild acrobatic twists on the mat without a single knee twitch. This book is 190 pages and 160 chapters ... which means the average chapter is 1.1875 pages. But that’s average! Some three pages, some one sentence! Reading this book feels like running through a dense forest at night. You’re going fast! You’re flying! But branches are slapping you in the face, tiny bugs are getting in your eyes, and your ankle twists a couple times. Are you up for this? I hope so because here comes one of the most exhilarating runs of your life. Here are the very first lines from Chapter 1 which is titled 'Death of the Author': “For a while, I debated whether to open these memoirs at the beginning or the end—that is, whether I would start with my birth or with my death. It is common practice to begin with birth, but two considerations led me to a different approach: First, I am not exactly a dead writer, but a dead man writing, for whom the grave was another cradle. Second, starting at the end might bring some elegance and freshness to the writing. Moses also recounted his own death, but only at the close of his tale—a fundamental distinction between this book at the Pentateuch.” Feel intimidating? It is, a bit, but don’t worry, he takes care of you. From Chapter 4 on (hilariously) Page 6: “…this book is written leisurely, reflecting the tranquility of a man no longer constrained by the brevity of the age, an extraordinarily philosophical, but also inconsistent work, sometimes austere, sometimes playful; something that neither edifies nor demolishes, neither inflames nor chills, but stands as more than mere pastime and less than crusade.” Yes! I mean, he describes it perfectly. There is a plot here—you can read it ​right here on Wikipedia​—but reading this book has nothing to do with plot. It has to do with flying. In a kind of craft you’ve never flown in before. A vivid and transporting book where dreams are “cracks in the soul”, crowds are “cordially jubilant”, and where “tight boots are one of the greatest blessings on earth, for by causing pain to the feet, they give rise to the pleasure of taking them off.” Thank you to ​Wag ​for introducing me to the genius of ​Brazil’s most famous novelist of all time​. I think I have either the fourth or fifth English translation of the book after the first one appeared in 1952 under the delightful title ‘​Epitaph of a Small Winner​.’ I looked into who else has read or said anything about this book and found this quote from ​Dave Eggers​ who called it “one of the wittiest, most playful, and therefore most alive and ageless books ever written.” Amen, Dave! This will be a book that most people will have never heard of but I guarantee I will not be able to shut up about it for a long time, if ever. Reading in its rawest, purest, freshest, rarest, most sparklingly alive form. An exquisite and extraordinary delight.

2. ​The Power of Beliefs: How Strengthening Seven Core Beliefs Predicts Greater Success And A Better Life​ by Shawn Achor (b. 1978). I first met Shawn Achor in Abu Dhabi years ago when we were both invited to speak to the Royal Family of the United Arab Emirates. I got there a few days early as requested—doing dress rehearsals, long dinners with the organizing team, meeting various extended family members—but Shawn was the rock star. He flew in, crushed it onstage, dropped research studies like he’d memorized all of Google Scholar, and then immediately flew out. I was like: Who was that masked man!? We became friends over the years and he was kind enough to blurb ‘​The Happiness Equation​’ after selling a million copies of his wonderful book ‘​The Happiness Advantage​.’ And then: Where did he go? Why did Shawn sort of just ... disappear? I got my answer on Page 79 of this book. Shawn shares that after his second child Zöe was born three months early—spending 50 days in the NICU!—he “made a decision to take my foot off the gas at work so I could be home with my young kids. For the next six years, I said no to all media, stopped doing international talks, and didn’t write another book until this one.” Six years!? Completely unplugging! Wow, I thought I was doing a decent job with my frantic deleting of Instagram. But this guy just … stopped posting completely. Superdad! But, you know, Shawn’s also still Shawn. Still an amiable son of an English teacher and neuroscience professor, with multiple Harvard degrees, and a witty research-centric form of writing that is precise and uniquely warm. That’s what makes his new book—out next week! ​order it now​!—such a jaw-dropping wow. I know I will be handing out copies of this book for years because the research it presents is solid, the advice simple, and the power to alter a life astonishing. The whole thing begins with a bizarre observation Shawn made while being presented with different drug options for Zoe while she was in the incubator. He was reviewing a 2002 study where 180 patients who had suffered with severe knee osteoarthritis for years were offered a free knee surgery … but, unfortunately, only two thirds were actually going to get it. One third was going to receive a “sham surgery” where an incision would be made on their knee under anesthesia, leaving a similar scar, so the patients would have no way of knowing if they really got the surgery. (Crazy study! Who approved this!) Annnnnnnd: What happened six months later? Patients who received the “sham surgery” showed the same improvement in pain, inflammation, and mobility. The same! Even though they got nothing! What about a year later? Two years later? Same thing! Whaaaaat? Shawn tells us this is doubly fascinating because “osteoarthritis is a progressive condition that naturally gets worse over time, not better.” Then Shawn falls further down the rabbit hole and finds that the power of beliefs (see what I did there) is not only so strong … but it’s actually growing! He then tells us about a study showing that the placebo effect has actually doubled in twenty years. Doubled! Seriously. And that’s just the introduction. We’re going on a ride here. And the amount of research studies you are going to learn about is like… hundreds. Endless. It could be overwhelming if not for the tiny, sweet, digestible dosage he dispenses them with. Shawn is the gumball machine of research studies. And he tells us early that, “Beliefs are real, even when they are not true” so then … wouldn’t it make sense to know which ones can help us most and make sure we’re doing everything to grow those? It would! It does! And this book shows us how. The Seven Core Beliefs from Page 17 are:

Sounds obvious maybe: My behavior matters, I am grateful, I matter, I have something to give, I am not alone, This work is meaningful, There is something greater than me. But did you know research shows “strengthening these core beliefs can help double the rate of promotion, potentially extend life more than 7.5 years, increase the likelihood of surviving cancer, and improve test scores by almost 25 percent.” This book isn’t just a listicle and piles of facts, though. Each belief is explained and supported through research, generous personal stories, and teaching which makes it a kind of textbook, too. Shawn is a natural professor. On Page 37, he tells us that “If, as a parent of a child starting a new school, you tell your kid ‘You’re going to love it here!’ you’ve just provided a meager meal for the brain. Much better would be: ‘You’re going to love it here because you started at a new school three years ago and ended up loving it [warrant]. And you are great at making friends like you did on your soccer team [specific warrant]. So, if you work hard and are kind [qualifiers], I believe you’re going to love it here, too.” Helpful, right? Doesn’t mean it’s easy! Shawn gets vulnerable and expresses a lot of ways in which he’s failed and how he’s learning to grow. Then, the last third of the book gives specific ways on how we can grow these beliefs. There are things he calls “The Disaster Elevator” or “The Memory DeLorean” where he gets into detail on how his family shares a ‘favorite family picture’ for Wednesday night viewing ceremonies. I took three pages of notes. So many highlights, so many dog ears, I’m going to have to paste quotes to My Favorite Pages soon. (​Here’s a list of Favorite Pages​ I’ve made so far.) I think the six years Shawn took “off” were clearly more productive than most people’s six years on. Out of the cave, he's blinking into the light and giving us a book so desperately needed today. For you, for your spouse, for your kids, for your CEO, for your team, this is a book everyone will gain tremendous value in reading. Like I said earlier, the book comes out next week and you can get on ​Amazon​, ​Barnes & Noble​, ​Indigo​,​ Audible​, ​Libro.fm​, or ​Walmart​.

3. ​Superfudge​ by ​Judy Blume​ (b.1938). On the heels of my successful read-a-loud with my seven-and five-year-olds with ‘​Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing​’ (​02/26​), published in 1972, we thought we’d move on to Blume’s 1980 sequel ‘​Superfudge​’. I had somehow never read it despite reading the original many times! And now ... I see why. Sorry, ​Judy​. I still love you. The voice and tone and pace is still there. But that’s it! This book feels like trying to dive into the pool but accidentally landing a bellyflop. The chapters are much longer, the plot less zig-zaggy, Fudge feels relatively demure (his best lines are squawked by the Myna Bird he gets), and there are—sacrilege!—no pictures. We even had two versions. No pictures in either! The Hatcher family leaves New York City for Princeton and we lose Sheila, we lose Jimmy Fargo, we lose the threat of getting mugged in Central Park. The plot goes almost nowhere—Mr. Hatcher fails to write a novel, the boys sell chopped up worms to a neighbor, and Fudge insults his Kindergarten teacher and scares everyone by riding his bike far away. Skip this and move on to ‘​Blubber​’.

4. ​Carrying The Fire: An Astronaut’s Journey by Michael Collins​ (1930-2021). Did you get into the ​first trip we made around the moon in 50 years​ this month? Did you stare at the ​stunning photos​ from NASA? See Prime Minister Carney question the astronauts about ​maple syrup over Nutella​? Or watch Artemis II ​sploosh back into the ocean​? Phenomenal, right? We watched it on the CBC here in Canada and there was live extended interview with ​Colonel Chris Hadfield​, who was the Canadian who commanded the International Space Station from December 19, 2012 to May 13, 2013, and ​who told me back in 2018​ that ‘​Carrying The Fire​’ by Michael Collins (​01/22​) was one of his three most formative books (his other two were ‘​The Mysterious Island​’ by Jules Verne and ‘​Factfulness​’ by Hans Rosling). I picked up the book again this month and revisited my notes and highlights. Powerful read! I mean, say you were one of three people selected to blast off on ​Apollo 11​, the first ever mission to land on the moon, but then just before you go they bring the three of you into a room and sit you down. “Neil, Buzz, you two will go down to the moon, walk around, plant a flag, give a speech to the world, and talk to the President. Michael? Uh, yeah, well, we need someone to stay on the ship. Sorry!” Michael takes the bummer in stride and seemingly absorbs every aspect of the experience and channels it into this poetic first-person account. Part of the beauty is that fifty years ago astronauts were much less … specialized? Collins is a wide-ranging thinker who writes in a wise, literary style. The book came out in 1974 and is still in print today and part of what’s magical here are the seemingly endless forwards and prefaces. Get this: ​Charles Lindbergh​, who lived from 1902 to 1974, and who flew the first ever solo transatlantic flight in 1927 on the ​Spirit of St. Louis​—​a harrowing 33-hour hour trip from New York to Paris!​—writes a breathtaking introduction that captures the human spirit towards flight. He reminds us that, “We find the speed of light and the vastness of space to be incompatible with biological time” and takes us into his story where “I had been without sleep for more than two days and two nights, and my awareness seemed to be abandoning my body to expand on stellar scales. There were moments when I seemed so disconnected from the world, my plane, my mind and heartbeat that they were completely unessential to my new existence.” Lindbergh died the year this book came out so in addition to this being very likely the last published piece of writing he put out, it also doubles as a kind of baton—from our attempted voyages into the air in the 1800s to the trips farther than we’ve ever gone before this month. A wonderful book that deserves a spot on your shelf. (Speaking of baton-passing, if you want to explore that a bit, you can watch my ​TED Listen​ from a few years back which has this idea of “What is your baton?” as a central theme. Admittedly, it takes a while to get there as the many critical comments on YouTube will tell you! LOL.)

5. ​My moon clock​. I have a moon clock! It really works! Like, the hand actually moves around the clock ... once per moon. (How else am I going to know when to ​publish my podcast​? LOL). I put the clock in this book club to remind me of the time I lost this month scrolling on Instagram. Dumb! But I do lots of dumb things. Like ten years ago I was in a local park and (I can’t believe I did this) I asked a dad I had literally just met five minutes ago—who was pushing his tiny daughter on the swing while rocking two infant twin sons in a stroller—where their mom was. “She’s dead,” he said, without a pause. “I'm ... sorry?”. “Yeah,” this stranger continued, tears welling up in his dark eyes. “She just died of cancer.” I... I mean ... talk about learning your lesson? We fell into a deep chat, deep connection, and so began my long love with the absolutely singular Alex Morley. Alex is a local Kindergarten teacher—​so rare in men​!—who is solo-parenting his 13-year old daughter Pia and his suddenly-10-year-old twin sons Sammy and Teo. Our families really love each other and now the Morleys have started a family business! I am very proud to tell you I own the tenth ​Morley Moon Clock​ ever made and Leslie and I have it proudly displayed on our family room bookshelf between photo albums and a red ceramic ​calavera​ we bought in Mexico City. (Which also gives us a tinge of Alex’s partner Kari's spirit who I never met but feel somewhere in these clocks.) As you guys know I never “sell stuff” in these book clubs. Maybe I’ll take on a sponsor one day! Maybe some cool company will offer to build me a Toronto podcast studio for the podcast (#visionboard). But, so far, ​113 months in a row now​ I’ve kept this space ad free. So ... this is not an ad. Alex would never ever ask me to write this. But I’m sharing my Morley Moon Clock with you because I love it. Check out how beautiful they are:

And I honestly feel—like the Rock Clock I keep on my dresser—it just grounds me, centers me, and helps me eschew the oppression of ​Gregorian time​. You can get your own Morley Moon Clock ​on their website​ or (argh) ​@morleymoonclocks​ on Mark Zuckerberg’s brainvice.

6. ​This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life ​by David Foster Wallace (1962-2008). I was sitting in an extremely cramped hotel room in ​The Drake Hotel​ in downtown Toronto (popular in Toronto before Drake got popular, btw!) with ​Mark Manson​, who was kind enough to let me stumble in with my wires and the heaviest pile of 3 formative books of any guest I’d had on my show. (Mark’s 3 most formative books are ‘​Atlas Shrugged​’ by Ayn Rand, ‘​A Brief History of Everything​’ by Ken Wilber, and, yes, ‘​Infinite Jest​’ by David Foster Wallace.) In the middle of the interview I stupidly handed him a page of DFW quotes and the conversation basically stopped. There is dead air in the show. It was like catnip for him! He said, “Giving me David Foster Wallace quotes is like giving a dog treats.” There were some classic quotes on there like “You’ll stop worrying what others think about you when you realize how seldom they do” and “I do things like get in a taxi and say, 'The library, and step on it.’” DFW had such a unique turn of phrase and his one and only ​commencement speech​, delivered to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College, resonates deeply. I think of it as some kind of Great Uncle to George Saunders’ ​famous 2013 Commencement speech on kindness​. From Page 89: “But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line—maybe she’s not usually like this; maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband, who’s dying of bone cancer, and maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicles department who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.” In an increasingly robotic world where platforms and algorithms are pulling us apart, echo chambers splinter our realities, and loneliness is reaching record highs, this twisting, vivid, and airy 137-page speech offers the power to increase empathy, love, and connection. It’s easy to read this ​speech transcript​ online or watch it on​ YouTube​ but the book really is better. (​The man loved books even if he knew reading felt hard​!) It’s thoughtful, well-spaced, and serves as an endless physical reminder on how to live a compassionate life. Rest in peace, Dave.

7. ​Around The World In 80 Birds by Mike Unwin​ (b.1965). Illustrated by Ryuto Miyake. I miss Donna. She was Leslie’s grandmother and felt like mine, too. She died on January 31, 2023 and ​I wrote about her ​soon after. The last gift she gave me on Christmas 2022, was this wondrous, evocative, endlessly informative book, which I love pulling out this time of the year! It’s the migration, everybody. ​Get your birding on​! The book is organized thoughtfully by Continent and it’s clear that great thought went into trimming the over 11,000 species of birds on Earth into these 80 gems. The tone is warm, welcome, and knowledgeable. Erudite yet unpretentious! On Page 162 introducing the Red Junglefowl of Thailand: “The domestic chicken is, by a distance, the world’s most numerous bird. In 2018 the total population stood at an estimated 23.7 billion — that’s three chickens for every human. You could argue, in Darwinian terms, that this represents an evolutionary victory for Gallus gallus, the species to which it belongs. But given that this victory has been engineered by humankind, and most of the birds population languishes in abject confinement, it is surely something of a Pyrrhic one.” (​Pyrrhic​? Good word!) And just check out the illustrations that go along with the write-ups:

Tokyo-based illustrator Ryuto Miyake uses “acrylic gouache applied with a thin brush on stretched-out watercolour paper”—the kind of thing that AI will gobble up and spit out but, you know, there is quick beauty, and there is mastery, and this is decidedly the latter. You can stare into these images endlessly, making for the world’s greatest coffee table book!

8. ​Sex Is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings, and YOU​ by Cory Silverberg (b.1970) And now it’s time for a “Leslie’s Pick” where we feature a book recently read and loved by my beautiful wife, Leslie. For a full list of Leslie’s picks, ​click here​. Over to you, Les! “Teachers and parents alike seem to stress over sex ed lessons with kids. I, on the contrary, am fascinated by having these eye opening, honest, kind, caring, and important conversations with kids, and ‘​Sex is a Funny Word​’ is one of the absolute best books I’ve read on the topic! Maybe part of what stresses adults out is the thinking that sex ed conversations are centred around descriptions of sexual intercourse. This book beautifully throws that thought on its head and blows it out of the water with gentle exploration about the many meanings of the word sex (without going into detail about intercourse or other sexual activity), inclusive comics, questions to consider about bodies, feelings, and identity. It leaves both adult and child feeling seen, supported, and safe to learn more. Recommended to be read together, with a caring adult and child aged 8-12, and put down over and over for all the courageous and compassionate conversations it will inspire!”

9. ​Whose Butt?​ by Stan Tekiela I spent about 20 minutes in the Fargo airport a few weeks ago—​yes, Fargo!​—and two big things happened. First up, I found the ​most delicious meat sticks ever​ which are, amazingly, 40 calories and 15g of protein per stick, and secondly, I found this wonderful book! Here is the review from my 7-year-old: “I don’t really like it. Actually I do like it but I don’t know why. It’s good for 5-year-olds cause it’s very funny and 5 year olds like funny things. Also, 5 year olds like jokes about stinky butts.”

10. There is no ten! Just our regular loot bag of links! First up: ​Sign my petition​! Thank you, thank you, if you have 30 seconds to please ​sign the petition​. (Here's ​the original tweet​ that got this started.) My genius pal Tomas Pueyo—who wrote the ​most viral article​ during the pandemic—offers his take on ​what types of media will break through AI slop​. Leslie loved Sahil Bloom's ​Deathbed Regret List​. The newest ​skin-care industry target audience: Toddlers!?.​ Jennifer Kolari, the founder of Connected Parenting, shares simple ​methods to make parenting easier​. Robin Sloan's '​Shopkeeper Rampant​.' I loved listening to ​Cory Doctorow with Mitch Joel​. And really loved ​Maria Semple with Ryan Holiday​. Brad Stulberg on '​The Hidden Cost of Comfort​'. The Knowlege Project gets into ​how a 2-hour AI driven school day makes kids learn 10x faster​. The 2026 recipient of ​Queen's Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award​ is our Chapter 10 guest ​Elan Mastai​. And powerful contemplations on ​colonial nostalgia from our friend Peter Kimani​.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - March 2026

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

We don’t have long here!

Social media scrolls, dripping news feeds, and endless stimulation at the push of a button. Even though we're making ​progress​, ​progress​, it can still feel like too much.

So let’s keep steadying ourselves in the blizzard.

Unplug, untether, go on ​nature walks​, send ​voice notes ​to loved ones, take an afternoon to ​make a big meal​ or ​fall into a book​.

This month, I spent time in the roughest parts of New York in the 60s, got stuck in a dystopian nightmare off the coast of Costa Rica, learned about the value of bookstores as we slide into the Age of Machines, picked up new ideas on mental excellence, and learned how to make a delicious split pea soup.

Here are the books I read and enjoyed this month,

Neil

P.S. Invite others to join our tribe ​right here​. All my stuff online is 100% handwritten from me to you—no ads, no interlopers—since 2008.

1. ​The Way of Excellence​ by Brad Stulberg (b. 1986). I first ‘met’ ​Brad Stulberg​ via The Rich Roll Podcast ​where he makes regular appearances​. Brad has a gift for distilling piles of research into simple and energizing writing. He defines excellence as “an ongoing process of growth and becoming that imbues life with meaning and vigor. It emerges from involved engagement in something worthwhile that supports your values and goals.” He believes excellence spawned from the earliest life forms on earth—that we’ve always leaned toward excellence to live and keep living—and in this book he shares 16 habits and practices to help us build more excellence in our lives. Trade-Offs! Gumption! Renewal! Failure! Maybe the words sound vague, but if you’re feeling a bit in-betweeny lately—asking how do I, where do I, what might I type questions—then this book will help you focus on process. Control the controllables! Brad is keenly aware of the seductive algorithms keeping us in weird quasi-productive states. And he knows while we all slip into those regularly, we also retain agency to put ourselves back on the right path. This is an agency-assistance book. I might file it next to other get-goings like ‘​What To Do When It's Your Turn​’ by Seth Godin (​03/17​), ‘​The Inner Game of Tennis​’ by Timothy Gallwey (​one of Brad's influences​!) (​11/24​), or ‘​The War of Art​’ by Steven Pressfield (​11/16​).

2. ​In Praise of Good Bookstores​ by Jeff Deutsch (b.1975). Who needs bookstores anymore? Find what you want online then beep, beep, boop, there’s a package on your porch. But this process misses the browse—the unhurried biblio-wander, the literary soak, that unique whole-body expansiveness that comes from meandering through stacks of a thoughtful ​human​! curation of collective wisdom. As author ​Jeff Deutsch​, longtime bookseller at Chicago’s famous ​Seminary Co-op Bookstore​, says on Page 37: “There are forms of idleness that energize as there are forms of productivity that are wasteful.” I love that! But what does it mean? Well, “to the idler, as to the flaneur, the stroll is an end in itself. There is a curiosity about what might come next, a receptivity to whatever might arise, and a conviction that whatever it is, it will be of interest.” Okay, so then yeah, bookstores, great to be in … but the business stinks! Open one and you’ll be selling gum and toys to eke out a profit. Enter this accessible and erudite manifesto which functions as a kind of transitionary bridge between our Age of Analog and Age of Machine. We’re probably going to remain human for a while, and the richness that third places like bookstores offer is of such deep value. Through five thoughtful and deeply satisfying long-form chapters, Deutsch shares what bookstores can offer: Space, Abundance, Value, Community, and Time. From ‘Space’ on Page 21: “… the good bookstore is about interiority. Deep in the browse, many of us move through the space as though we were inside the Mind itself … and many of us turn inward as we do so, finding the space especially conducive to self-reflection.” I agree! Wandering through bookstores feels good. I feel like I’m connected with … everything. Bookshelves don’t feel static to me but alive, full of wisdom. Maybe it’s as ​Simone Weil​ says, who Deutsch quotes: “Stars and blossoming fruit trees: utter permanence and extreme fragility give one an equal sense of eternity.” Jeff Deutsch writes about bookstores the way ​George Saunders​ ​writes about writing​. Joy, richness, and love tingled under my skin as I read. From Page 110 on ‘Community’: “We enter a bookstore settled, but the ideas we encounter unsettle us. The company, however, is comforting and the connection provides a pleasant stirring.” And then moments later, “In the privacy of our own minds, when the external din is quieted, when the prevailing opinions and judgments (which resemble conscience, but function mostly as pernicious censors) are silenced, we discover our own voices. We bring these voices back to the public square that we might … ‘trouble easy consensus.’” I love that. There are so many easy consensuses these days! So take the other track. Question the algorithms. Buy a book with cash from an indie bookstore—find one in the ​US​, ​Canada​, or the ​UK​!—and come to your own conclusions. I always feel inspired when I chat with booksellers like ​Mitchell Kaplan​ (​Books & Books​, Coral Gables, Florida), ​Bulle Abdullahi​ (​Nuria Bookstore​, Nairobi, Kenya) or ​John and Alison​ (​Camino Books​, Del Mar, California). As Deutsch writes: “Good bookstores reflect their communities; exceptional bookstores both reflect and create their communities.” Live near bookstores, wander inside, love them, and help them prosper and thrive. This book was medicine I didn’t know I needed.

3. ​Jurassic Park​ by Michael Crichton (1942-2008). “The planet is not in jeopardy. We haven’t got the power to destroy the planet—or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.” Sounds like ​Paul Hawken​! But that’s a quote from the one and only chaos theory mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm. I first read this book in 1992, when I was 12 and in seventh grade at ​Glen Dhu Public School​ in ​Whitby, Ontario​. My friends passed around a beat-up copy of the two-year-old book with the freaky cover of a T-Rex skeleton, sharing the realistic sci-fi story about a rogue bio-genetics firm launching a new “zoo” on a misty island off Costa Rica. The movie ​came out in 1993​ and now, looking back over 30 years later, John Hammond’s dream of Jurassic Park taking over the world … kind of happened. Movies, shows, swag, and now Jurassic “World” is one of the ​largest media franchises of all time​! (I’m not into ​the new cartoons​, but I sure do love ​Jurassic Park pinball​ … one of the ​top 10 pinball games in the world​, btw!) In my reread now, the dinosaurs sort of range from fearsome to clownish, the dialogue is a bit clunky, there are some odd plot jumps, and a lot of scenes I’d forgotten about because they never made the films. But Crichton’s creation remains a great escape—a book of wonder, a book of momentum. Malcolm remains eminently quotable, too. Here’s one of his many gems: “A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there … And at the end of your life, your whole existence has the same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day.”

4. ​Night Road​ by Kristin Hannah (b.1960). And now it’s time for this month’s Leslie’s Pick, a book read and recommended by the woman I’m lucky to be married to. Full Leslie's Picks list ​here​! Over to you, Les: “My sister, Jenny, told me she was up way too late crying in the night reading the most heartachingly bittersweet book and I knew I had to read it! Having read Kristin Hannah’s ‘​The Nightingale​’ and ‘​The Women​’ (​06/24​), I had this ominous feeling from the first page. It haunted and entranced me, and I flew through the book faster than anything I’ve read in a long time. I loved the perspective shifting between the vivid, relatable, and emotionally resonant character of Jude—a loving stay-at-home mother of twin children in their last year of high school, who struggles with her desire for control amidst her teens’ growing independence—and Lexi, a teenage girl coming out of foster care who discovers her first love, belonging, and self-worth just before everything is thrown upside down. This book made me cry multiple times and lives on in my heart days after putting it down.”

5. ​Something from Nothing​ by Alison Roman (b. 1985). What’s your favorite cookbook? I’m on the hunt! At our house, Leslie is the master chef—she can open the fridge, see four random ingredients, and whip them into a delicious meal—whereas I seem to often need a recipe or special trip to the grocery store. But I’m trying to get into making big Sunday night meals! So when I was down at ​Type Books​ on Queen Street in Toronto, I asked if they had an accessible cookbook, with lots of delicious soups and stews, but nothing too fancy or hard. They pointed me to this book by ​Alison Roman,​ who owns and runs ​First Bloom​, a grocery store and café in Bloomville, New York, and it immediately won me over with an early essay about … potato chips.

“I believe that in the same way the best ketchup comes from a bottle, the best potato chips come from a bag. I also believe that potato chips are one of the finest pantry staples you can have when it comes to snacking. They’re salty, sturdy, and satisfying in a way most crackers could never be.” Yes! LOL. And, you know, there’s no recipe. Just a photo of a potato chip carrying a heap of dip with chopped chives on top. And that’s the vibe here: fancy enough to be delicious, casual enough to be doable. The first recipe I tackled was this “Very Classic Split Pea Soup”:

Suddenly, I was peeling ​rutabaga​ (a cross between a cabbage and a turnip!), crisping bacon, chopping parsley, and squeezing lemon on top. What a finishing move! The writing is literary and breezy, the recipes aren’t too challenging, there’s a lot of substitutions and easy alternatives, and the photos make you drool. What more could you want?

6. ​Costa Banana: The Gruesome General​ by Jozua Douglas (b. 1977). “Pablo Fernando was the president of Costa Banana. Costa Banana was a small tropical country in Central America. The president was the boss, all on his own. He could make anything he wanted to happen. No matter how crazy it was.” So begins this electric, strange, and oddly prescient kids book originally written in Dutch in 2013. The book was suggested to me by fellow Book Clubber, Carol Jaxon, who wrote:

““I have been reading Jozua Douglas’s Costa Banana series of books because I am about at a fourth-grade reading level in Dutch. (Nothing as humbling or rewarding as trying to communicate in another language.) These books are so cute and well-written and they are modern! They have smart phones and technology and are relatable to kids these days . For example, in the fourth book about UFOs, the father buys everyone in the family a doppelgänger for Christmas! My first reaction was why is buying another human being okay in a children’s book? My Dutch teacher reminded me that parents can talk about that with their kids.””

There is a lot to talk to your kids about in here! I read it with my 6-year-old but probably could have skewed older. People tell the President nobody likes war and when he disagrees, an advisor chimes back, “Easy enough for you to say. You’re the general. You don’t actually have to fight.” The book is filled with these kinds of obvious but not commonly heard lines. New laws are suddenly invented, like how everybody has to call the President “Great Leader Genius” or “Big Strong Man”. Mutinies are formed to overthrow the government. And it all adds up to some kind of absurd geopolitical thriller—for kids. The plot zig zags quickly, so you may find it tough to get back into the story if you put it down for too long. Although this book is a little too in-the-news feeling at times, it’s a unique way to read something outside the lines. I’ve ever read a children’s book translated from Dutch before, either. Fun and fast tone, delightfully short chapters, and wonderful ​Quentin Blake​-esque illustrations from ​Elly Hees​ throughout.

7. ​Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads​ by Gary Greenberg and Jeannie Hayden. This was the only parenting book I read before having kids and it’s been my go-to gift whenever a friend tells me they’re going to be a dad. Written and illustrated by a witty husband and wife team, it’s wonderfully readable with a humble and funny “fake field guide” tone, full of useful information (more than you might expect), and the whole thing is organized by “Age of Baby”, so you can put it down and then pick it back up when your baby is (say) 4-6 months and discover all kinds of new sections, like “Temperature Taking Tactics”, “Resuming A Sex Life?”, and “Starting Solid Foods”. The book is definitely too heteronormative and some of the jokes have wilted with time, but I love its earnest way of presuming you know nothing (which I did!) and then starting you … there. Check out the first two pages after the Table of Contents, comparing “What Your Newborn WON’T Look Like” with “What Your Newborn WILL Look Like”:

When I saw this at ​Doug Miller Books​ this month, I couldn’t resist grabbing another copy. Handy, practical, and a fun primer for new dads to be.

8. ​The Basketball Diaries: The Classic About Growing Up Hip on New York’s Mean Streets​ by Jim Carroll (1949-2009). Does anything match the voyeuristic thrill of reading someone’s diary? Their private notes to themselves! Maybe this diary doesn’t have the profundity of ‘​Meditations​’ by Marcus Aurelius or the ominous severity of ‘​The Diary of a Young Girl​’ by Anne Frank (​09/25​), but what it lacks in scope it makes up with electric readability, gripping propulsiveness, and total transporting of mind. Covering three years from age 12 to 15, you’re a sharp and literate kid in private school, sniffing glue, playing basketball, stealing from change rooms, puking on people on the Staten Island Ferry, getting addicted to heroin, and … a lot more. “The funny part is that I thought heroin was the NON-addictive stuff and marijuana was addictive,” Carroll writes in Winter, 1964. “I only found out later what a dumb ass move it was. Funny, I can remember what vows I’d made never to touch any of that shit when I was five or six. Now with all my friends doing it, all kinds of vows drop out from under me every day.” A thrilling and ultimately unredemptive—to make up a word—read that famously turned into a ​1995 movie​ starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but the book, the book has a searing sizzle of its own.

9. There is no 9! Just a loot bag of links down here. Kurt Vonnegut’s ​final piece of advice to students​. ​Ryan Holiday​ shares lessons from ​5 years of running his indie bookstore​. ​Seth Godin​ + ​Mel Robbins​ = ​Strong pick yourself energy​ (And thanks to Seth for ​the shoutout​!) 5 ways to be ​happier in a couple minutes or less​. ​Jon Haidt​ shares ​a case for physical textbooks​. New ​World Cup seats in Toronto​. (Hope ​these fans​ don't show up?) The Middle East war is ​crumbling some of our ancient human culture​. (And check out this ​Far Side cartoon from 1987​!) Reading is ​good for your nervous system​. (Especially ​physical books​!) A quick ​Warren Buffett thought experiment​ to remember you’re lucky when you're not feeling that way. Oh, and ​stop checking the news​! And ​stay positive​! Because happiness ​is indeed a skill​...

Interested in more of my reviews? Read my monthly book clubs or visit my Goodreads page.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - February 2026

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

How was your February?

We fell into a wonderful Winter Olympics flow, culminating in back-to-back heartbreakers in the hockey gold medal games. Congrats to the US on winning two of the best games I’ve ever seen. I was reminded many times why ​bronze medalists are happier than silvers​. (​Derek Sivers​ has a ​great post on this​, too.)

Hockey is newly fun for me to watch this year because we’ve suddenly become a hockey family. My oldest son started playing two years ago, my third son started last year, and I’m not getting any younger so I just signed up, too!

The first day in my “Over 45” league I discovered the average age was in the mid-sixties and the two ​Santa-bearded defensemen​ on my team were 73 and 79 years old, respectively.

Of course, they were phenomenal and (no surprise) I am by far the worst player in the entire league.

But I love it.

The speed, the sounds, the smell of the arena, ​the wind​ on my face. I’m awful! But I’m learning. Our learning rates are the steepest when we know the least.

So that's my tip this month: Take up something you’re horrible at! Just be awful and enjoy the feeling of learning ... bit by bit.

Over on the podcast feed (​Apple​ / ​Spotify​ / ​YT​) we’ve got chats with comedian ​Pete Holmes​ and environmentalist ​Paul Hawken​ and on the exact minute of the ​Worm Moon​ (coming March 3rd at 6:37am!) our next chapter will drop with happiness grandmaster ​Sonja Lyubomirsky​.

Happy reading everybody—now let’s get to the books!

Neil

P.S. Invite others to join us ​right here​. All my stuff online is 100% handwritten from me to you—no ads, no AI—since 2008.

1. ​The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert​ by John M. Gottman (b.1942). I was walking on empty sidewalks around my neighborhood in the early pandemic, listening to episode ​#409 of The Tim Ferriss Show ​when a ​quote​ from ​Brené Brown​ hit me: “Marriage is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, hands down. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. You all hear me out there? Hardest thing.” I remember thinking, really? For Brené Brown? Maybe it struck me because I’d only been married a few years, maybe because it was my second marriage, maybe because Leslie was and is fairly Brené Browny herself (I mean, she had Brené’s ​parenting manifesto​ up in our house before we had kids). I thought about that quote a lot while reading this incredible book. Marriage is work! Beautiful, hard, glorious work. And here is the workbook. The book is based on the famous ​Gottman Institute​, the 1996-founded “marriage research lab” Gottman founded with his third wife Julie—who he’s now been with for 39 years. The first of seven principles is to “Enhance Your Love Maps,” which is an ad copywriter’s way of saying “Get To Know Each Other Better”. Easy, right? Mayyybe. What makes the book special are its endless quizzes and questionnaires. Shall we do one right now to get a feel? It’ll take 30 seconds! Come on, let’s try. Your relationship will thank you. Here is the “Love Maps Questionnaire” from page 56. Just keep mental track of how many “Trues” (Ts) you score out of 20 here:

1. I can name my partner’s best friends. T F
2. I can tell you what stresses my partner is currently facing. T F
3. I know the names of some of the people who have been irritating my partner lately. T F
4. I can tell you some of my partner’s life dreams. T F
5. I am very familiar with my partner’s religious beliefs and ideas. T F
6. I can tell you about my partner’s basic philosophy of life. T F
7. I can list the relatives my partner likes the least. T F
8. I know my partner’s favorite music. T F
9. I can list my partner’s three favorite movies. T F
10. My spouse is familiar with my current stresses. T F
11. I know the three most special times in my partner’s life. T F
12. I can tell you the most stressful thing that happened to my partner as a child. T F
13. I can list my partner’s major aspirations and hopes in life. T F
14. I know my partner’s major current worries. T F
15. My spouse knows who my friends are. T F
16. I know what my partner would want to do if he or she suddenly won the lottery. T F
17. I can tell you in detail my first impressions of my partner. T F
18. Periodically I ask my partner about his or her world right now. T F
19. I feel that my partner knows me pretty well. T F
20. My spouse is familiar with my hopes and aspirations. T F

Okay! You’re done. If you scored 10 or more Ts, this is an “area of strength,” if 9 or below, then you “could stand some improvement.” That gentle tone pervades the book, and that’s part of what’s special. No judgment here, no scorn. Just some friendly researchers laying out what they’ve learned. In Principle 2: “Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration,” we are given the exercise to pick 5 compliments from a lengthy list that includes: “Those pastries were delicious,” “You smell so good,” and “Thanks for taking a bath with me.” It goes on and on through Principle 3 (“Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away”), Principle 4 (“Let Your Partner Influence You”), Principle 5 (“Solve Your Solvable Problems”), Principle 6 (“Overcome Gridlock”), and Principle 7 (“Create Shared Meaning”). I love this book! I will flip it open and pull out a random exercise or questionnaire many, many times. To me, it’s a vital resource for any long-term relationship.

2.​ Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts On Kindness​ by George Saunders (b. 1958). If you have a daughter, grandson, sister, or nephew graduating this year, I recommend you get them this book. Most people have probably heard of Saunders as he’s been everywhere lately—​Colbert​! ​Ezra Klein​! ​The Atlantic​!—in support of his new novel ‘​Vigil​’, which just debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list:

Plus, they just announced ​Tom Hanks is going to play Abe Lincoln​ in the movie adaptation of ‘​Lincoln in the Bardo​’ (​04/18​) and suddenly it’s Saunders, Saunders, everywhere. Now, I of course got my pre-ordered copy of ‘Vigil’ but am still in its early intoxicating mental whirligig. So I stepped away for 15 minutes to reread this pithy yet big-picture ​2013 Syracuse commencement speech​ by the man the NYT recently dubbed a “secular saint.” Saunders gave this speech when he was 54, before he was as ​openly Buddhist​ as he is now at 67. (When ​he sat down with us on 3 Books in 2021​, he seemed more Buddhist-leaning but now—full throttle Buddhist! Assuming Buddhists go full throttle.) In this speech, he exalts us to do what we, and graduates in general, plan to do in our lives—you know, “travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes”, and on and on. But then, as we do, to the extent we can, he says to “err in the direction of kindness”. Why? Because, no biggie, nothing else matters. This framing helps bring out our most “loving, generous, and unafraid” selves—we see that life is finite, how unimportant we are to the universe, and how we are all connected … all the same … all one … all love. He quotes the great Syracuse poet ​Hayden Carruth​ who said, near the end of his life, that “he was mostly Love, now” and this also seems to be what’s happening to Georgie. I love his ​2025 New York Times Op-Ed piece​ about the Trump Administration’s firing of the Librarian of Congress, his wonderful ​Substack “Story Club”​, his great interviews (like this ​recent one in The Guardian​), and reading his brain-twisting short story collections like ‘Pastoralia' ​(01/21)​, ‘Tenth of December’ (​03/21​), and ‘Liberation Day’ ​(11/22)​. And, yes, of course, revisiting this commencement speech. The book makes a great gift but you can also watch it ​here ​or read the full transcript ​here​, too.

3. ​Rejection​ by Tony Tulathimutte (b.1983). Tony Tulathimutte (“TOO-lah-tim-OO-tee”) has the loudest new voice I’ve read in fiction since ​‘Cherry’​ (​10/18​) by ​Nico Walker​. Brutal, hilarious, sinister, stomach-churning. But no violence! No blood! Plenty of other bodily fluids, though. This book had me tighten up more than when I was in my 20s and read ‘​American Psycho’​ by ​Bret Easton Ellis​ or ‘​A Clockwork Orange​’ by ​Anthony Burgess​. But no matter which way the seven slightly-tangential short stories that fill up this 258-page masterpiece swerved, one thing was clear: I could not stop flipping. It’s like glue. A magnet! Simultaneously realistic, urgent, depraved, illuminative. A​ Black Mirrory​ book channeling contemporary millennial and Gen Z sexual anxiety into realistic-till-they’re-not worlds that call to mind other jussssst-slightly-ajar fantasy worlds like something created by, say, Wes Anderson:

The opening story is about how a young man’s passionate feminism endlessly crushes his dating life for “thirty lonely years”. Can you read a story about someone being lonely for thirty years? Tall order! But if you can handle it, the sentences will hit you harrrrrrrrd. ​Jia Tolentino​, New Yorker Staff Writer and author of the phenomenal ‘​Trick Mirror​’ (​09/20​), calls this book “a thrill for the sickos among us” and says until she read it she had no idea “how fun it could be to read a book about a bunch of huge fucking losers.” The majority of the book is written in a seductive second person where you feel like you’re hovering in a drone camera just above the scene. Back to that first story: we start by following the teenage protagonist as he’s one of the first (cis hetero) male students at a modern day progressive formerly-all-girls private school. Unfortunately, the snowball begins tumbling downhill right away. From page 1: “… the school ingrained in him, if not feminist values per see, the value of feminist values. It had been cool, or at least normal, to identify as asexual. And though he didn’t, he figured it was a better label than ‘virgin.’” On page 2 we continue into college where “… he encounters the alien system of codes and manners…Learning in high school about body positivity, gender norms, and the cultural construction of beauty had led him to believe that adults aren’t obsessed with looks. This turns out to be untrue, even among his new female friends, who complain about how shallow men are. Now that he’s self-conscious, he realizes he can’t compete along conventional standards of height, weight, grip strength, whatever. How can he hope to attract anyone with his narrow shoulders?” This continues for 28 more pages, and every time you think you’re at a new low, the bottom suddenly splinters and falls out once again. Sort of feels like you’re in the music video for ​Turn Down For What​ (directed by ​Daniels,​ btw!) except instead of increasingly wild ecstatic dancing, it’s just increasingly lonely emotional fracturing.

The second story is a 61-page Shame Meteor burning past your face as it flares and shrivels into a fiery rock of acid. You basically play the role of a college woman who falls in love with her best (male) friend. They hook up one night and she gets a blowjob selfie texted to her afterward and … uh, things get awkward. Though not how you’d expect. Nothing is predictable here and yet it feels so hyper realistic. The stories get more outlandish as they go. Scenes begin feeling comic-book stylized. There are people with abs “… as craggy and segmented as a prizewinning pumpkin” and random-app-hookup gay spanking scenes where the main character begins “… monitoring the man’s grunts for feedback, and in his distraction, he swings low and accidentally smites the man’s balls at maximum force, causing him to shout and roll onto the floor into a shrimpy curl.” As then, right when a scene feels like it’s at its wincing, maximum throttle, there is Tulathimutte, on the sidelines, a maniacal grin on his face, turning the screws just a bit tighter. TOO-lah-tim-OO-tee may be the new ​Tare-AN-teen-OH​ of high-low art. A wow on ten different levels.

4. ​Dominic​ by William Steig (1907-2003). Joanne, the strong-minded children's book librarian at the ​Lillian H. Smith branch​ of the ​Toronto Public Library​, was agog when I told her I’d never heard of William Steig (“STY-g”). We had been rapping about picture book authors we loved as she loaded up my arms with books—lots of ​Paulette Bourgeois​, lots of ​Shirley Hughes​—so I guess the fact I hadn’t even heard of the guy who wrote ‘​Shrek​’, ‘​Brave Irene​’ ​(04/23)​, or ‘​Pete’s A Pizza​’ ​(05/23)​, struck her as curious. Clearly I was pretending to be some kind Periodic Table of Children’s Literature yet knew nothing of Beryllium. She then led me around the corner in E (for Easy Readers) to S (for Steig) where an Aladdin-like cave of riches awaited. I have loved every jewel from the cave so far and many more await. Dominic is a delightful romp. Here are the first 71 words of the book which quickly curtain-lifts to Steig’s unique twang in its full glory:

Dominic was a lively one, always up to something. One day, more restless than usual, he decided there wasn’t enough going on in his own neighborhood to satisfy his need for adventure. He just had to get away.

How owned an assortment of hates which he liked to wear, not for warmth or for shade or to shield him from rain, but for their various effects—rakish, dashing, solemn, or martial.

Dominic’s itchy nomadic pulse leads him to skip town and turn into a wandering ​flâneur​. Adventure! Challenges! Pains! Surprise! Perfect for children of any age—as a read-a-loud or (if your kid is up for learning new words like “rakish”) a read-a-lone. If you’ve never heard of Steig, I recommend starting with ‘Pete’s A Pizza’ which is a 30-second read (watch it on YT ​here​!) and then that’ll warm you up for picture books like ‘​Brave Irene​’ (​04/23​) and then meatier chapter books like this 146-page gem.

5. ​Atmosphere​ by Taylor Jenkins Reid (b.1983). And now it is time for this month’s Leslie’s Pick, a book personally chosen and reviewed by my beautiful wife. For a full list of Leslie’s picks ​click here​ and if you’d prefer listening to her (as I do) check out our interviews with ​Brené Brown​, ​Kristen Neff​, or ​The Holderness Family​. Over to you, Les: “I know I’m not the only one who got swept away and binge watched the epic love story ​Heated Rivalry​. I knew what I was getting into after hearing the teachers at my school squeal ‘I’m going to the cottage!!’ and gush over how much they loved it! AND I was pleasantly surprised by how incredibly beautiful the last episode was. If you’d held back watching it for whatever reason, I highly recommend at least the final episode, especially for all parents, educators, and practitioners who work with youth. I have been inspired to speak openly to my children and students about how sad it is that the world, in hockey or otherwise, communicates to young people that they need to hide a part of who they are if they do not fit clearly into the heteronormative box (or any other box for that matter). And that parents, even without intending to, make their children feel that they have expectations of who they want them to be, think they are, or expect them to become. There is so much work to do as a society to support each individual to feel safe, supported, and comfortable to be JUST who they know they are. When I picked up ‘Atmosphere’, simply subtitled “a love story”, I naively and admittedly heteronormatively assumed, (especially after having LOVED the many heterosexual relationships explored in ‘​The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo​’ (​08/23​) by the same author) that it was a love story between Joan, the female protagonist, and a male character. I was then delightfully surprised that I was able to reflect on my bias and assumptions when it turned out to be a love story between Joan and Vanessa, a fellow female astronaut. Not dissimilar to young boys playing hockey, Joan and Vanessa, as female astronauts in the 1980s, also felt as though they had to hide who they were. My sons are beginning to tire of me telling them how incredibly wrong it is that young gay male (or non-binary, non-white, transgendered, two spirited, bisexual or otherwise) hockey players feel as though they have to hide parts of themselves just as it is wrong that female astronauts (or lawyers, doctors, CEOs, or otherwise) have to hide that they are pregnant! Or maybe, thanks to shows and books like these, we’re starting to replace subtle judgments with open-minded conversations, allowing young people to share all aspects of their identities with the world! Getting off my soapbox: I highly recommend this book for its beautiful reflections on science and faith, the power of love, how we don’t get to choose our family (it chooses us), along with the immaculate, astonishing, risky, courageous thing of bravely leaving our planet to explore space!!”

6. ​Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing​ by Judy Blume (b.1938). I got an email from Judy Blume’s assistant saying she had to cancel. We had set up an interview weeks before and I was in Miami waiting for a puddle-hopper plane to fly me to Key West where Judy owns and operates her wonderful ​Books&Books bookstore​ (an offshoot of ​Mitchell Kaplan’s​ wonderful Florida ​indie bookstore chain​.) I had just given a speech for Volvo and was in a suit and my plan was to change into shorts and a T-shirt on the plane. But the interview! Cancelled? Ack! What should I do? What could I do? Beg? Yes. In fact that’s what I did. I begged. And Judy’s assistant said okay, freaky anxious podcaster, get on the damn plane. So I got on the plane. Then hailed a cab. And met dear Judy, 82 years young at that time, and had a ​delightful chat​.

I got a chance to tell her how much ‘Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing’ meant to me as a kid and she even signed it in marker!

This might be my favorite signed book: the juxtaposition of me writing my own name in the corner in 6-year-old handwriting, after my parents clearly bought this at a garage sale from some mysterious Lori Davenport, combined with Judy’s below. I have taped and re-taped the spine so it barely holds together and just finished reading it to my 9, 7, and 5-year olds who all loved it. Why is this book so good? Why is it so much better than ‘​Superfudge​’, ‘​Double Fudge​’, and ​all those other Fudge books that followed​? The curve of the protagonist. That’s my thinking! Judy has a marvellous way of detailing (fourth-grade) Peter Hatcher’s inner life as he navigates the world through 9-year-old eyes. From page 60: “Mine was root-beer flavored. I hate root beer. But I thanked Mr. Berman anyway.” From page 61: “I wiggled my sock around trying to rearrange my hole. My mother sure worries about silly things!” I absolutely love the realistic cover in this old version and, indeed, decry the modern tendency of children’s book publishers to put such cartoony images of the cover. Like just compare my cover to the one on sale today (yuck!):

Give us realism that feeds our imagination! This book is now 54 years old and we are still right there—living in a New York City apartment (while the city is still gritty and Peter has to keep away from muggers in the park), hanging out with Jimmy Fargo after school, finding Sheila completely annoying, and being generally irritated by our mom and the turtle-eating Fudge. A classic!

7. ​The Little Trilogy​ by Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). Have you read much Russian Literature? Any? I read precisely zero Russian literature books until ​David Mitchell​ picked ‘​The Duel​’ by Anton Chekhov (​06/20​) as one of his most formative. Then I read ​George Saunders’​ writing book ‘​A Swim In The Pond In The Rain​’ (​06/21​) and got a lot more Chekhov, some Bulgakov, and Tolstoy. Then a little more Tolstoy when Saunders picked ‘​Hadji Murad​’ (​02/21​) as one of his most formative. Now this. I still haven’t cracked any of the classic classics like ‘​War and Peace​’, ‘​Anna Karenina​’, and ‘​Crime and Punishment​’, but I feel like I’ve successfully dipped my toe in the Russian literature pond (in the rain?). This book is 3 somewhat interrelated stories: ‘The Man In A Case’ tells the story of an uptight teacher so afraid of life he creates incredibly conservative rules that he forces everybody in his orbit to live by…until he eventually nearly marries a happy-go-lucky woman who changes his personality…but then doesn’t, and dies, and then everybody breathes a sigh of relief. In ‘Gooseberries’ (where the Saunders book title comes from!) a man named Nikolai spends his life dreaming about owning his own estate, but when he does he becomes super smug. In ‘About Love’ we get a backstory about unfulfilled love between the narrator and a married woman. Emotional! A bit stiff. But a lot going on. As ​David Mitchell ​told me long ago “If there’s a book over a hundred years old and it’s still in print today there’s a very good reason.” There’s a very good reason why this one is still coming out the front door of the book factories! A short, accessible, reflective read.

8. ​Walking On Water: Reflections On Faith And Art​ by Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007). I admit, whenever I hear a book described as “a meditation on…” I hear it as “a bunch of loose, semi-coherent rambles on…” How silly! Because this book is indeed a meditation on faith and art but it is the furthest thing from loose and semi-coherent. The high-beamed mind of ​Madeleine L’Engle​ (‘​A Wrinkle In Time​’) dives into the deeper, colder, darker waters to explore, really meaningfully explore, the murky depths underpinning those massive overlapping circles of faith and art. On page 5, she reminds us via ​Plato​ that “All learning which is acquired under compulsion has no hold upon the mind” and talks about the seriousness of craft on page 8 when she says, “Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child.” In some ways, this is L’Engle’s own “commonplace book” about writing. She pulls out gem after gem, many from her own mind, but many quoted too. Like on page 14 when she quotes ​Jean Rhys ​in a Paris Review interview saying, “Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.” She’s a wise, patient, enlightened guide calmly showing you the meaning of all things. I say this is a powerful read for anyone creating art in any way. So, most people! Closest book I can compare it to would be ‘​The War of Art​’ by ​Steven Pressfield​ (​11/16​), but this gets a lot deeper. And you leave feeling enriched and inspired about books, and words, in so many new ways. I have over 100 highlights in this book and I’ll leave you with this gem: “The reader, viewer, listener, usually grossly underestimates his importance. If a reader cannot create a book along with the writer, the book will never come to life. Creative involvement: that’s the basic difference between reading a book and watching TV. In watching TV we are passive; sponges; we do nothing. In reading we must become creators … The author and the reader ‘know’ each other; they meet on the bridge of words.” Meet on the bridge of words! I love that. So much. That’s where we are right now, me and you. On the bridge of words. What a glorious place to be! Together, me and you, right here.

9. ​The Button Box​ by Margarette S. Reid (b.1923). Illustrated by Sarah Chamberlain. I love old ladies! They’re my favorite demographic. Second is old men. Leslie always jokes that at any big party I’m most likely to be found on a couch chatting to the oldest women around. They’re oozing with wisdom! (And ​they sure can cook​, too.) Last month, I was sitting in a coffee shop writing ​this book club​ when a couple old ladies beside me asked what I was doing—given I had a pile of books beside me, including the picture book ‘​Mama’s Roti​’ (​01/26​). When I told them, they started gushing about their favorite picture books. Both had one! Start with that. I got these gorgeous three minute soliloquies about two picture books I had never heard of! Then one woman pulled out a pencil and notebook, wrote down both titles, ripped out the page, and handed it to me. I went home and ordered both books. Both took a long time to arrive. Gems lost in the annals of Life Before The Internet! The Button Box is one of the books and it's a 1990 masterpiece about a little boy playing with a button box at his grandma’s house. Starts off simple! “My grandma has a special box. I like to play with what’s inside.”

What emerges is a reflective and powerful meditation on the power of curiosity, play, and imagination. Huge feelings with this book! And all my boys loved it—ages 11, 9, 7, and 5—as did Leslie.

The whole book is only 390 words! I counted. Tight! Yet it’s a massive lever into a fascinating historical world both visible and invisible in our every day. The book includes a full-page Epilogue called “Buttons, buttons, who invented buttons?” which quadruples its word count but gives great detail and history. (P.S. You can ​‘read’ the book ​on YT first.)

10. There is no 10! Just our regular loot bag of links. Are we all in a ​throuple with A.I.?​. ​Austin Kleon​'s ​7 questions ​when “puzzled or uncertain about what to do next”. Pause-worthy graphic on ​The Rise of Dopamine Culture​. Bryan Johnson ​labels social media to pollution​. How to ​speak with your teens on gambling​. David Epstein ​has a new book​! (Reading in 2026 ​is a superpower.​) Impressing Indian parents is ​impossible​. How do you find out if ​you're good at this​? (And why is ​Norway so great at Winter Olympics​? ​“As many as possible for as long as possible.”​) Home of the World Cup Final is ​inaccessible by foot​. Balaji tells us ​what’s still important​ in the age of AI. Paul Graham gives a ​mathematical argument for reading​. Leslie and I came up with a ​verbal password after reading this​. ​3 important words to ask AI​. ​KK​ has a new podcast called ‘​Best Case Scenarios​’ (and his ​1000 True Fans​ is always worth a reread.) Good ​depression-awareness ad​. And let’s always remember ​the biggest ingredient to success​.

Interested in more of my reviews? Read my monthly book clubs or visit my Goodreads page.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - January 2026

Hey everyone,

Happy last day of January!

We got the biggest dump of snow in Toronto’s history this week and many cars on the streets remain entirely snow-bubbled:

It turned into our second snow day of the season and I went back and read what I wrote about ​snow days 18 years ago on 1000 Awesome Things​ and realized I feel precisely the same way now. Time stops. Life slows down. Community tightens. I’ve met more neighbours this week than this year—digging out cars, shovelling the rink, offering help, being offered help.

We’ve had a fun month on the podcast with ​Salim Amin​ capping our three-chapter soirée to Kenya before re-releasing one of the most popular shows in ​3 Books​ history from ​Ryan Holiday​’s house in Texas. Tomorrow at 5:09pm—the exact minute of the ​Snow Moon​!—we'll drop Chapter 157 with eminent environmentalist ​Paul Hawken​.

I also want to say big congrats to ​Wagner Moura​, longtime friend of 3 Books, for his Best Actor nomination. If you haven’t seen ​The Secret Agent​ (nominated for Best Picture!) check it out. Here’s the ​trailer​ and if you click the footer below you’ll get an Oscars playlist of 3 Books with our chats with Wag as well as ​Celine Song​, ​Daniels​, and ​Quentin Tarantino​.

This month I read and loved ‘Outer Dark’ by Cormac McCarthy and was pumped to get an early copy of happiness hero ​Sonja Lyubomirsky​’s new book. Reviews of those plus books by ​Jon Haidt​, ​Raakhee Mirchandani​, ​Seth Godin​, ​Colin Jost​ and more just below…

And now: Let’s flip to the pages!

Neil

PS. To join this book club email ​click here​ … 100% ad free, sponsor free, commercial free, interruption free, algorithm free, and AI free since 2008.

1. ​​Outer Dark​ by Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023). Have you ever heard of book jacket designer ​Chip Kidd​? I think I first saw his name on the inside of the beat-up mass-market Michael Crichton paperback my friends and I passed around when we were twelve back in 1992:

Eight years later I took the train from Kingston to Toronto to have dinner with ​Jay Pinkerton​, the recently graduated editor I hero-worshipped at ​Golden Words​, and at the end of the night he handed me a book that had come out recently and which, again, I saw had a cover designed by Chip Kidd:

I’ve reread ‘Naked’ by ​David Sedaris​ five or six times since. Every few years there it is! Lying beside my bed. A large pair of white men’s boxers. Chip Kidd, Chip Kidd, Chip Kidd. The man has a gift for reducing an entire book’s theme, thrust, feel into a single image. He nails it again with the new cover of this 1968 Cormac McCarthy classic:

A bit of light over a dark day. Big skies with ominous clouds and sparse trees. The yellows, the blues. You feel it. And then you start reading this book and its 241 pages slowly tighten around you and you’re there. This book made me feel all kinds of dark, dismal, and dreary. Had to be in the mood! For sure. Before bed, usually. In the darkness. With my ​book light​ in “orange mode” lying on my chest pointed up at the pages like a fading flashlight. That was the zone. And this book didn’t disappoint with a single sentence. Check out the first one which is 105 words (!) long and opens with these 10.5:

“They crested out on the bluff in the late afternoon su…”

Don’t you already want to hear the other 90%? EVERY SENTENCE IS LIKE THAT. And the dialogue? Some of the sharpest, saltiest, elegantly twisted tongues I have ever read with character after character popping out of the pages with their own precisely unique slang. (Except, of course, the one memorable character who never speaks.) This book is a magic trick. A feat of writing so lofty you wonder how he could do anything else. Did Cormac McCarthy cook? Clean? Bathe? How could he when he was chiseling sentences out like this! A casual scene from Page 63: “She took the soap and lathered her hands up in a gritty curded paste, spreading it over her face and then dashing cold water after it, eyes shut fiercely against the soap’s caustic sting." Pretty good, right? It keeps going: "When she had finished she rinsed the basin and took up the lamp from the ground and started for the house. The whippoorwill had stopped and she bore with her now in frenzied colliding orbits about the lamp chimney a horde of moths and night insects.” What just happened? I found myself going back and rereading so many sentences the moment I finished. Writing with simple words but strikingly detailed. And his gift for visuals and metaphors never stops like on Page 107 where “The man’s speckled hands had drawn up clenched like two great dying spiders …” or Page 109 where the “… house was grown with a rich velour of moss and lichen and brooded in a palpable miasma of rot.” The other thing you should know going into this book is that it’s about half dialogue and there are precisely zero quotation marks. (That’s a lie what you said, the girl whispered hoarsely., etc.) He also gets you into these patters where you can picture the characters and he trusts that he doesn’t even need to bother explaining who’s speaking because you both know. He takes Stephen King’s famous advice from “​On Writing​” (​04/18​) that “The road to hell is paved with adverbs” and cranks it to the next level. Like this:
What?

I said where’s your youngern.

I’ve not got nary.

The babe, the babe, the old woman crooned.

They ain’t nary’n.

Hah, said the old woman. Bagged for the river trade I’d judge. Yon sow there might make ye a travelin mate that’s downed her hoggets save one.

Bit out of context but that dialogue tips us off to the storyline which in one sentence is: A woman and a man go on separate hunts for a lost baby a hundred years ago somewhere in the southern US. As always I recommend reading the ​Wikipedia Plot Summary​ before, during, and/or after reading. ​No book guilt, no book shame​! One note: The back cover of this book reveals a major plot point which McCarthy does not himself reveal until Page 191 … 80% of the way through the book! Massive violation of the “No Spoilers On Book Jackets” Treaty and for a book that lives on the unsaid I basically have to say, in all-caps, that YOU SHOULD NOT READ THE BACK OF THIS BOOK BEFORE READING IT. ​Vintage​, you fools! Now, to close on a random amusement park metaphor, if ​George Saunders​ is looping roller coasters and ​David Mitchell​ is one of those vertiginous full visual-immersion rides with the bumpy seats, then Cormac McCarthy is something like slow-motion Bumper Cars. Endless, stark and highly-detailed little collisions for a bracing ride of oscillating intensities.

2. ​​Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?​ by Seth Godin (b. 1960). How are you feeling about your career right now? I meet people who are crushing it, people in despair. We all go up and down throughout our lives but I do believe in always doing something. I have gone on the record saying ​retirement is a flawed concept​! (It's an entire chapter in The Happiness Equation.) I believe we need the 4 S’s—Social, Structure, Stimulation, and Story—and great work is a gift that gives it. In the eight years I’ve run 3 Books ​Seth Godin​ remains the only ​Guest​ who has chosen one of his own books. In our lovely chat he makes the point that nobody would expect Tom Cruise to go on Colbert and not talk about his movie, right? And then he delightfully owns how writing ‘Linchpin’ in 2008 changed his life. One of his 3 most formative along with ‘​The Book of EST​’ by Luke Rhinehart and ‘​See You At The Top​’ by Zig Ziglar. I love this book. It has a wonderful message: No matter what happens, you own you. Challenges! Many coming. More after that. But you own you. So let Seth help jack up your confidence, unlock boxes you didn’t realize you were inside, and help you see your strengths and opportunities with fresh eyes, all with Seth’s uniquely inspiring and entrepreneurial tang.

3. ​​How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most​ by Sonja Lyubomirsky (b. 1966) & Harry Reis (b.1949). A new baby birthed by two researchers at the top of their fields. Sonja is the world’s longest running researcher on happiness. Number one! Probably most quoted, too. She co-wrote the capstone positivity psychology paper “​The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead To Success?​” back in 2005. I was 9 when Sonja began studying happiness in 1989. She had come from Moscow a few years earlier, completed her undergrad at Harvard and was doing her PhD at Stanford. She says only ​Ed Diener​ (1946-2021) was into happiness research at the time. Too fluffy for the stern-nosed! She got going a decade before ​Martin Seligman​ (b. 1942) and ​Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi​ (1934-2021) famously kicked off the ​positive psychology movement in earnest​. Meanwhile Harry Reis, no slouch, has been studying relationship science and intimacy for decades at the University of Rochester. Mix their brains and out comes this idea: That a big secret to happiness is feeling loved. Not being loved! That too. But feeling it. Related, but different. The authors come together to proffer an interesting model that looks like this:

The Relationship Sea-Saw. The idea is that in any relationship we have parts of ourselves we expose and, of course, parts that are “under water”, in the sea, hidden—parts we fear revealing. But when we actively listen through one of the 5 mindsets (Sharing, Listening-to-Learn, Radical-Curiosity, Open-Heart, and Multiplicity) we make a “downward push” of the Sea-Saw (purposefully spelled “Sea”, btw) and “lift a part of the other person into view.” After this what happens? Well “the other person lifts you up in return” and so the relationship becomes one of “a delicate dance of alternately lifting and being lifted.” They then quote clinical psychologist ​David Schnarch​ who calls this dance “knowing and being known.” I loved the little anonymous poem that appears as an epigraph before Chapter 4:

A friend is one that knows you as you

are, understands where you have

been, accepts what you have become,

and still, gently allows you to grow.

That's sort of the key point here. This all begins “by fully seeing, embracing, and accepting the other person.” On one hand, kind of obvious? But, on the other, helpful to use when thinking about your own life. Like “Oh yeah, I want to feel more love from my parents? Maybe I should use one of these mindsets to give more love to them first.” This is a left-brain book for left-brain people with everything refreshingly backed up by fresh science and studies. All in service of helping you connect deeply with your closest people and adding a new layer of consideration and awareness to some of what makes those relationships naturally tick.

4. ​​Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window​ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (b. 1933). Illustrated by Chihiro Iwasaki (1918-1974). Translated by Dorothy Britton (1922-2015). Free range parenting is in! Not in, as in we’re doing it, but in, as in popular. The ​newspaperwoman once branded “America’s Worst Mom”​ for letting her 9-year-old ride the New York City subway by himself is now tag-teaming with ​Jonathan Haidt​ to spearhead a movement running downhill behind the accelerating boulder that is ​The Anxious Generation​. Phones out of schools! Longer recesses! More outdoor play! More outdoors, period. It’s totally in line with my recent chat with ​Ginny Yurich​. This is a north star for me and many right now. Not saying it’s easy! But we’re making strides. Australia just raised their minimum ​age for social media to 16​ and a growing chorus of people (including me) are writing to their government representatives, on all edges of the political spectrum, to help rein in Big Tech. Want a vision of a tech-free free-rangey childhood? This little non-fiction Japanese memoir is just the thing! Originally published in 1981, it was finally translated to English in 2011, and I learned about it from ​Ryan Holiday​ who picked it as one of his most formative books on ​3 Books​. (I admit after he picked ‘​Meditations​’ by Marcus Aurelius and ‘​The 48 Laws of Power​’ by Robert Greene I was sort of expecting him to give me ‘​I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell​’ by Tucker Max (the other writer he interned for) or ‘​The Four-Hour Workweek​’ by Tim Ferriss. But you can’t put Ryan in a box!) Anyway, Kuroyanagi was one of Japan’s most popular TV personalities for years and this is her childhood of joining an unconventional school near Tokyo during World War II. If you believe that trust and controls are inversely related you will love this book. You can read it as an innocent story of childhood or an indictment of the entire factory-style education system. Wonderful either way. As Ryan told us on 3 Books: “I am very worried that mediocre people are going to squash the specialness out of my kid.” Books like this show us another way.

5. ​​Mama's Roti​ by Raakhee Mirchandani. Illustrated by Shreya Gupta. I love Staff Picks Walls. Best shelf in the bookstore! They add human curation to even potentially-at-risk-of-blandness big-box chains. ​James Daunt​ is trying to basically turn Barnes & Noble into entirely Staff Picks, in a sense. "Bespoke bookselling", we called it back in ​Chapter 141​. And Amazon doesn’t have Staff Picks. So in this case I need to thank Kushi at the ​Indigo Eaton Centre​. My 5-year-old had a PA Day and we kicked a giant ice block from our house all the way through the subway till it was a very tiny ice rock that he threw into the Eaton Centre fountain. Then we took the escalator up to the rooftop Indigo Bookstore which hangs out under one of the best skylight roofs in the country—you can see the Indigo banner on the right side of this pic:

Once inside we took the giant circular staircase up to the kids section and while my kid was hoodwinked with Paw Patrol toys (move toys out of Kids books sections!) I was able to grab a few books off the shelf. This is an incredible book that looks like a children’s book, and has a fun back-and-forth storyline that connects the roti of a modern Indian family in suburban New Jersey (presumably Raakhee’s) and the parallel universe of roti as a source of nourishment, culture, and livelihood across the ocean in northern India.

“A handful of atta, a palmful of water, a pinch of salt, and a dot of oil. Together in a bowl, round and round, combining, pressing, folding. Roti is dinner around the world, but first it rests.”

“Roti is Mama standing at the stove, listening to songs her father used to sing, patting, stretching, and rolling the dough. It’s bhai laughing, making a solar system on the counter, then popping bubbles in the puffed-up phulka.”

I saw so much of myself in this book. I grew up with one sister—my behen—and my mum would also sing along to a cassette tape of her father singing. He died before I was born. In a way her family history came through the roti she made, the same way she made it in the kitchen with her parents as a child in Nairobi. Often it was those puffed up rotis, folded into a tea towel, stacked on a plate, to eat alongside aloo-gobi or matar paneer. Later in the book “Roti is lunch with friends”, “Roti is a snack in the car”, “Roti is a full belly”, “Roti is solidarity”, and “Roti is change.” The activism here ​supporting Indian farmers​ fighting for fair wages (farmers who have been victims from the Indian government of water cannons, tear gas, internet shutdowns, physical barricades, and arrests) comes through in a subtle way near the end that feels honest and the advice practical rather than tone deaf or highfalutin. We’re all humans, after all. Thank you Raakhee and Shreya for this book. I loved it. Crisp as ​samosa​, sweet as ​jalebi​!

6. ​​The Amazing Generation​ by Jonathan Haidt (b.1963) and Catherine Price (b.1978). Illustrated by Cynthia Yuan Cheng. And now it’s time for this month’s Leslie’s Pick! (​​A full list of Leslie’s Picks are here.​​) Over to you, Les: “‘​The Anxious Generation​’ has definitely been the book of the year in my world as a parent and guidance counsellor. It seems that everywhere I look there is real life proof of its teachings on the importance of letting kids have more independence in real life and time outdoors while working to decrease time and increase protection online. And so, I’ve been waiting and dreaming and hoping for a book like ‘The Amazing Generation’ to engage young minds in their OWN desire to protect themselves. And I am SO excited that it’s finally here! I preordered this book as soon as I could and as soon as I had my hands on a copy, I went straight to my principal to ask for her support in ordering a class set for me to use with all the intermediate students (12-14 years old) as part of my Guidance program. Thankfully, she, like every other caring adult I know, is determined to do all she can to support this generation of young people and so 30 books are on their way! The most exciting part is that teenagers KNOW their phones make them feel bad, that they are addictive, that they need to protect themselves—even though, much like adults, they find it hard to put them down! And so, this book is exactly what they need to feel empowered as “Rebels” (as Haidt and Price put it) to “1) use technology as a tool—don’t let technology use you and 2) fill your life with real friendship, freedom and fun.” It really feels like we’re at a tipping point in society where phones are becoming less cool, almost like cigarettes that are now seen as disgusting by teens and parents alike, with policies changing at the government and institutional level. This book gives me hope that in the fight between kids and parents (united on the same side!) against manipulative and humanity-disorienting algorithms WE are going to win!”

7. ​​A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir​ by Colin Jost (b. 1982). I had one of those nights a couple weeks ago where I woke up—like red-alert awake—at two in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I had some waves of anxiety so I picked up this book and Jost’s smooth, funny, jocular stories did the trick. It lightened the mood, is what I’m saying. A cool and breezy comedy memoir that delivers right from the dedication: “To my mom and dad, and my brother Casey. You’re like family to me.” We get a swirl of ambition, humiliation, and some self-knowing privilege delivered in a string of life stories. As for the memoir part? Well, you know, Jost has been working at SNL for 20 years (!) since he was 22 and the book came out when he was 38 so he has a lot of comedy wisdom but any broader elderly life lessons will have to wait a few decades. More “tales” than “lessons”, is what I’m saying. So if you wake up in the middle of the night this book will settle you down. Maybe, if you’re like me, it’ll even lull you back for a couple hours of extra sleep before breakfast.

8. ​Libby and the Parisian Puzzle​ by Jo Clarke. Illustrated by Becka Moor. We went to Paris recently. There was a mouse in our apartment, wonderfully cold stone floors, and giant windows that opened onto a street with shops selling croissants, vegan stews, rotisserie ducks, and shawarmas. The first day we got there we walked to ​Île de la Cité​ and went to the famed ​Shakespeare & Company​ bookshop at “kilometre zero.” There was a line outside like a nightclub and inside the bookshop was packed. It was great being in a bookstore neverendingly swarming with everything—people crouching, reaching, sitting, flipping—everywhere all at once. Past the front displays on Parisian history and Parisian literature it opens into a delightful bookstore with nooks, crooks, crannies, stairs, and ​endless history and lore​. When we got to the Children’s section I asked the bookseller for “a great read-a-loud book in English that's based in Paris and perfect for young kids which I can read a few chapters from every night” and they immediately, like without pause, handed me this. We cracked it a couple hours later and other than the much-too-cartoony illustrations it held everyone's attention. Chapters jump from place to place in Paris—Chapter 4 Bateaux Mouches, Chapter 5 Lost in the Louvre, Chapter 7 Montmartre, etc—and follow Libby as she joins her new travelling school based in Paris. Soon she falls into a mysterious jewel thief escapade. Now, I will say the book suffers from that ​Lost​ effect of setting up a bunch of plotlines only to exasperatedly kick over its own house of cards at the end. But, overall, a super simple read and a great first mystery for the young'uns.

9. ​Two-Minute Mornings: A journal to win your day every day​ by Neil Pasricha (b. 1979). I go through hot and cold streaks using my own journal. I’m in a hot streak now. It feels great. The hard part about habits isn’t doing them every day. Forget doing every day! You don’t need to do anything every day. The hard part, for me anyway, is just starting them up after you stop them. That’s why I really wanted the date field in this journal to be line-dash-line-dash-line:

You can enter January 1, 2026, January 2, 2026, January 23, 2026 if you want to. You can enter January 1, 2026, April 23, 2026, June 12, 2057, if you want to. It’s your journal! Use it however you like. There are about 180 pages worth of entries so if you use it every single day you’ll use it up in six months. But it’s got the perfect thickness, weight, feel. It goes down smooth, is what I’m saying. And it really does give me a great mental shammy over the blackboard of my mind. So the muscle we’re trying to build is similar to the “meditation muscle.” Not focusing on nothing, or a word, or a repeating song, or a blank mental-state, forever … but simply developing the muscle to go back to your word / song / mind-state when you inevitably slip off. The “getting back” muscle is the muscle. It’s closely tied with the “letting yourself off the hook” muscle and the “no big deal” muscle while, of course, also paired with the “being ambitious enough about your own life to want to consistently improve” muscle. I find this journal helpful and a few hundred thousand others do, too. ​Here's the site I made for the book.​

10. Ten? There is no ten! Just our regular lootbag of links. ​George Saunders​ has a ​new book​! Great interview ​with him in The Guardian​. This year the Golden Globes had a “Best Podcast” category and congrats to ​Mel Robbins​ for being nominated. (Here's ​a post​ I wrote about Mel.) The winner was ​Good Hang with Amy Poehler​ and I laughed hard at ​her acceptance speech​. Speaking of Poehler, we loved her ex-husband ​Will Arnett​’s dramatic turn in Bradley Cooper’s new divorce-comedy ​Is This Thing On?​ There are some epic cameos in the flick which I won't ruin. Btw, have you seen many Best Picture nominees? I’ve seen (and loved) ​The Secret Agent​ and ​Marty Supreme​ (wow) so far. Lots more on the list! Step-ahead thinker ​Douglas Rushkoff​ shares “​The Joy of Becoming Worthless​”, Robert Munsch (who wrote '​Love You Forever​') wants you to know he’s signed up for ​Canada’s assisted suicide program​ ... and that ​he’s OK​. (I mention euthanasia in Canada in ​my last book​, which is totally free.) Jon Haidt has ​changed his mind​. Laurence Yeo moves his wonderful “​More To That​” blog over to Substack. Sal Khan offers a possible solution to the ​AI job apocalypse​. Can you ​stare at a piece of art for 10 minutes​? Jason Fried on the ​Big Regression​. Adam Grant's ​2025 favourites​. Mark Manson puts a finger on ​imposter syndrome​. The New York Times asks: ​How well are you aging​? And if you made it to the very, very end I have to tell you something: You really are awesome. Thanks for being here, thanks for reading to the bottom, and your prize for being all the way down here is, of course, a book quote. Let's go with Stephen King this month who says quite rightly: "Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - November 2025

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

Scroll down to the picture for the book recos!

Or hang up here and let's open some letters from your fellow readers in our spirit of connection and community.

As always, to send me a letter just hit reply!

Okay, let’s do it:

​Hey Neil, I am looking for book recommendations for a 10 year old for an upcoming birthday for my nieces and nephew. I would like to make it special and something they can take as a life lesson.

Jay

Hey Jay! I suggest ‘​Hatchet​’ (​02/19​), ‘​Alice in Wonderland​’ (​04/19​), ‘​From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler​’ (​02/21​), and any ‘​Calvin&Hobbes​’ (​04/22​) … what else?

Hi Neil,

Thank you for your ​daily awesome​ emails. I can’t believe you hit #1 again. I have given members of my family blank journals and told them to put 1 awesome thing on each page. Because I think it’s important to look for the positive I encourage them to complete the journals by giving them $1000 when it’s finished. My daughter‘s family is working on their second one. There’s a place for bribery. My dad finished his and donated the thousand dollars to his favourite charity. And I really enjoy reading their journals.

Lynn

Whoa! What an idea, Lynn. I have to say … I kind of love it. ​Intrinsic motivation beats extrinsic​, of course, but extrinsic beats ... none! LOL. For the room: What gratitude practices do you use in your family? Any fun or new ideas you’re trying? Please reply and share. (As a sidenote I love the ​little gratitude zines Austin Kleon makes​!)

What else?

Hi Neil,

My name is Dan, and you are a genius in what you do. In the same way that The Beatles made complicated chords turn into memorable catchy tunes, and in the style that Buffet and Munger (and ok Housel) simplified and taught investing for us mortals, you do the same by taking the broad topic of literature and with humility and patience and dedication, simplify and communicate in a style that makes us all better for it.

Too kind, Dan, thank you. To borrow a question from my friend ​Michael Bungay-Stanier​ may I ask ... what is your world?

I am 66 years old and still practice family medicine, and my wife is a teacher-librarian in an elementary school. We live in British Columbia. We were at the game when ​Joe hit the home run​. We didn’t get home until daylight the next morning and I lost my voice for a week! I digress. I’ve been meaning to write you for quite a few years. I love books. —Dan O.

Me too. I love book love. I love book people! I like to highlight my favourite quotes and scrawl little questions in the margins when I read them. Sometimes I even email the author! Sometimes they reply. Sometimes they don’t. I’ve always wanted to be a writer who replies.

What else?

Hi Neil,

I'm currently reading ‘​The Happiness Equation​’ and thought you might be mildly interested in my reaction to your ​"never retire"​ section. I'm 41, left the military after 18 years, and now work in mining (potash). I'm happily married with no kids. My wife works in healthcare. For me work is a duty and a service more than passion. I get satisfaction out of my small part of helping to feed the world and I enjoy the people I work with. But at a certain point my watch will end and someone else will take my place. Based on my wife's family medical history, she is unlikely to be around much past her 70s. Any of us could die tomorrow, but how am I going to feel if I work until the day one of us dies, knowing we could have afforded to spend every day together for years and decided not to just so I would have an alarm clock and could feel I earned my time sitting exhausted on the couch? (My alarm clock starts at 3:45 a.m. and I get home around 6:30 p.m.) I can see you're not specifically talking to us who are bluer in the collar (the meatpacking plant line) though I am curious what meatpacker-types like me are really meant to take from the whole thing, then. For me, when I leave my job it will be to take my wife on adventures around the world. To spend time with my parents and friends. To work on old cars with my dad. I do all of this now, but I would do it all a lot more if I were working less. Pleasant conversations with co-workers and alarm clocks are fine and all. But I'm getting more mental stimulation from figuring out how to get a Nissan Leaf EV drivetrain to run a 1950 Dodge pickup truck than I do at my job. And my relationship with my wife and family is deeper than with the friendly co-workers. I am curious how your never retire message is typically received. Do people become grumpy as I did?

Kalin B

Ha! I love your letter, Kalin. It’s not grumpy! Believe me, if you think that’s grumpy don’t read ​my YouTube comments​! But yeah, looking back, the chapter title “Never Retire” in ‘​The Happiness Equation​’ was probably more provocative than I'd use today. I think the more nuanced thought is that you always need to be doing SOMETHING (fixing cars) with PEOPLE (your wife, friends) so you have PURPOSE (​ikigai​, a reason to get out of bed) ... which … definitely sounds like you have. For some I know retirement has led to the loss of social connection ... structure in their lives ... stimulation and learning ... or, really, any story or purpose ... and I’ve seen that really hurt mental health. That’s where I was writing from. But your plan sounds wonderful and I appreciate your thoughtful reply. Maybe the revised chapter title should be NEVER RETIRE UNLESS YOU FOR SURE ARE GETTING THE 4 S'S ELSEWHERE. (​More on my 4 S’s here.​)

What else?

Neil,

Yesterday we were out for breakfast with a dear friend. I cannot recall how but the Awesome books found their way into our conversation. I mentioned I have them but that I had misplaced ‘​The Book of Awesome​’. Perhaps I lent it or gave it to someone. Anyway, he said he would be right back and … he left the restaurant! He came back with ‘The Book of Awesome’ in his hand. When he sees books he thinks his friends would enjoy, he picks one up. He keeps the books in his car so he has them at hand when he wants to give one away. So, due to his act of kindness, my collection is complete once more. —Elizabeth P

Wow! I love your friend, Elizabeth. What a story! ‘The Book of Awesome’ has had so many lives of its own. From letters like ​the one on this post​ or the ​creation of this song​ or ​people making ice-cream cakes out of it​ to trick-or-treaters telling me at my house this year “We’re doing your book at school!” it’s just … had a life of its own.

Very grateful and thank you for sharing.

Hit reply anytime to send me your letter! Or, if you feel like calling me, just dial up ​1-833-READ-A-LOT​ and leave me a message. (Yes, this is a real phone number.)

And, as I've done for many years, if I use your letter here or on the podcast just email me your address so I can send you ​any book you want signed to anyone you like sent anywhere in the world​ … my pleasure!

Okay!

And now...

Let's get to the books!

Neil

1. ​Mr. Tiger Goes Wild​ by Peter Brown (b.1979). Four years before he wrote 2017’s breakout hit ‘​The Wild Robot​’, Peter Brown wrote and illustrated a wonderful 40-page picture book about a tiger who rejects stiff and uppity society life and suddenly begins walking on all fours, stripping off his tux in the town water fountain, and running through the streets naked. “Peculiar.”, “Wow.”, “Unacceptable!” Mr. Tiger retreats to the forest! But misses his friends. So he throws on a Hawaiian shirt and returns to a town that’s taken inspiration from him and loosened up its prudish ways. The book closes with Mr. Tiger being himself … dressed in his old tux on certain days and streaking through the forest with his friends on others. This is a 5-minute picture book our family has loved for years.

2. ​Have A Good Trip, Mousse!​ by Claire Lebourg (b.1985). Translated from the French by Sophie Lewis. I love this book so much. And it’s a genre I don’t really know? A colorful 60-page book with a couple paragraphs of accessible but longform, literary prose per page telling a short but detailed story with emotional heft. Wow. Genius. Leave it to ​the French​! Mousse is a creature who wants to have a summer vacay at the beach and then goes, gets frustrated, invites a friend (Barnacle, who calls him “Moo-shee”), the friend meets a friend (Felix, someone else at the resort), Mousse gets jealous, Mousse gets to know Felix, and then … they all become friends. A simple tale you can read to kids as young as 3 or 4 but upon a second read offers thoughtful commentary on everything from gender, class, beauty, gratitude, awe, jealousy, mental health, friendship, and happiness … woven in like wind through palms on a sunny day. A delightful 15-minute read for all ages.

3. ​Dune​ by Frank Herbert (1920—1986). Monstrous, mind-expanding, faraway fantasy novel from 1965 told in a series of tight sequences that are simultaneously fast and slow, sharp and soft, detailed and abstract. This book devoured me. Confused me. Captivated me! I’d always heard ‘Dune’ described as a book for kids. Uh … what kind of kids? I’m 46 and found myself scrolling the ​Wikipedia Plot Summary​ a few times to properly piece this puzzle together. But, oh, what a puzzle to piece! The plot isn’t complex but it’s vast and written with a scale that will have your mind stretching far left to far right. This book has everything: cutting dialogue, twisting turns, visceral characters, bloody action, seismic myth. Reading it now and knowing ​Star Wars​ came out a decade later the influence is obvious: Arrakis to Tatooine, Paul Atreides to Luke Skywalker, the Sisterhood to the Jedi and Sith. I mean, maybe ​Joseph Campbell​ underwrote both? Or ​Homer​? Or just human oral tradition for millions of years? Maybe. Either way this is a 794 page feast of a book. And that doesn't even include the 76 pages of Appendices (like “Appendix III: Report on The ​Bene Gesserit​ Motives and Purposes”), 30-page Glossary (titled, quite seriously, “Technology of the Imperium”), and even Cartographic Notes. Sorry, cart-o-graph-ic notes? Yeah, on the very last page we’re finally given a map of the place! LOL. This is the most fun I’ve had reading in a long time. And getting the mass-market paperback edition from my friend ​Doug Miller​ meant I could lug it around in a backpack pretty easily. The book is an endless conversation starter and acts like a kind of nerd magnet. Dune is, of course, the other name of the “desert planet Arrakis” where Duke Atreides, head of one of the four Great Houses, has just been sent (rewarded with or banished to, he wondered) to take over from fearsome Harkonnen House. Duke Atreides is not alone! He brings his military, his advisors, his weapons, his government, his giant bull’s head, his medic, his mentat (some kind of human AI-like helper created after all technology was banned thousands of years ago), and, yes, of course, … cue music slowdown … his family. What family? Two people! His Bene Gesserit wife Jessica (“a witch of the weirding way”) and 15-year-old son Paul, our hero. Who sent the Duke? The Emperor! There has to be an Emperor, of course. Dude isn’t around much but of course I couldn’t help picture Christopher Walken lurking above everything:

That is one problem with reading the book after seeing the movie, of course. Jack Torrance in ​The Shining​ suddenly is Jack Nicholson, Harry Potter suddenly is Daniel Radcliffe, and we get those flattened mutations like Harry Potter’s famously green Lily Potter-inherited eyes turning blue because Radcliffe was allergic to green contact lenses (​seriously!​). I mean, is it a problem? Are we turning our blurry and unique mental images into a flat and homogenous bright-pixeled same? This meme memed for a reason:

Funny! But true? I admit I tell my kids they can't watch Harry Potter movies till they’re done the books. But, then again, I’m starting to see it the other way, too. Maybe the film is a doorway into a broader world that perhaps the book continues to help blossom and expand. Like a duet! Anyway, that’s what reading ‘Dune’ felt like to me! I’d already seen the movie ​Dune​ and ​Dune 2​ and now after finishing this delectable brick I find myself itching to watch them again after, of course, ​combing reddit threads about what’s actually different​. The book can be read as a simple action story but it's really a window into duality, ecology, philosophy, morality, and so much more. From the Reverend Mother (the lady who makes Paul stick his hand into the ​gom jabbar​ in the movie’s opening scene) on Page 48: “A world is supported by four things … the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave.” Or this from Page 104: “Jessica spoke, shattering the moment. ‘Besides, Wellington, the Duke is really two men. One of them I love very much. He’s charming, witty, considerate … tender—everything a woman could desire. But the other man is … cold, callous, demanding, selfish—as harsh and cruel as a winter wind.’” Part of the magic of the book are the endless … chapter epigraphs. Is that what they’re called? Every chapter opens with a thoughtful snippet of lore, gospel, a sentence, sometimes a page long, quoted and cited from … other made-up books … all written by Princess Irulan … a character we have never met … from some undetermined future. It’s a trippy and stunning effect. Reminded me of how Shoshana Zuboff so masterfully weaves an epic W.H. Auden poem through every chunk of ‘​The Age of Surveillance Capitalism​’ (​05/23​). Basically, Frank Herbert is saying: “Not only did I ignore my own life to write about another in great detail … I also wrote a whole bunch of other lives I’m not even going to tell you about except to drop a few crumbs from them to help illuminate this one.” I could understand how his son Brian Herbert writes in the Afterword on Page 869 that “the characters he created in Dune … competed with me for his affections.” Ouch! But, um, yeah. This isn't just another family, it’s another universe. So literary and poetic, too, like on Page 433 when Paul inhales and “sensed the softly cutting contralto smell of sage” and then we follow him seeing a large bird who brings “stillness to the basin so unuttered that the blue-milk moonlight could almost be heard flowing across sentinel saguaro and spiked paintbrush.” Or when Paul receives the ritual coffee service for Jamis, the Freman who he killed, on Page 698, and it’s served in “fluted alloy of silver and jasmium.” Unless you include YA (i.e., ‘​The Hunger Games​’), ‘Dune’ is the ​single best selling science fiction book of all-time​ with over 20 million copies sold. There’s a reason! A timeless epic serving as a mirror to reflect in and upon our big, small, complex, simple, chaotic, predictable world.

4. ​Turning To Birds: The Power and Beauty of Noticing​ by Lili Taylor (b.1967). A meditation in the form of a book this is actress ​Lili Taylor​’s story of falling into birding. The chapters are simple, slow-paced, and earnest, and I found the result to be a soothing bedtime read. Easy to read and largely written for the non-birder except for the later chapters which wade a little deeper into a few species. Pairs well with my recent essay ‘​8 reasons why it’s time to become a birdwatcher.​’

5. ​The Internet Con: How To Seize The Means of Computation​ by Cory Doctorow (b.1971). If you were online back in the 90s you probably read the writing of Internet pioneer and former ​BoingBoing​ co-editor ​Cory Doctorow​. The guy has one of those early blogger brains with the ability to combine a fierce genius together with a salty and accessible tone. Like some kind of grandfather of ​Mark Manson​. He’s passionate! And his fire singes your mind as you read. No wonder the cover blurb from ​Edward Snowden​ calls him “one of the internet’s most interesting writers.” Doctorow opens by pointing out something so obvious that most people miss it: forty years ago we pulled the teeth out of monopoly laws … and so forty years later, after a century of bashing monopolies back into competitive markets, we now have … monopolies again! A few rule a many because, as ​Peter Thiel​ says, “Competition is for losers.” So now a very tiny few exist and rule across “pharmaceuticals, health insurers, appliances, athletic shoes, defense contractors, book publishing, booze, drug stores, office supplies, eyeglasses, LCD glass, glass bottles, vitamin C, car parts, bottle caps, airlines, railroads, mattresses, Lasik lasers, cowboy boots, and candy.” Any issue with that? Yes! Tons! It creates “autocrats of trade, unelected princelings whose unaccountable whims dictate how we live, work, learn, and play. Apple’s moderators decide which apps you can use, and if they decline to list an educational game about sweatshop labor or an app that notifies you when a US drone kills a civilian overseas, well, that’s that.” ​Prophetic​! ​Apropos​! Doctorow grew up on the Internet’s Inside so he’s not just shouting from a soapbox—he's using specific and cited examples tearing the Apples, Googles, and Amazons to shreds. He’s had it with the bigs as much ​Chris Smalls​ but approaches things from a totally different angle. Doctorow coins the next corporate phase “enshittification”—a viral word he invented in a ​2022 blog post​, expanded in a ​2023 Wired feature​, before it became a ​Word of the Year​, and now the subject of a 2025 Goodreads Choice Nominated book for “Best Nonfiction”, along with the requisite cussing poop emoji on the cover:

Tell us, Cory! What is enshittification? What do the big corporates do? “First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.” Soooo … will all of Big Tech just eventually die? Well, yes, that is likely. Eventually. But what about all our stuff? Doctorow explains that switching costs prevent us from actually leaving (say) Instagram even if it’s endless new beeps, bells, alarming notifications, and spammy DMs (say) are making the platform increasingly … enshitty. (Or enpoopy, as he calls it in the polite press.) We still go because all our friends are there! And that’s where the Really Big Idea of the book is presented. Because, lo: There is a solution! And the solution in one single word is: interoperability. Imagine being able to plug and play all the different pieces and parts you actually want to use from Big Tech, in the ways you actually want to use them. This is a tight, fire-breathing screed that, if you can hang on, teaches us “what interoperability is, how interoperability works, how we can get interoperability, and how we can mitigate interoperability’s problems.” I was desperate for both a little less and a little more in this book. The book assumes you have a mind as large and fast as Doctorow’s and I wanted him to slow down and simplify for me. Me slow. But I was also itching for more … Notes, Appendices, a meatier Index, as I kept trying to patch things together my own way. This is the first Cory Doctorow book I’ve read but it doesn’t feel anywhere close to the last. ​Seth Godin told us back in Chapter 3​ that he’s a huge Cory fan. (Check out this ​old post​ on ​Seths.blog​ about sitting next to Cory at a conference!) The voice in this book is irresistible. I went back online and found so many endless gems in his blog like when ​he wrote after moving out of England in 2015​ after living there for years: “London is a city whose two priorities are being a playground for corrupt global elites who turn neighbourhoods into soulless collections of empty safe-deposit boxes in the sky, and encouraging the feckless criminality of the finance industry. These two facts are not unrelated.” LOL. Such an entrancing voice. If you liked books like ‘​Team Human​’ by Douglas Rushkoff (​05/24​), ‘​The Age of Surveillance Capitalism​’ by Shoshana Zuboff (​05/23​), ‘​The Chaos Machine​’ by Max Fisher or ‘​The Attention Merchants​’ by Tim Wu, you will love this book.

6. ​Introducing Teddy: A gentle story about gender and friendship​ by Jessica Walton. Illustrated by Dougal MacPherson. The largest library system in the whole world is the ​Library of Congress​ with over 178 million items. But! The largest public library system in the world, like one you can actually walk into and get something, is the ​Toronto Public Library​. It has over 100 branches and two bookmobiles! I pop into a TPL branch a couple times a month and noticed they have new displays focused on mental health for children and adults:

I found this book there and started flipping. Thomas the Teddy Bear is Errol’s best friend. They play together every day! They “ride their bikes in the backyard … plant vegetables in the garden … have sandwiches for lunch in the treehouse … and have tea parties inside when it’s raining.” But Thomas seems glum. "Why?", asks Errol? “If I tell you you might not be my friend anymore.” Yikes! What is it? Well: “In my heart I’ve always known that I’m a girl teddy, not a boy teddy. I wish my name was Tilly, not Thomas.” This simple tense scene a third of the way through the book leads to Errol ... continuing to love teddy (“What matters is that you are my friend.”), teddy moving his bowtie to a hair clip (check the cover photo!), and Errol's friend Ava coming over and feeling comfortable enough on the swings to let her own hair down. And what are they doing together at the end? Of course they “ride their bikes in the backyard … plant vegetables in the garden … have sandwiches for lunch in the treehouse … and have tea parties inside when it’s raining.” A joyful celebration of acceptance, non-judgment, and inclusion told in a gentle and openhearted way without any finger-wagging.

7. ​All You Can Be With ADHD​ by Penn and Kim Holderness (aka ​The Holderness Family​). Illustrated by Vin Vogel. One of the world’s all-time greatest rhymers has to be Penn Holderness, one half of the Holderness Family, ​who joined us on 3 Books earlier this year​. I absolutely loved Penn and Kim’s book ‘​ADHD Is Awesome​’ (​11/24​) and put it in ​The Very Best Books I Read in 2024​. Now comes the picture book follow-up distilling core messages down to a two-minute read. Now, I admit part of me wishes we’d move past the horribly outdated term “ADHD". We have more and more books saying ADHD is this and ADHD is that but we know that neither D in that acronym is correct! It’s not attention deficit (Penn is one of the best hyperfocusers I know … one of his 3 formative books is ‘Dune’!) and it’s not hyperactivity disorder. Awful name. The better name is VAST or Variable Attention Stimulus Trait. Start using that! The name came from ​Edward Hallowell​ and ​John Ratey​ who wrote the OG book on the condition in ‘​Driven to Distraction​’ back in 1992. Yes, it’s Variable Attention (as in it can go up or down) and it’s a Stimulus Trait (like VASTers need more lemon juice to get the taste of lemon or have a high need for stimulation). But, alas, if the ancient and outdated ADHD flag must fly forward, this is a fine book to fly it. “If your brain’s like ours, then you may be different, you may be fantastic, you may be vociferant”, it invites. “Yes, it can be lonely—I’ve said to myself, ‘Why can’t I be normal like everyone else?’ Sometimes we are squirmy, sometimes forgetful—we interrupt friends, that makes us regretful.” And it’s ultimately affirming: “Your brain is a source of great innovation, you have an amazing imagination. Your brain can be super spontaneous plus! No one’s more creative or funny than us.” Thanks, Penn and Kim, for yet another gift to the increasing numbers of VASTers among us.

8. ​UnBounded​ by Boniface Mwangi (b.1983). This is a powerful and haunting book of photos. I met ​Boniface (“Bonnie”) Mwangi on Twitter​ years ago. He’s got over 2 million followers there and when I walked around Nairobi with him last month it was clear … everybody knows him. Not a single person passed by us without a fist bump, a nod, a smile, or a hug. He is, most definitely, “of the people.” A courageous activist who has been ​jailed for his protests​. And now he has announced that he is running for ​President of Kenya in 2027​ under the slogan “Love and Courage”! In his ​2014 TED Global talk called “The Day I Stood Alone”​ he talks about putting himself out there to rid Kenya of corruption and injustice. This book carries on his photojournalistic work over many years and is a vivid portrait of the humanity and inhumanity in our species today. I got the book personally from Bonnie in Nairobi at ​Nuria Books​ (run by Bulle—pronounced ‘Boo-lay’—the bookseller). Over the past few months Bonnie introduced me to ​Peter Kimani​, the award-winning Kenyan novelist who just joined us on 3 Books (​YT​, ​Apple​, ​Spotify​), and a few others who will be on the show very soon. A graphic, haunting, and eye-opening book which you can pair with my ​2022 longform chat with Bonnie​.

9. There is no nine! Just our regular loot bag of links! I've put ​every awesome thing​ (minus the ones from page-a-day calendars) on one page. May be the longest online page ever! Tomas Pueyo explores the question ​When will we make God​? Bryan Johnson does ​mushrooms​. Authors! Did AI models illegally steal all your books to train their machines? The answer is probably yes. You can get around $3000 per book back via the ​Anthropic copyright settlement​. (Thank you ​Sofi Papamarko​ and ​Tim Kreider​ for sending this to me.) Lindyman argues that ​talent follows incentives​. My friend Ago sent me this great ​Paris Review essay "My Truck Desk"​. Academics agree: ​TikTok is breaking our brains​! Only in Canada: ​A bicycle kick in a blizzard​. Great ​NFL hallway sign at Lambeau​. And, yes, my friends, ​that pan’s clean​!

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - October 2025

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Hey everyone,

The Blue Jays are in the World Series!

I'm in Cape Cod and have a talk here in a couple hours before racing home to catch Game 2. When I'm traveling I listen to the games on the ​free stream from Toronto AM radio The Fan 590 w/ Ben and Chris​ which I recommend. I love baseball on the radio.

I was 13 when the Blue Jays last made the World Series and I’m 46 today … so it’s been a while.

Baseball fever up here right now!

Let's get to the books...

Neil​

1. ​The Kid’s World Almanac of Baseball​ by Thomas G. Aylesworth (1927—1995). Introduction by Orel Hershiser (b.1958). “Hey Orel,” Tommy Aylesworth said to the longtime Los Angeles Dodgers ace over a beer one night. “What say you write the Intro and then we throw you and ​Straw​ on the cover pasted over the ​Babe​?” Now, I'm not saying that happened, but I pictured something like that sitting in ​the passenger seat​ of our Chevrolet Cavalier on the way home from Coles Bookstore in the Five Points Mall in ​Oshawa, Ontario​ in 1990. Shoutout to mall bookstores! (QT is a ​big fan​, too!)

I spent so many nights paging through its endless pages of stats, trivia, quotes, lore, and stories. And I loved Orel Hershiser’s Introduction! He was absolutely one of the biggest players in the game at the time after going 22-9 in 1988 with a ​still-existing record-setting 59 consecutive scoreless innings​ which came via (get this!) six ... complete game ... shutouts ... in a row ... in August and September. Wild. Those games thrust the ​Tommy Lasorda​-led team to the World Series where with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of Game 1 you may remember the former Linebacker with two very wobbly knees ​Kirk Gibson steps up to the plate and after a dramatic at-bat worked up into a 3-2 count he launches ​​a game-winning pinch-hit 2-run homer to win the game off the Dennis Eckersley and the heavily favored A's.​ It's seriously worth clicking the long, blue link in the last sentence and just watching the moment. Now, we still, I think, call that the third most famous World Series homer of all time after ​Joe Carter in 1993​ and ​Bill Mazeroski in 1960​—both World Series winning walk-offs. Anyway, I could keep going. You could keep going. We could keep going. That's baseball. One of those sports where the longer you look the more you see. This is the book that helped me see it. It's an Almanac! In the old sense of almanac—one person's voice, personality, and idiosyncrasies, all rolled up into their own grand compendium of everything. It's a wonderful book. And it opens right away by challenging us! Who invented baseball? ​Abner Doubleday​ in Cooperstown, right? No! 5000 years ago Egyptians were using swinging bats to promote crop fertility and balls were added as a way to worship the sun. Crop fertility and sun worship!? No wonder many of us feel baseball in our core. Then those conquering ​Moors​ in eighth century A.D. brought the evolving game to Europe and in the 1700s the Brits—the Brits!—turned it into “​rounders.​” In fact the first time “Base ball” was ever in print was 1744 in the ​world’s first picture book​ by British publisher ​John Newbery​ (of ​Newbery Medal​ fame!) who described it like this:

How cool would it be if they still played in tights and tails like that? Now, of course, some stuff is out of date. Page 29 says “Most Home Runs in a Single Season” is held by ​Roger Maris​ (61, which is now ​#8​) and “Most Career Stolen Bases” is held by ​Lou Brock​ (938, which is now ​#2​). But many stats stand the test of time like ​Cy Young​’s 511 wins or (indeed) ​Orel​’s 59 straight scoreless innings. I love the arcane stuff like “Best Relief Appearance” which tells the story of ​Ernie Shore​ relieving ​Babe Ruth​ in the first inning of a 1917 Red Sox game after the Babe let up a hit to one guy. Then that guy was caught stealing and Shore retired the next 26 in a row! Or how about “The Language of Baseball” section which tells us how the word “bullpen” came from the famous ​Bull Durham tobacco ads​ painted on outfield walls, how “​farm teams​” are called that because minor league teams were always be in small farming communities, and how “southpaw” for lefty pitchers comes from the fact that ballparks were built with home plate on the west so hitters didn’t have to glare into the setting afternoon sun … hence a pitcher’s left arm was facing south as he stood facing the hitter. From the opening dedication (“…to Wrigley Field before the lights were installed.”) to the final “Science” section (“What is the purpose of a slide?”, “How does a curve ball work?”) this book expands and deepens a love for the game. The book is long out of print but I notice there are still a couple handfuls of copies left (as of this writing) on ​AbeBooks​, ​ThriftBooks​, ​eBay​, and (perhaps) ​Amazon.

2. ​The Old Man And The Sea​ by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). Read this book because it is good, but more importantly, it is short. My copy is 127 pages, 11 point font, 1-inch margins, 1.5 spacing. Fast read! A perfect book to add to our ​Great Books Under 150 Pages list​ and help us with our ​2 pages a night challenge.​ I first read it five or six years ago on the suggestion of ​Jonathan Fields​ (​Goodlife Project​), who picked it as one of his 3 most formative books along with ‘​Mindset​’ by Carol Dweck (​03/18​) and ‘​When Breath Becomes Air​’ by Paul Kalanithi. This month I reread it out loud to my 11-year old before bed. It hit different this time. I could feel my son developing a stronger relationship with pacing as his curiosity slowly and slowly piqued. I felt the book helped me slow down my algorithm-addled daytime brain before bed, too. More than a few times my kid nudged me because I had just stopped reading, staring at the book, my eyes fully open, fast asleep. Here it is from ​the library​—or you can get it at ​The Strand​ (or your ​local indie!​), ​Libro​, ​Indigo​, ​B&N​, ​Audible​, or ​Amazon​.

3. ​The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life​ by Morgan Housel (b.1988). You know that scene in ‘​Stand By Me​’ with ​Lardass at the pie contest​?

I was Lardass reading this book. I was barely breathing! It was so good. I couldn’t stop. Once in a while I’d pop up for air—

—and when I did my face was covered in words. I’d just highlighted most of the last few pages, yet again. By the end of this book I had five pages of notes written all through the inside jacket and title and copyright pages, burned through a highlighter, and was left with so many questions, wonderful lines, provocative quotes, and endless tunnels I now want to dig into separately. Morgan Housel is some kind of young ​Warren Buffet​. “He lives in the same house in Omaha,” they always said of Warren. “He lives in the same house in Seattle,” I feel like they’re going to say about this guy. I notice he even has the same kind of ​1-page website​ as ​Berkshire Hathaway​. In the opening pages Morgan tells us how this book differs from his 10-million-copy bestseller ‘​The Psychology of Money​’: “If The Psychology of Money taught us how to earn freedom, this book is about how to make the most of it.” So it's for rich people? I guess that's one shot against the book. But, then again, the majority of lessons here aren't income-specific. And he does remind us in general that if you’re reading a book about money there’s a chance you have the bug. I would say it's for people who have the bug—or at least some of it. Paraphrasing a 1907 book called '​The Quest Of The Simple Life​' he cites the author showing that “those who were trying to get more money were actually held captive by it” and that “money could buy them everything except the ability to not be obsessed with money, which led to constant anxiety, which led to unhappiness.” So watch out, all of us! We live in the most materialist society we’ve ever lived in and social media endlessly reflects back to us how much worse our lives are than everybody else’s. But if you’re expecting clean advice, clear to-dos, or a bulleted list of 7 habits, you’ll be disappointed. This is a Wisdom book—slipping into that non-existent bookstore category somewhere between Self-Help and Business. Morgan reminds us that “all behavior makes sense with enough information” and this book adds up to information—lenses, really—that you can apply to your life to live life much richer. On Page 15 he tells us “You think you want nice stuff but what you really want is respect, admiration, and attention.” On Page 23 he shares that “…the things that make me happy with a higher income are the same things that made me happy with a much lower income: spending time with my family, doing things outdoors, a long chat with a friend. If flying first-class to a five-star resort and building sandcastles on the beach with my kids is a 10, playing LEGOs with my kids on the living room floor of a small apartment was still a solid 8 or 9.” He quotes Buffett saying “When you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.” Love that! A powerful chapter called “What You Don’t See” begins with the line “Happiness depends on so much more than income. There are thirteen divorces amongst the ten richest men in the world.” And then, as he does, in one of his many magical ​Sivers-esque​ stories, quote, and metaphor distillations is he lands his backflip on the gym mat with “The best measure of wealth is what you have minus what you want.” (Page 35). My favorite chapter was probably “Your Money and Your Kids” where he starts by telling us a couple memorable stories from ​John D. Rockefeller​ and ​Charlie Munger​ and says parents with money have the option to “ruin their [kids'] ambition with inheritance or risk some form of strife by denying them an easy life.” LOL. He then shares a snip of a letter he wrote to his own kids “This may sound harsh, but I hope you’re poor at some point … there’s no way to learn the value of money without feeling the power of its scarcity” and shares that “When they’re older, I want to use my money to be a last-resort safety net for my kids, but never as a fuel. So much of success in life is learning how to fail without failing so hard you can’t recover. I want to prevent collapse. But I never want to use money as a crutch for my kids to avoid learning—on their own—the values of hard work, dignity, and managing failure.” This ultimately adds up to a wonderful collection of insights to provoke, shift, and expand your thinking about how to maximize the quality of your life through the quality of your financial decisions. A really incredible book.

4. ​Ernest Hemingway on Writing​. Edited by Larry W. Phillips. It’s weird to me which writing books are famous and which ones aren’t. ‘​On Writing​’ by Stephen King (​04/18​), ‘​Bird by Bird​’ by Anne Lammott? Famous, famous, justifiably famous. Amazing books! But then there are writing books equally as good that aren’t as popular. Like ‘​A Swim In A Pond In The Rain​’ by George Saunders (​06/21​), ‘​Zen In the Art of Writing​’ by Ray Bradbury (​07/18​), or, yes, this book. One issue! Hemingway didn’t write it. Sort of did, sort of didn’t. In his life Hemingway didn’t write any books on writing. Said he never would, said it takes away “whatever butterflies have on their wings and the arrangement of hawk’s feathers if you show it or talk about it.” Fair point, Ern! Only issue: You forgot about the literary paparazzi. Book nerds fishing through back-alley dumpsters. Well, I am grateful for dumpster-fisher Larry W. Phillips, who chased down Hemingway’s interview transcripts, letters to friends, letters to critics, letters to editors, and, of course, quotes from careful readings of his novels, and he put it all together into this wow-stack of writing insights. The craft! The habits! The doubts! The life. On confidence and artistic ownership from a letter to an editor in 1925 around age 25: “As the contract only mentions excisions it is understood of course that no alterations of words shall be made without my approval. This protects you as much as it does me as the stories are written so tight and so hard that the alteration of a word can throw an entire story out of key.” From around the same time on style we get this via a letter to a friend: “What I’ve been doing is trying to do country so you don’t remember the words after your read it but actually have the Country. It is hard because to do it you have to see the country all complete all the time you write and not just have a romantic feeling about it.” On his famously tight, hardboiled manner of prose we get this from a 1945 letter: “It wasn’t by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.” And we get so much specific writing advice. Like this pearl from a 1932 letter to a friend: “Remember to get the weather in your god damned book—weather is very important.” Because it was culled from letters this book gets around writing in a way most writing books don’t. It’s Hemingway’s take on the craft, yeah, but also the business, the doubts, the habits, the routines. There’s so much space in this book. A solar system of thoughts and ideas to inspire you to get back to the page. It might not turn you into Hemingway but it will certainly add fuel to your fire for the craft.

5. ​Hello, Friends! Stories From My Life and Blue Jays Baseball​ by Jerry Howarth (b.1946). Do you remember when fax machines were … this new and revolutionary thing? You could write whatever you wanted on a piece of paper and send it around the world! I was around ten when ​Blue Jays​ radio announcers ​Tom Cheek​ (RIP) and ​Jerry Howarth​ announced a new feature on their radio broadcasts called something like “The Hewlett Packard Fax of the Game!” They invited fans to fax them questions, picked one to read on the air, and then if you were chosen you won some prize. I can't remember the prize but I remember being disappointed it wasn't a fax machine. Anyway, since I listened to Tom and Jerry for most games on ​CJCL 1430 AM​ while also watching lots of TV with ​Don Chevrier​, ​Fergie Olver​, and ol' ​Buck Martinez​ I decided to go ahead and fax a question. And it was read on the air! By ​Jerry​ himself! Probably because they only got three total or something. But, anyway, I still remember my question. Something like: “If a pitcher is called up from the minors and throws 1 pitch and allows a home run what is their ERA?” Because I knew ERA was earned runs allowed divided by innings pitched and innings pitched was calculated in thirds based on number of outs so ... technically their ERA would be ... undefined? I think Jerry said it was infinity, though. Or that some people put 27.00 in as a placeholder. Even the Internet feels unclear about this today. Many years later I ​sat down with Jerry Howarth​ in the ​Skydome​ during a Blue Jays batting practice and asked him about his 3 formative books as well as his memoir. Jerry famously began every broadcast with the phrase “Hello, friends!” and when you listened to the game you felt like you were sharing space with a big-hearted community. As Jerry writes: “Every game, I took a fresh white canvas in my mind and artistically painted it to the best of my ability for our audience. Then at the end of the broadcast, I would initial it in the lower right-hand corner and look forward to painting another blank canvas the next day.” The book is filled with Jerryisms like “Umpires are required to start from a state of perfection and then they are asked to improve” and mentions his famous home run call “There she goes!” He called 36 straight years of Blue Jays games from 1982 to 2018 and did so with energy, optimism, and love. As an example: he got a letter in 1992 from a fan who explained why he found the name “​Cleveland Indians​” as well as related indigenous terms and phrases—“the ​Tomahawk chop​”, “​powwow​ on the mound”, etc—derogatory ... and then you know what Jerry did? Without any announcements or fanfare? Without telling anybody? He just quietly stopped using them. He'd say "Cleveland" but that's it. It was subtle, but a form of quiet activism that preceded the team name change by 29 years! Jerry is one of my biggest inspirations for ​3 Books​. His community-creating on Jays games—reading letters, referring to listeners by name like old friends—is part of the inspiration for our Cover to Cover Club, End of the Podcast Club, and the super-secret entirely-through-the-mail analog fan club that we have for 3 Bookers ​on the podcast​. (Btw, if you're in the analog secret club you just received a reading light from me in the mail! You have to listen to the podcast for clues on how to join... ) This is a great book if you want to go down memory lane with Jerry.

6. ​Carbon: The Book of Life​ by Paul Hawken (b.1946). First up, ignore the title. Ignore the title of this book! I think it could easily have been called “One Of The Wisest Elders On Planet Earth Tells Us Everything He Knows About This Place And Our Relationship With It.” That’s what it felt like to me. I loved this book and I think you will, too. I first 'met' Paul Hawken via his ​2009 University of Portland commencement speech​. The title of the speech was “You Are Brilliant And The Earth Is Hiring” and I was blown away by his ​Feyman​-like ability to distill complex truths down to their simplest innards. Like how he puts his thesis within fifteen seconds of that speech's opening: “Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.” Everything Paul says is written in disarmingly simple prose—tenth grade essay in September styles—but then, upon inspection, it's not. Tricked you! Hiding under his words are so much wisdom from a huge mind and heart. This is an “enormously hopeful book”, according to ​Elizabeth Kolbert​ (‘​The Sixth Extinction​’). And, I guess yeahhhhh, Liz, I hear you. If you can see it that way—which is really, really hard to do—then I guess you could say it's hopeful? But that’s a tough place to land when every single living system on earth is declining. Birds? Declining! Clean water? Clean air? Healthy soil? You know the answers. We all do. That’s why it’s hard. But I believe a big part of things is understanding. We don’t know what’s going on so we don’t know how to talk about it so we don’t know what to do. Enter P-Hawk, master illuminator. First he clarifies the state of things on Page 3: “Earth’s climate is not breaking down as some would have it”—phew, thanks P-Hawk, Earth’s gonna be fine guys, relax!—“However, it is changing faster than humans can adapt.” Oh shit! Vintage Hawken. You think this? You’re close! But it's really that. From Page 5: “In all of Earth’s multibillion-year history, that which did not work, that which did not serve life, was discarded.” We won’t be discarded. Our kids won’t be discarded. But their kids’ kids’ kids? Could be a tough go! But we can change things. We will change things! ​We are changing things​. But we have to go back to go forward. On Page 8 Paul tells us how we got here: “Western science became the dominant basis for classifying the living world in the Age of Enlightenment. Plants were things, forests were cellulose, fungi were food, soil was dirt, animals had no feelings, and nature was there to be extracted, commodified, and sold. It was a profound failure of imagination and perception.” Every chapter here begins with a little epigraph like Chapter 2 “Elements” which begins with ​Werner Heisenberg​ (“Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.”) or Chapter 12 “Primevel” with ​Mary Oliver​ (“For me, the door to the woods is the door to the temple.”). Paul tells us that “Life-giving communities are smaller, submerged, and unnoticed by mega-institutions” (Page 6), he re-tethers us to ancient wisdom and zooms us out to our micro-time with mind-expanding paragraphs like this: “Compared to Western cosmologies, ancient teachings propose unimaginable time scales wherein the universe expands and contracts repeatedly during millions of maha kalpas. The mythical duration of a maha kalpas is how long it would take for a mountain three times higher than Everest to be worn down to dust by a dove flying above and rubbing a silk cloth over the peak every 100 years, approximately 311 trillion years.” (Page 22). And he points us to simple truths that are right in front of us but which are hard to see like: “There are an estimated three hundred thousand edible plants, but less than two hundred are commonly used by humans … Today, twelve plants and five animals provide 75 percent of the human diet.” (Page 48). One provocative point he mentions near the end of the book on Page 190 is that “Einstein famously said that the most essential question for humanity is whether the universe is friendly or not.” That has been rolling around my head like a marble since. It feels like the wisdom of our species speaks to us through this book and I loved it and I felt it and I needed it. A gorgeous book from a sage of sages.

7. ​Fun and Games​ by Dave Perkins (b.1953). I grew up walking barefoot onto my freezing suburban concrete porch every morning to gather our rolled up copy of ​The Toronto Star​ with its skinny blue rubber band belted around its inky torso. I’d slide that rubber band up the paper on my walk to the kitchen—with that unique rubber band on pulpy newsprint sound—and then crease open the paper on our small kitchen table while my mum ​made scrambled eggs​ and my dad peeled ​badams​ that he’d soaked in water in an old yogurt container the night before. I’d pull out the Sports section, skip the Game Summary (I’d already listened or watched), and jump to the daily Opinion piece by Dave Perkins. I loved Dave Perkins. I missed him when he was on vacation! Dave had the trust of the players, of the team, and he got us places beyond the game that we can’t reach even now in our ​Panopticon​ culture. An example of this comes on Page 47 when Dave is telling ​Jesse Barfield​ how ​Lou Gehrig​ made $33,000 in his best year and Jesse “…chuckled and put it into his own personal focus: ‘How good could he have been if he didn’t make no cake?’” Dave has a ​Susan Orlean​-like ability to masterfully pull you into short essays with a great opening riff. Like in his Introduction to the whole book, which was published in 2016 after his 2013 retirement, goes like this: “The gentleman said right up front that he didn’t wish me to die, at least not any time soon. What he hoped for, he said, was that my children got rectal cancer and died, painfully, in front of me. That would serve me right, he was implying, for saying something he did not appreciate about his favourite hockey team.” LOL! I love ​actual newspapers​. I still do! And the current best Blue Jays columnist is ​Cathal Kelly​ who jumped from The Toronto Star to The Globe and Mail and wrote a wonderful memoir called ​Boy Wonders​ (​04/20​). While I kind of wish this book was just a big packet of Dave’s best columns it is the next best thing: sharing space with a voice who deeply knows sports and how to tell stories that pull you deeper into the games.

8. ​1-Page Pamphlet: ‘Concussion Treatment & Rehabilitation’​ by 360 Concussion Care. And now it’s time for this month’s ​Leslie’s Pick​. But… there is no Leslie’s Pick this month. No book, anyway. But a pamphlet! Why? Poor Les was whipping around the kitchen when she walked straight into a cupboard door—like one of those thick 3-foot wide IKEA ones that sticks out sideways like an old garage door. Bam! She fell to the ground with a scream and burst into tears. Our youngest kids were at school and I was in Dallas. My 11-year-old was home and he ran over and put his hand on her back. “Are you okay, mom, are you okay?” Through tears she assured him she was, she was honey, she just needs a minute. I cry as I write this. I feel so bad I wasn’t there. But then, you know, it’s Les. She’s made of steel. (“Good stock”, as ​Bess Kalb​ would say.) She gets back up and five or ten minutes later and feels totally fine. Hudson ​takes off on his bike​, she whips off to school … she texts me about it an hour later. She didn't think she had a concussion! She went about her day. You're supposed to lay off screens, lie down, take things easy. Next day she realized she was having trouble concentrating, had a bad headache, and was super sensitive to light and sound. Then she saw the ER doc who said “Yup, you have a concussion” and suggested she reduce screens, get a 20 minute walk outside once a day, and try to cognitively go till her edge … then pull back. We ordered the earplugs that her multiple-time-concussed-fellow-busy-mom-and-teacher aunt suggested (​these ones​!) A trusted health professional told her to jack Vitamin D and omegas. And so she’s been resting (hard for her) and some friends have brought by teas and soups and kindness. One thing that she’s posted on the wall of our home is this little printout from a concussion clinic. (​Here it is online​.) The idea in these 3 little graphs is that “‘Doing too much’ or ‘pushing through’ can make your symptoms worsen and take many hours or days to recover from.” (Current Activity Pattern) and that the goal should be “with planning and pacing to engage in activities for longer without new or worsening symptoms” (Target Activity Pattern) with the eventual plan to “remain below the symptom threshold and stop activities before entering the red zone” (Long Term Activity Goal). Life, as ever, so unpredictable. One day at a time for now.

9. ​Life According to Vincent: 150 Inspiring Quotes​ by Vincent Van Gogh (1853—1890). I got to touch one of my idols years ago: after becoming infatuated with the writing of ​David Mitchell​ (‘​Cloud Atlas​’) I interviewed him for 3 Books. Through his publicist I got an email with 4 formative books from him in advance so we had to cull one from the set to fit my obtrusively-rigid format. So before I hit ‘record’ I got to listen to David’s quick but thoughtful reflection on each book and we ended up going with ‘​The Wizard of Earthsea​’ by Ursula K. Le Guin (​08/20​), ‘​The Duel​’ by Anton Chekhov (​06/20​), and ‘​The Reason I Jump​’ by Naoki Higashida (​01/17​), thereby narrowly leaving ‘​The Letters of Vincent van Gogh​’ on the shelf. I heard David’s sigh as he left it off.

Clearly this was a book of emotional weight and significance! I had already bought the book, flipped through it a bit, but it was massive. The guy wrote almost a thousand letters in his short 37 years … including 650 alone to his brother! So I was thrilled to discover in Amsterdam last month at the ​Van Gogh Museum​ this shorter collection of literary gems culled thoughtfully from his letters. His skill with words equalled his skill with brush. He knew it was just as tough! From Page 32: “There are so many people […] who imagine that words are nothing. On the contrary, don’t you think, it’s as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint a thing. There’s the art of lines and colours, but there’s the art of words that will last just the same.” From Page 48: “Always continue walking a lot and loving nature, for that’s the real way to learn to understand art better and better.” There is inspiration: “I keep on making what I can’t do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.” (Page 81). There is mental health: “I well knew that one could break one’s arms and legs before, and that then afterwards that could get better but I didn’t know that one could break one’s brain and that afterwards that got better too.” (Page 98). And: “Every day I take the remedy that the incomparable Dickens prescribes against suicide. It consists of a glass of wine, a piece of bread and cheese and a pipe of tobacco.” (Page 100). And: “The best consolation, if not the only remedy, is, it still seems to me, profound friendships, even if these have the disadvantage of anchoring us in life more solidly than may appear desirable to us in the days of great suffering.” (Page 112). There are endless beautiful sentences like from Page 56: “How much good it does a person if one is in a gloomy mood to walk on the empty beach and look into the grey-green sea with the long white lines of the waves.” To feel the genius of Van Gogh (pronounced “van-guhh”, with a nasally-phlegmatic final syllable) through a different valance, one with equal depth, nuance, and complexity, rendered down to simple and striking lines, offers deep illumination to his art and many ideas on living an intentional life full of artistic temerity and strength. From Page 53: “I’d almost believe that these canvases will tell you what I can’t say in words, what I consider health and fortifying about the countryside.”

The painting above was painted just a few weeks before he shot himself in the chest with a revolver (which, btw, he only died from in the inn he was staying at a few days later, smiling with a group of family and friends, still smoking and drinking, and assuring everybody he was of sound mind and did this because he wanted to—“My body is mine and I am free to do with it as I wish”). Who knows the full story? Maybe we’ll never know. But when people around his bedside said they would still try to save his life he replied “Then I will have to do it again.”

Thank you, Vincent, who died poor, with no partner, with no children, but with one dear brother (who died six months later at age 33) and a brand new nephew—which inspired his Almond Blossom above—who three-quarters of century later would donate all of Van Gogh’s art to the foundation and museum that now bears his name … and which created this wonderful book. One tip: If you’re going to Amsterdam ​buy tickets before you go​—it sells out every day—and pick an early morning or late night slot so you can enjoy the museum when it’s a bit quieter. And pay the €3.75 for the audio tour! (​Museum here​, ​Museum Gift shop here​, ​get the book here​.) From Page 99: “Possible that these great geniuses are no more than crazies, and that to have faith and boundless admiration for them you’d have to be a crazy too. That may well be—I would prefer my madness to other people’s wisdom.”

10. There is no ten! Just our regular loot bag of links! Erik Barker tells us ​how to avoid being scammed​. An ​old pick-up truck becoming a travelling Banned Books store​. ​Lindyman​ argues we're going back to ​oral tradition​. ​George Saunders​ once again examines ​a tough question​ in a way nobody else can and announces ​his new novel​! ​Marc Maron finishes WTF with Barack Obama​ and talks about the need for human connection and reasons for optimism in the face of challenging times. A new YouGov study looks at exactly​ how positive and negative various descriptions are seen as being​. ​Cell-phone bans​ at schools ​lead to more reading​! ​Do you need some cope​? James Clear reminds us about the ​big habits​ and ​Adam Grant​ reminds us what ​AI chatbots can't do.​

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - September 2025

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Hey everyone,

Hello from Nairobi!

I landed here last night excited to podcast with award-winning Kenyan novelist Peter Kimani and finally see the country my mum is from. (I share more on my mum's story in ​my book on resilience​.)

It's been a great month! I turned 46 and published my fourth annual list of ​completely unsolicited birthday advice​. Also dropped a fresh chapter of ​3 Books​ with novelist and olive-oil-maker ​Robin Sloan​.

Last week I spoke to 8000 people in beautiful ​Bucharest​ and ​Amsterdam​ and got to share a stage with luminaries like former Finland PM Sanna Marin and Simon Sinek. (Also saw some ​new birds​ in an ​abandoned concrete lake​ built by the Romanian dictator before the 1989 revolution!) Big thanks to those who said hello and are joining us here for the first time.

Oh, one more thing! 17 years and more than 3000 (!) awesome things later we are once again closing in on #1. (​Full list here!​) I started posting one awesome thing every night at midnight when ​my marriage was falling apart​ ... and I still am! Over 100,000 people read the daily awesome thing and if you'd like it in your inbox when the clock strikes midnight ​sign up here.​

All righty.

Few updates from the awesomeverse and now ... time for the books!

Neil​

1. ​The World’s Cheapest Destination: 26 Countries Where Your Travel Money Is Worth A Fortune​ by Tim Leffel (b. 1964). I noticed the other day on Twitter that ​Ramit Sethi​ (host of ​“How To Get Rich” on Netflix​) posted this question he saw on Reddit:

Ramit said it was a great question. I agree! Because people telling you about their trips always sounds so expensive. That's where this life-changing perspective shift from plainspoken and accessible everyman Tim Leffel comes in. Tim writes the 22-year-running (!) ​‘World’s Cheapest Destinations’​ blog and in this book we have his well-written travel guides to 26 countries you maybe haven’t thought about visiting. Kyrgyzstan, Albania, Laos, oh my! He shows how to avoid the cultural homogenization amidst Starbucks-overrun hotspots and how to do so safely and cheaply. Last week I was in Romania—which I absolutely loved! highly recommend!—and flipped to Page 188 where Tim wrote: “It doesn’t get written up a lot as a ‘hot new destination’ and it lacks the kind of iconic bucket list attractions you see in your weekly Instagram feed from other parts of Europe, but Romania has a lot for budget travellers to like.” I got good restaurant and sightseeing recommendations and a nice feel for culture and costs. Each 8-10 page country writeup has an overview that feels like you’re talking to a friend over a beer and then splits into sub-categories like “Transportation”, “Accommodation”, “Food&Drink”, and “What Else.” (A couple sample “What Else”s from Kyrgyzstan on Page 91 are “The sightseeing options are rather limited in Bishkek unless you love Soviet monuments that glorify dictators and the happy muscular workers toiling away at the state-run factories and mines” and “What can you get for a buck or less: a large beer in a store, four loaves of bread, two kilos of fruits or vegetables, three iced teas on the street, two ice cream cones, 200 grams of local candy, a litre of petrol, a hearty bowl of stew, a plate of dumplings, a short taxi ride, three city bus rides.”) Tim has visited all the countries and the fact that this self-published masterpiece is in its 5th edition says a lot. Of course, the underpinning of the book is “It’s Not How You Go, but Where!” and Tim explains that “A taxi ride from the airport to the center of town is around $10 in Quito or Mexico City, but can hit $120 in Milan and $180 in Tokyo” with the takeaway that the secret is to “go where your first world dollars are worth a fortune.” He addresses the common “Isn’t it really dangerous there?” question by comparing crime rates in the US and England to countries he profiles (uh, guess what's worse!) as well as offering thoughtful guidance around avoiding border towns and how it’s “better to look a bit grubby rather than filthy rich.” If you feel like life is expensive, if you feel like you can’t afford to travel, if you feel like you want to live large or get out of dodge without breaking the bank, then grab this book and watch as it pays for itself again and again.

2. ​The 101 Dalmatians​ by Dodie Smith (1896-1990). This book is a gem! Everybody knows ‘101 Dalmatians’ was a ​Disney movie​ but not many know it was originally serialized in ​‘Woman’s Day’​ magazine in the mid-1950s as ‘The Great Dog Robbery’ from English playwright ​Dodie Smith​. I sure didn't! The story is fun, fast-paced, literary, and serves as a great reading intermezzo if (like me) you feel bogged down by whatever’s on your bedside table and just want something quick and snappy. Reading nitro! Good to inject a bit of that on the ol' page-flipping engine. The book is fun. And realistic! Like check out this drawing of Cruella de Vil from page 18:

Scary, right? Turns out Cruella is an old classmate of Dalmatian couple Pongo and Missis’s pets (owners) and, of course, comes for dinner where she actually says out loud “Wouldn’t they make enchanting fur coats?” before, you know it, nabbing their puppies. That kicks off an adventurous chase across the country full of twists and turns and delightful characters. The book is literary! Full of cars with “strident” motor horns and apartments “seething” with Dalmatians. And adult emotions fold into the story, too. Like on Page 62: “Missis thumped her tail with joy—and with relief. For there had been moments when she had felt—not jealous, exactly, but just a bit wistful about Pongo’s affection for Perdita.” Or from Page 66 while on their chase: “‘You are a beautiful dog, Missis,’ said Pongo. ‘I am proud of you.’ / At this, Missis looked even more beautiful and Pongo even prouder of her. After a minute or so, he said, ‘Do you think I’m looking pretty fit?’ / Missis told him he looked magnificent, and wished she had said so without being asked. He was not a vain dog, but every husband likes to know that his wife admires him.” Ha! Nailed it, Dodie. Sure, the ending goes on a bit too long—got to satisfy that ‘Women's Day’ contract!—but, doesn't matter. Absolutely wonderful 70-year-old story to read to your kids or enjoy yourself. No book guilt, no book shame, ​as ever​!

3. ​Dance of the Jakaranda​ by Peter Kimani (b.1971). So my mum was born right here in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950 and I came to realize recently I’ve read no novels from the country. The continent, really! Now I did just finish and enjoy ‘​Weep Not, Child​’ by Ngũgĩ wa Thing’o (​08/2025​) and this month I fell into this evocative and plot-twisting 2017 award-winning historical fiction novel from Peter Kimani. The book opens in 1901 as the natives see the railroad cross the country for the first time—“a monstrous, snakelike creature whose black head, erect like a cobra’s, pulled rusty brown boxes and slithered down the savanna, coughing spasmodically as it emitted blue-black smoke.” What a visual! Peter Kimani is a professor at Aga Khan University in Nairobi and got his PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Houston after spending time at the University of Iowa. This book folds stories of three men—Reverend Richard Turnbull, Scottish engineer Ian McDonald, and Indian clerk Babu Salim—into a contemporary tale of Babu’s grandson generations later. The plot skips forwards and backwards which makes it a merry-go-roundy reading experience but sometimes it’s good to be in the company of a book that makes you dizzy. Because, regardless, you're there. And in this case you're amongst the dazzling sights and sounds of pre- and post-colonial Kenya which is just a fascinating place to be. I'm excited to sit down with Peter and our chat should drop on the ​Beaver Moon​!

4. ​The Diary of a Young Girl​ by Anne Frank (1929-1945). How do we see the human side of war? We don’t! We typically don’t. We flip past photos of buildings on fire or lineups of people pawing for aid on the streets and might feel some pain or human connection from great distance ... but we don’t get into hearts and minds. How can we? I don't know. I don't. Maybe poetry is one way? Good journalism. Dispatches! But, honestly, nothing beats a book. And especially … a diary. There is a guilty voyeuristic feeling of being inside a place—a mind—that wasn’t shared with even the others who were there at the time. Knowing I was going to be in Amsterdam last week I booked a visit to the ​Anne Frank House​ (highly recommend) and to get ready I read this fascinating time capsule of the inner life of precocious Anne as she goes into hiding and documents her life from the “Secret Annexe.” Her father was running a pectin factory in Amsterdam and behind a bookshelf in the factory was a series of rooms where Anne, her older sister, her parents, and her father’s business partner’s family hid ... for two years. The entries begin June 14, 1942 a couple days after receiving the diary for her 12th birthday (“We’re going to be great pals!”) and run till August 1, 1944 (“… if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks it’s a new comedy and then I have to get out of it by turning it into a joke, not to mention my own family, who are sure to think I’m ill, make me swallow pills for headaches and nerves, feel my neck and my head to see whether I’m running a temperature, ask if I’m constipated and criticize me for being in a bad mood.”) There is an invisible darkness in the pages but also lightness, triviality, natural emotional highs and lows, and it all adds up to a feeling of human connection and familiarity. Four days after the last entry the family was found and it’s said Anne died in a concentration camp in Germany in early 1945. What happens in the middle? Anne navigates a new life, misses fresh air, develops feelings for the boy she’s living with, feels like her mother doesn’t understand her, and confesses endlessly small and big thoughts through the minutiae that add up to a life. October 29, 1943: “… it is especially on Sundays that I feel rotten. The atmosphere is so oppressive, and sleepy and heavy as lead.” February 12, 1944: “The sun is shining, the sky is a deep blue, there is a lovely breeze, and I’m longing—so longing—for everything. To talk, for freedom, for friends, to be alone.” This book is a reminder to be grateful for freedoms we still have, a warning of pains and perils on the path if we lose them, and an inspiring connection to a fellow human, a beautiful human, across space and time.

5. ​The Lion Women of Tehran​ by Marjan Kamali (b. 1971). And now it’s time for this month’s Leslie’s Pick! (​A full list of Leslie’s Picks are here.​) Over to you, Les: “Gifted to me by one of my lifelong friends and, as a result, made all the more moving, this tale of lifelong friendships between two Iranian women speaks to the inevitable joys and hardships we face—both individually and as friends. Relatable in its exploration of insecurity, envy, and infatuation in friendships—I’ve never read a more intimate and accurate portrayal of what it feels like to be a young girl in love with your best friend. Devastating betrayals, acts of generosity, and deeply moving connections as these women navigate the political reality of being female in Iran over the past 40 years. Reminded me of ‘​The Kite Runner​’. I couldn’t put it down and have that ‘sad it’s over’ feeling now."

6. ​Trilogy​ by H.D. (1886-1961). While wandering the sandy surftown of Del Mar, California earlier this year I stumbled on the wonderful Hobbit-hole bookstore “Camino Books, For The Road Ahead” run by John and Alison (​who joined us in Chapter 149 of 3 Books.​)

If you’re in Del Mar do visit! They're right on the main strip at 1555 Camino Del Mar and open seven days a week. ​Here's their website!​ ​Here's their Instagram!​ Stunning place and reminded me of what ​James Daunt​—the world’s largest bookseller with over 1000 stores!—says about great bookstore locations having odd corners, random pipes, slanted roofs, and other little uniquenesses. Anyway, back to John and Alison. We had a lovely chat and I really noticed John’s poetic turns of phrase. Alison told me he often writes poetry at night at home. Not publishing it! Just writing it. Btw he was the second indie bookseller I met who did that after ​Mitchell Kaplan​ (who runs ​Books&Books​ in Florida) told me he often bangs away at a typewriter late into the evening. I just love the image of writing poetry in longhand—or a typewriter—late into the night. I need a typewriter! (Do you feel the same way? ​Austin Kleon is an inspiration for us both.​) Light a few candles, pour a glass of wine, get a fire going … and clack up some poetry. Can you do much better than that? Maybe there's a cat around, too. Anyway, before I left Camino, I asked John if he could recommend some poetry and he plucked this off the shelf. I’d never heard of it nor the author but quickly learned that H.D. was the nom de plume of Hilda Doolittle who was born in Pennsylvania in 1886 and became a contemporary of poets like ​Ezra Pound​, ​T.S. Eliot​, and ​William Butler Yeats​. She wrote short, simple, precise, longform poems while living in London through the early 1940s—during and after ​The Blitz​. The writing is a very unique combination of dark, cold, crystalline, and hopeful. The opening two stanzas might give a quick feel:

And it kind of goes like that. Three lines, three lines, always three lines. Paceful, easy to read, but so much meat on the bones. This version has helpful Reader’s Notes in the back so I was often flipping to figure out what a word or phrase meant or get some context. And, like most poetry I read, I didn’t understand entire chunks! But the parts that hit ... really hit. Great poetry to read if you’re sitting in emotions of challenge, pain, feeling the intensity and weight of the world, and want to feel a connection to others feeling the same way. Hilda Doolittle, H.D., felt the same way, and here she is right now—offering you her heart. Thank you John for the recommendation.

7. ​Moonbound​ by Robin Sloan (b. 1979). OK, I know I can’t stop talking about this book but it’s such a trippy and delightful escape. Since it just came out in a glow-in-the-dark (!) paperback, and since I just dropped a ​full-length chat with Robin,​ I thought I'd briefly go on about it again. ​Cory Doctorow​ says this book is "doing fiction in hard mode"—​read his incredible full review here!​—and it's a kind of epic fantasy with talking beavers. Talking swords! Strange video games. And ever-expanding worlds with wizards, who maybe aren’t really wizards, and the entire book is narrated by a microscopic AI-type chronicler, who’s been in many different lives across the millenniums, but who now sits in our protagonist’s left shoulder. The book is a kind of jacked up ‘​Star Wars​’ meets ‘​Cloud Atlas​’ by ​David Mitchell​ featuring Willy Wonka and Mad Hatter types with occasional moments of poignancy and reflection that let you see, and see around, our endlessly twisting lives together. A big, loud, cymbal crash of a book. And in my mind deserving of a larger audience! If you want to disappear into a cerebral rainbow-colored fantasy check it out ​from the library​ or visit my ​usual link-splitter​ to find a retailer you like.

8. ​Hannelore's Story Works handmade journals​. I think it was on my birthday in 2017 that Leslie and I were up at the ​McMichael Gallery​ in Kleinberg, Ontario viewing a ​Tom Thomson​ exhibit. I love ​museum gift shops​ and in that gift shop I found a journal I’d come to love for years. Thick, heavy white paper no pen or marker leaked through. Bound with tightly tied string so I could lay it flat on my legs or airplane tray tables. And so unique! The little cut-out map of a zoomed in Ontario was clearly … a real map, that someone had cut out. So for my birthday a few years later Leslie got me another from the same one-woman craft company … then another … then another. I have four now! I don’t know Hannelore Sotzek but I love her homemade journals. I just wanted to highlight them in case you’re looking for a great journal for yourself or someone you love. Btw, since they're all homemade from physical papers and book covers a lot of things are sold out in her shop but it's worth poking around to find something you love. ​Here's her shop​—and this isn't a paid ad or anything. Just something I enjoy.

9. There is no nine! Just our regular loot bag of links! My friend ​Boniface Mwangi​ is running for President of Kenya! Listen to my chat w the amazing Bonnie ​here​ or follow him on ​IG​ or ​Twitter​. ​Wagner Moura​ is just getting better ... Leslie and I caught his new flick ​'The Secret Agent'​ at TIFF. So good! Also saw and loved the new ​John Candy​ documentary ​'I Like Me'​ which opened the festival. Two thumbs up on both. I learned about ​historical nostalgia​ and why 60% of Gen Zs say they wish they could return to a time before everyone was “plugged in.” Mark Manson gets ​vulnerable on reasons for quitting booze​ with lessons that apply to anything you're feeling addicted to, I think. Adam Grant shares ​books to fight brain rot​, Arundhati Roy ​issues warnings for fear-based societies​, the Center for Humane Technology tackles the ​OpenAI suicide litigation​ while investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr asks ​"Will OpenAI Kill Your Child?"​ A big congratulations to ​George Saunders​ on being awarded the ​2025 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (DCAL)​. Thomas Friedman tells us ​how the rise of AI should unite the U.S. and China​—with some compelling principles. What might be coming with ​robotaxis​. Dan Pink shares ​13 life changing books to read before you turn 30​. Brené Brown talking about ​her new book and what she's been working on​. Jean Twenge highlights one of my favourite rules: ​no phones in the bedroom (especially for kids)!​ And The Economist asks: ​"Is the decline of reading making politics dumber?"​ You made it! You read all the way to the very bottom.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - August 2025

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Hey everyone,

Summer, summer, where did she go?

It's been a blistering hot one up here in Toronto with smoky air billowing about. I have found myself thinking of '​Fire Weather​' by John Vaillant (​07/2023​) and feeling simultaneously scorched by the heat with the occasional relief of ​jumping into a cold lake​.

I was in 22 cities before the summer and next month I'm ​speaking​ and ​podcasting​ in Bucharest, Amsterdam, and Nairobi so our family system has the summers like lungs that power the rest. That and Leslie being a saint, of course. Really more of a celestial being who enables me and our family to do everything else. In addition to our four little ones parading back to four new rooms with four new teachers, Leslie is also returning to teaching this year as a downtown public school guidance counsellor and health teacher. I'm very excited for her and her students.

This month we've been chasing the kids around, swimming in lakes, going ​birding​, and, of course, reading books.

In this era of shallow skimming, reading is an increasingly vital and necessary habit to work on to ​preserve deep thinking and feeling​, ​grow our experiences of happiness​, and, indeed, ​even live longer​.

Reading is medicine!

Doesn't mean it's easy. It's not for me!

But we can always work on our reading habit.

I've been sending my book club to you for nigh on ten years. You can read the ​back issues here​, send me comments anytime just by replying, and, as always, I am deeply grateful for our brief connection of hearts and minds across space and time.

Invite others to join us with a flashlight under the blanket ​here​.

Let's get to the books!

Neil

1. ​Go Tell It On The Mountain​ by James Baldwin (1927-1987). This book will crawl and sniff out the pains in your heart, the ones you forgot were there, and shake them and soften them, so you may briefly see yourself in others—in their tortures, in their truths—and then forgive yourself, and forgive them, and be grateful for where you are and what you have. At least that's what it did for me. This was ​James Baldwin​'s very first novel, published in 1952, and it's a trauma-filled family soap opera stretching across generations. It takes place in the South and then up in Harlem “…where the houses did not rise, piercing, as it seemed, the unchanging clouds, but huddled, flat, ignoble, close to the filthy ground, where the streets and the hallways and the rooms were dark, and where the unconquerable odor was of dust, and sweat, and urine, and homemade gin.” (Page 28). Issues abound! Godlessness, for one. Sister McCandless clucks on Page 53 regarding the younger generation not showing up to church: “'They cooling off something terrible. The Lord ain’t going to bless no church what lets its young people get so lax, no sir. He said, because you ain’t neither hot or cold I’m going to spit you outen my mouth. That’s the Word.'” The characters in this book are the Word. They're so clear, so detailed. The book opens in a semi-autobiographical tone with our adolescent protagonist John walking into a violent family scene and then zooms into the backstories of multiple characters before ending back up in the present. His dad becomes a brother, his aunt becomes a sister, his mom becomes a young lover with a different man. And the drama is told through vivid characters with those voices that pop. From Page 132 from Esther: “I… just want to go somewhere, go somewhere, and have my baby, and think all this out of my mind. I want to go somewhere and get my mind straight. That’s what I want you to do—and that’s pretty cheap. I guess it takes a holy man to make a girl a real whore.” Later, we’re in the living room of the holy man’s sister (so John's aunt) as she’s recounting the issues with a new friend: “'She say she think my brother’s got a bastard living right there in the same town what he’s scared to call his own.'/'No? And I thought you said your brother was a preacher.'/'Being a preacher ain’t never stopped a n— from doing his dirt.'” Reading this book feels like being outside on a day where the weather oscillates between hulking storm clouds and moments of cloud-parting sun. The plot is tricky—I highly recommend reading the ​Wikipedia plot summary​ before and during the book if you need to (like I did)—but then, once you do, once you see the layers, it's just gorgeous prose, 3D characters, and a serving of that uniquely brutal heart-scalding beauty that we really only get from great novels.

2. ​Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, & Shape Our Futures​ by Merlin Sheldrake (b. 1987). Don’t look now but while you are reading this fungi are busy “eating rock, making soil, digesting pollutants, nourishing and killing plants, surviving in space, inducing visions, producing food, making medicines, manipulating animal behaviors, and influencing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere.” (Page Page 3) Do you ... take statins? Drink alcohol? Eat truffles? Take antibiotics? Just a few of the hundreds of ways our lives revolve around fungi—and seemingly always have. Fungi are one of our living kingdoms, as "broad as busy a category as animals and plants," and evolved before those two. There are many historical records of our species living an entangled life with fungi seemingly since before we were us. (No wonder the ​glacial Iceman​, that famed preserved Neolithic corpse from 5000 years ago, had a pouch stuffed with “wads of the tinder fungus that he almost certainly used to make fire, and carefully prepared fragments of the birch polypore mushroom most probably used as medicine.”) Our lives are deeply entwined with fungi and yet we know so comparatively little about them. Enter this gloriously illuminating book which serves to shrink our own lives—our worries, our fears—into the wider and vaster world of living things we make up only a tiny, tiny fraction of. Are fungi controlling us? Harvesting us? Using our minds to plant thoughts and behaviours? A fascinating middle chapter called “Mycelial minds” explores how psilocybin mushrooms (what many of us perhaps grew up knowing as ​'magic mushrooms' or 'shrooms'​) have demonstrated an “ability to soften the rigid habits of our minds that makes these chemicals powerful medicines capable of relieving severe addictive behaviors, otherwise incurable depression, and the existential distress that can follow the diagnosis of terminal illness.” (Page 96) A Johns Hopkins study even showed that after a single dose of psilocybin, 80% of patients showed reduced “demoralization and hopelessness, improved spiritual well-being, and increased quality of life.” (Page 107). They’ve also been proven to help smokers and alcoholics break severe addictions! Big in scope, endlessly curiosity-stimulating, and arranged in an organic, haphazard, expanding-underground-network type of way this is a weird, wonderful, and impossible-to-forget look at a much bigger world outside ourselves.

3. ​Next To Heaven​ by James Frey (b. 1969). And now it’s time for this month’s Leslie’s Pick—a book personally read by my saintly partner Leslie. (Btw, you can check out the ​full list of Leslie’s Pick’s right here​.) Over to you, Les! “I still remember the rush of not being able to put down ‘​A Million Little Pieces​’ (​9/2017​) and I never even cared that there was that whole debacle over how true it all was. For me it was just a mind expanding, empathy building, rush of a ride to read and I loved it. So, when Neil handed me James Frey’s new book, ‘Next to Heaven’ I was excited to dive in. And it did not disappoint. Kind of like ​White Lotus​ in its satirical commentary on the super rich, ‘Next to Heaven’ had me turning pages late into the night, escaping into the scandalous love lives of a handful of New Bethlehem’s elite. Sexy, spicy, juicy and still somehow heartwarming and relatable.” Thank you, Les! For those interested in more James Frey (pronounced “Fry”, btw) check out this ​sit-down he just did with Rich Roll​ or my ​2019 conversation with him here​ when he published his last novel ‘​Katerina​’ (​09/2018​).

4. ​All About Birds​ by Robert S Lemmon (1885-1964), Illustrated by Fritz Kredel (1900-1973). We have information overload today. So much everything! You can talk to chatGPT for hours and yes—you’re further along, but the sheer amount of information, nevermind the incorrect information, can feel overwhelming. I like finite. Compressed! Edited. Like: Want to learn about birds? Here’s a wonderful 136-page 20-point font sized children’s book with a lively tone. And it will feel so complete in your hands. It’s got thick, heavy paper—the kind you can slide your thumbnail across and actually indent—and orange-spot colour line drawings with captions like “When ducks preen their feathers they are really putting on oil.”, “The ​gannet​ may dive straight down from a height of fifty feet.”, and “The wingspan of an albatross may be over 11 feet.” Chapter titles include “How Many Birds Are There?” and “The Oldest Bird In The World” and “The Wonders of a Feather.” Great questions, right? So: How many birds are there? Well, “nobody has actually counted every bird, of course, but people who study wild birds believe there are about one hundred billion of them in the whole world. Right here in the United States and Canada, there are around twelve or fifteen billion.” (Page 1) Now this book was published in 1955 so is that still true? We can return to researching online and find a ​2019 study in Science​ showing that pesticide use and habitat loss has dropped North American bird populations by 3 billion since 1970 which they say is a 29% reduction! And don’t get me started on ​domestic house cats​ which ​kill 1 to 4 billion wild birds a year​! Children’s books are a wonderful way to learn for all of us and a great reading accelerator. A great curiosity-scratch on all things birds.

5. ​Hatchet​ by Gary Paulsen (1938-2021). I was first turned onto this book years ago by Michael Harris whose book ‘​Solitude​’ (​11/2018​) has stuck with me over the years. (Check out ​the highlights on my favourite pages here!​) If loneliness is “alone plus sad” then solitude is “alone plus happy” and I feel like that skill is harder than ever to build nowadays. How rarely are we truly alone these days? It seems like building resilience, mental toughness, is in relative short supply. (I wrote a ​whole book about building resilience​ too and you can read the ​first chapter of it right here.​) Most of the things I suggest are around mental scripts (“​Tell yourself a different story​”) and creating new personal habits (“​Two-Minute Mornings​”, “​Untouchable Days​”) but another way to go about things would be for the pilot of the prop plane you’re riding shotgun in, from your recently divorced dad in Boston to your recently divorced mom in ​Canada​, to have a sudden heart attack mid-flight and crash land the plane in the middle of the wilderness. You’re 13! And now you’re suddenly in the woods with bears, tornados, and a barrage of inner battles. A harrowing, riveting epic of children’s literature. The back says it’s for ages 10-14 but I, of course, recommend it for adults, too. (What’s up with “max” age dates on books?) A silver seal on the cover stamps it as a Newbery Honor Book and if you’re in the market for great kids book the ​ALA list of Newbery winners and honors​ is a great place to start.

6.​ Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto (Updated Edition) ​by Shawn Micallef (b. 1974), Illustrated by Marlena Zuber. Did you have a street paper, ​an “alt-weekly”​, in your hometown? ​The Village Voice​ (New York), ​The Stranger ​(Seattle), ​The Georgia Straight​ (Vancouver), ​Good Times​ (Santa Cruz), ​The Coast​ (Halifax), ​Flagpole​ (Georgia), or (here in Toronto) a ​NOW​ or ​Eye Weekly​? I used to love picking up those thick, full-colour, totally free papers, in their own metal boxes all over the city, chock-full of concert listings, album reviews, edgy cartoons, passionate diatribes, phone-sex ads, and Savage Love columns (which I notice is in its 26th year and now billed as ​"America's Longest Running Sex Advice Column"​). Anyway, that frothy breeding ground is where much of this book originated. Shawn moved to Toronto from Windsor in 2000 and began ​flâneuring​—“someone who wanders the city with the sole purpose of paying attention to it”—as, he says, a kind of informal thesis project after years of formal school. His little notes and emails to friends evolved into a column for Eye Weekly originally titled “Stroll” and then, later, “Psychogeography” (trying saying that with a mouth full of pebbles). After newspaper ads died and most alt-weeklies died with them, Micallef took up a job in 2012 for ​The Toronto Star where he continues to this day​. His columns are always interesting and provide a great lens for seeing this city, the fourth-largest in North America. And now we have this updated book which is a true gift to anybody who loves to walk and who lives (or is visiting!) Toronto. This book adds colour, context, whimsy, and history to 31 different long-walks in and around the Toronto area from “​CN Tower​” to “​Islands​” to “​Hydro Corridor​” to “​Rouge Park​.” His charmingly erudite writing is a delight to read and he quotes novels, park plaques, and bits of arcane trivia throughout, which lets your mind wander as you wander with him. Like from Page 52 in “Toronto Islands”: “Visiting the islands during winter is a magical thing. There’s barely a lineup for the ferry, just some intrepid winter souls and island residents. Outside, on deck, the sound of the ferry pushing through chunks of ice is like a giant cocktail glass swirling. The skyscrapers pump out steam and the city hums, as if it’s collectively trying to keep warm.” With a giant pull-out colour map and little illustrations throughout from the talented ​Marlena Zuber. ​A must for all Toronto flâneurs and flâneurs-to-be.

7. ​Weep Not, Child​ by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o (1938-2025). “Nyokabi called him. She was a small, black woman, with a bold but grave face. One could tell by her small eyes full of life and warmth that she had once been beautiful. But time and bad conditions do not favour beauty. All the same, Nyokabi had retained her full smile – a smile that lit up her dark face.” That’s the opening paragraph of his 1964 debut novel by Pulitzer Prize nominated Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, who just died three months ago. Tight, spare language, but dressed into a slightly more abstract structure, we get a powerful story of a young boy named Njoroge who lives with his brother, father, two moms (his dad has two wives), in Kenya, right as it’s starting to decolonize. My mom was born in Nairobi in 1950 and I heard isolated tales of her childhood growing up in this brown, black, and white mixed-race country as it jostled towards independence. (I write about my mom’s story in the ​first chapter​ of my ​book on resilience​.) This book continued to colour in many of the lines as it tells the story of Kenya from the view of the natives. After a slowish start, the book picks up about sixty pages in when an older brother with a grim disposition visits home and helps the community push towards a labor strike and from there emerge demonstrations, riots, trials, the ​Mau Mau uprising​, lots of violence, attempted suicides, and a slowly dimming future for Njoroge. I haven’t read much (any?) African literature so this felt like a good place to start. (Got suggestions on what to read next?)

8. ​Neil's Reading Light Recommendation​. There is no 8! Normally I close things off with a loot bag of links but this month I’ll share just one: A reading light! I put two of them in the picture above. We have about seven now. This is hands down the best reading light I’ve found and I’ve tried so many over the years: headbands, red lights, extendable-ET-neck things. I have no affiliation with whatever Chinese factory makes this light but we’ve come to love them and bought one for all our kids. Pack them in camp bags! Leave them under pillows! Stuff them in suitcases! It’s perfect: USB powered, no wires or cables (just needs one of those old white iPhone charging blocks with a USB hole in it), needs charging like twice a year, has three different lights (yellow, white, light blue), five brightnesses, a metal fold-out arm that you can attach to your book’s back cover, and even a little bendable head on top. Sometimes I just leave it lying on my chest and point it up at the book for that flashlight-under-the-blanket feel. (Doesn't it always feel good to read in that light? It makes reading a secret between you and the book somehow.) Anyway, we’ve never had a single one break, the buttons are super intuitive (no manual or need for one!), and it’s just … perfect. Here is the ​company website​ or links on ​Amazon.com​,​ Amazon.ca​, ​Amazon.co.uk.​ I collect zero affiliate or sponsor money from any links here or anywhere in my emails. If you want to support this endeavor (thank you!) ... I present a platter of my books! Just click the photo and send one to someone you love. I recommend the top two!)

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Interested in more of my reviews? Read my monthly book clubs or visit my Goodreads page.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - July 2025

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

Hope you’ve had a great July.

It’s been hot, hot, hot in Toronto and Leslie and I have been soaking in some downtime with the kids. I’ve been in 22 cities so far this year for ​keynote speeches​ and ​podcasts​ so—per our ​family contract​—I’m aiming for an offline, or at least more grounded, July and August. Swimming, sandcastles, sunsets, s'mores, stories, stars...

Of course July was also Canada Day so I published ‘​Canada Is Awesome​’ (​HTML​, ​PDF,​ ​audio​, ​paper​) and did a follow-up interview with 91-year-old former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (​Apple​, ​Spotify​, ​YouTube​).

This month I found myself staying up late deep into the investigative journalism masterpiece of ‘​Empire of AI​’ by Karen Hao. My review, along with others I read this month, below.

Thanks for spending some time with me instead of the bots.

Let's get to it!

Neil

1. ​Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI​ by Karen Hao. I have a love-hate relationship with AI. I love looking up "a baby Bok Choy recipe I can make in 7 minutes" but hate the homogenizing effect it’s seemingly having on writing ... on quality? ... on culture? I think I disagree with Rick Rubin when he says AI "​supercharges creativity.​" Then again maybe I just don’t want to be supercharged by robots even if they are awesome? Could be my bias coming in. I admit I had little history, knowledge, or questions to help me wade through early thoughts on AI. But that’s where Karen Hao’s magisterial 496-page opus comes in. On the back cover Shoshanna Zuboff, who wrote ​my #1 book of 2023​ ‘​The Age of Surveillance Capitalism​’ calls this a “heroic work” of “essential public education.” It is. Hao comes in asking questions like: What even is intelligence? Start there! Anyone know? Anyone? OK, so then what is … ‘artificial’ intelligence? Could it be a marketing term from the 50s? It could! And wait, what about … artificial ‘general’ intelligence? AGI? “I think it’s a ridiculous and meaningless term,” ​Sam Altman told The New York Times in 2023. ​"So I apologize that I keep using it." Bandied about like badminton birds but no consensus despite, no biggie, these terms ​underpinning billion-dollar contracts​ which are accelerating an arms race to build the most-fastest ​Manhattan-sized (!) data centres​ so we can scrape all of our collective human output and feed it back to us to potentially unemploy and/or garn us? But that’s my bias, that’s my bias, sorry, backtracking, backtracking. OK, so terms aren’t clear. Doesn’t matter! Because what is clear is everybody’s suddenly using ​ChatGPT​, ​Claude​, ​Gemini​, ​Grok​, whatever. Few months ago Leslie was helping her mom download chatGPT and I heard her say "I don’t even Google anything anymore!" Now my group chat with my oldest friends is filling up with AI images while one member of the group is laying off the staff at his 20-year-old animation company. What is going on? I don’t understand it. I am slow. Real time is too fast for me. This book slowed me down, helped me look back, and see all the heavy moving gears. Karen Hao gave us ​the first-ever company profile of OpenAI over five years ago​ in the MIT Technology Review and now she’s back with this engrossing, propulsive, illuminating portrait that traces the many tentacles of this emerging giant squid. I should mention the whole idea of how this book was made is somewhat antithetical to the rush-rush-rush of today with old-timey things like research teams and human fact-checkers. (In the Acknowledgements Hao thanks many sources who spoke to her “despite legal or other risks” along with Penguin Press’s team of lawyers as well as a deep four-person “fact-checking team” who “fastidiously combed through the draft, cross-checking the labyrinth of details against documents and sources, and stress-testing my word choices”.) So what’s her thesis? It’s in the title! AI is emerging like a new empire—like colonialist overlords stealing, taking, raping, pillaging—but on Page 413 Hao writes that she rejects "the dangerous notion that broad benefit from AI can only be derived from—indeed, will ever emerge from—a vision for the technology that requires the complete capitulation of our privacy, our agency, and our worth, including the value of our labor and art, toward and ultimately imperial centralization project.” Amen! In one vivid story we follow Hao to Kenya and hear about ​Mophat Okinyi​ who was left by his wife after a stint doing content moderation work for OpenAI—humans apparently still turning cranks in the basement of this thing!—which left him and his coworkers severely traumatized. There were “hundreds of thousands of grotesque text-based descriptions they needed to read and sort into categories of severity. Was it violence or extremely graphic violence, harassment or hate speech, child sexual abuse or bestiality?” Um. Yeah. It gets dark. Turns out when you scrape all the content on the Internet you get a lot of nasty stuff, too. Just a small negative externality? Mayyyybe. But then we go to Chile and read about what these new AI data centres are doing to people and animals hearing them hum from miles away. We go all over in this book! And then something obvious emerges: That to have the confidence, conviction, and charisma necessary to grow a company from nothing to everything you need to go against your original stated open spirit and purpose. “The most successful founders do not set out to create companies,” ​Sam Altman​ says. “They are on a mission to create something closer to a religion, and at some point it turns out that forming a company is the easiest way to do so.” Hao shares an excerpt from a 2018 interview with Tyler Cowan where Altman says it’s “impressive” that Napoleon Bonaparte was able to use the country’s national motto—“Liberté, egalité, fraternité”—to be endlessly reinterpreted to consolidate his own power. On Page 401 she shows Altman doing the same thing. How? Well, "in 2015, its mission meant being a nonprofit ‘unconstrained by a need to generate financial return' and open sourcing research… in 2016 it meant ‘everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after its built, but it’s totally OK to not share the science'… in 2018 and 2019 it meant introducing a new capped profit structure to “marshal substantial resources", in 2022 it meant "racing as fast as possible to deploy chatGPT", and in 2024 Altman was saying "A key part of our mission is to put very capable AI tools in the hands of people for free (or at a great price)." It should be said Altman does not come out looking great here. Though there's a clear lack of connection between Altman and Hao—he evidently stopped talking to her after the 2020 profile—the stories she digs up may make you pause, grimace, or worry. She has an email from fellow co-founder ​Ilya Sutskever​ to Altman and Musk saying "We don't understand why the CEO title is so important to you. Your stated reasons have changed ... How does it connect to your political goals?" and there is a clear pattern of three organizations in a row of charmingly-deceitful behaviour that baffles or mystifies reports through seemingly hypocritical behaviour. As one example Hao reveals that Altman fake-positioned his exit from running Y Combinator (YC) as a strategic shift to Chairman when nobody running YC ever agreed or approved that and then, after he wrote about his new not-real title YC actually took the dramatic step of scrubbing his name completely from the post. Big news right!? Not when the next day you put out a press release saying you're now CEO of OpenAI! I ate up the history in this book. Because that's one thing on AI that won't change. It feels vital to learn it. Like how at Elon Musk’s 2013 birthday party in Napa a disagreement with Larry Page left Elon labeled a “speciesist” after Elon said AI surpassing human intelligence was an issue ... to the 2015 dinner party at Altman’s house where he and Elon hatched the concept of OpenAI. (Elon later said in a lawsuit that it was as if “Altman had mirrored everything Musk had ever said about the subject to win his trust.”). Then Elon’s departure, then mission creep, then a racing evolution. Bill Gates makes a couple industry-altering cameos. “The Divorce” is catalogued where a number of OpenAI employees revolted after OpenAI started taking private money and then disembarked en masse to begin rival Anthropic (who make ​Claude​). Proclamations! Ramifications! A vast, sweeping, deep “how of history” book to help us understand and much-more-clearly see and witness the phenomenon of AI. Get it at a ​library​, in ​audio​, or get it from a ​bookstore​. A powerful book offering clarity and truth.

2. ​Peterson Field Guides: Eastern Butterflies​ by Paul A. Opler and Vichai Malikul. I never really noticed butterflies until this year. I could identify a Monarch. That’s it! Just that one. I knew Monarchs were striking and elegant and wondrous and I’d seen a nature show talking about how they migrate to this sacred forest in Mexico where you might in one day and see something like this:

More recently I’d heard they don’t even migrate the whole way—it’s a multi-generational affair! The Monarchs overwintering in Mexico are actually the great-great-grandchildren (!) of the Monarchs we might see flying south. Then last year I walked through an alley in Toronto called “Mourning Cloak Lane” and looked up the ​Mourning Cloak butterfly​ and discovered that they overwinter in Canada. Really!

They hide in rocks and tree bark and enter hibernation as part of their 10 to 11 month long life-cycle … one of the longest of all butterflies! So I borrowed this field guide from my grandparents-in-law and have just picked up '​The ROM Field Guide to Butterflies of Ontario​' (2014) and now I’m suddenly noticing butterflies everywhere. On people’s shoulders, fluttering above milkweed, floating above gardens. They’re so stunning, so fragile, so wild, so free. They’re so acrobatic, so otherworldly, so fleeting. When this guide was published in 1992 there were 522 known species of butterflies “east of the 100th meridian” (which in North America runs from around Winnipeg to Wichita to Mexico City) and on Page 4 Opler says he answers the question about what a butterfly even is by saying “Butterflies fly in the day, are brightly coloured, and have clubbed antenna.” Easy enough! Also helps differentiate from moths. He goes on to tell us if we’re in a “middle east” latitude (Toronto, New York, Chicago, Philly, Atlanta, etc) then “In early spring, as buds are just beginning to open, you can find ​Falcate Orangetips​, the first whites, ​Spring Azures​, ​Silvery Blues​, ​elfins​, ​duskywings​, overwintered adults of ​Mourning Cloaks​, ​tortoiseshells​, and ​anglewings​. Most ​swallowtails​, ​brushfoots​, and true ​skippers​ don’t begin their flights until late spring or early summer, while mid- to late summer is a time when you should expect ​hairstreaks​, ​fritillaries​, some skippers, and immigrants from further south.” Hairstreaks? Skippers? Duskywings? I love their names. I love their lives! Butterflies, along with some beetles and wasps, have four life stages. Most bugs have three (eggs, nymphs, adults) but butterflies go egg, larva (caterpillars), pupa (chrysalis), adults. I have long, long believed ​anything that can grow wings is awesome​. But I haven’t really noticed butterflies till now. As always: The more you look the more you see. They fly away quickly so I’m often stuck thinking “it was dark blue, with white spots on the edge of the wings…” before I can look it up. But starting somewhere! Butterfly-watchers / ​lepidopterists​—please share any thoughts, advice, or favourites. Just reply to this email!

3. ​Time Is A Mother​ by Ocean Vuong. I read and loved 'On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous' by Ocean Vuong and thought I’d flip open his more recent book of his poetry. It is … different. Apparently the poems are about Vuong’s loss of his mother in 2019 and the emotions he felt during the pandemic. He calls this his “proudest book” and yeah it has some of that similar chilly and poignant emotional breeze. But sometimes, for me, the aesthetic complexity didn’t quite land. Either way: this is a book that forces you to slow down, to try and take words in slowly, and for that reason alone I found it meditative. These are poems you could easily read again right away, see something new, then read them again. It's around 30 poems over 113 pages and here’s the opening 10 lines of the poem “The Last Prom Queen From Antarctica” from Page 36 to give you a vibe: “It’s true I’m all talk & a French tuck / but so what. Like the wind, I ride / my own life. Neon light electric / in the wet part of roadkill / on the street where I cut my teeth / on the good sin. I want to / take care of our planet / because I need a beautiful / graveyard. It’s true I’m not a writer / but a faucet underwater. When the flood comes / I’ll raise my hand so they know / who to shoot. The sky flashes. The sea" ... now do you want to keep going? That's only a third of it! If yes, you’ll like the poems here. I loved ‘​On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous​’ and may pick up his new novel ‘​The Emperor of Gladness​’ next. Vuong is a writer that pushes you somewhere else.

4. ​The Second Herman Treasury​ by Jim Unger. I think maybe that AI book crisped my brain a little given how I found myself itching for the balm of butterflies, poetry, and 80s cartoons afterwards. Backstory on this one was Leslie and I were driving down the main street of Bracebridge, Ontario this month and spotted a used bookstore called ​The Owl Pen​. I just love used bookstores. ​Malcolm Gladwell​ and I ​talked about ​​used bookstores​ and he helped teach me they sort of pull together the minds—attics? basements?—of a town to say something interesting about how they think and what they value. When Leslie and I walked in we walked past a huge shelf of frayed blue hardcover ‘Hardy Boys’ and frayed yellow hardcover ‘Nancy Drews’ before hitting a little collection on local and indigenous histories and then discovering an incredible children’s section at the back where I picked up a giant hardcover picture book 'The Call of the Wild' by Jack London (​08/2023​). But then! It happened! I turned a corner and looked up high and way up on the top of a bookshelf to the ceiling and high above me was a stack of ‘Herman’ treasuries—one even signed!—for like… thirty dollars total? Truly priceless:

Do you know ‘Herman’? Did you read ‘Herman’? When I was growing up there was an identical pile on the back of the toilet at my friend Mike’s bathroom. (I confess I miss the days of communal “everybody reading from the same pile” before screens stepped in to individualize our feeds.) If so ... then you know. And if not ... welcome. Welcome to ‘Herman’! We’re glad you're here. Herman, btw, isn’t a character but… a vibe. Unger himself says: “His wife’s named Herman. The dog’s Herman. The kid is Herman, too. Herman is not anybody’s name. Herman is a state of mind.” And what's the state? Some combination of acidity, anger, and absurdity that uniquely pokes at life. Here's Page 88 from the second treasury for a taste:

The strip ran 1975 to 1992 and was syndicated across 600 newspapers at its peak. It’s like some special blend of ​Mitch Hedberg one-liners​ and the subreddit ​r/showerthoughts​ with only the occasional strip fading into a lost politically very-incorrect cultural history. Maybe the strip was some kind of precursor to that absurdist- philosophizing popularized by ‘​The Far Side​’ by ​Gary Larson (​1979-1995, 1900 newspapers at its peak) or ‘​Calvin and Hobbes​’ by ​Bill Watterson​ (1985-1995, 2400 newspapers at its peak). I say one of the best things you can do in your life is ​treat yourself to a pile of ‘Hermans’​. Helps unfry the brain a little.

5. ​Here One Moment​ by Liane Moriarty. When I flew down to New York last year to sit with my favourite editor ​Amy Einhorn​, I mentioned to her how Leslie loves so many of her books—‘The Help’, 'American Dirt', 'Big Little Lies' (and *cough* '​The Book of Awesome​')—and then when I got home there was a package of some of Amy’s newest with a letter to Leslie! Let’s cut over to Leslie’s Pick now: “This book caught me from the beginning with its opening few chapters of a woman on a delayed flight hauntingly telling everyone on board (even children in mother’s arms!!) how and when they are going to die!! I sometimes got a bit lost as every chapter switched from one person's perspective to the next. Right along with the characters, I debated in my mind whether the ‘death lady’s’ predictions were psychic or crazy and reflected on fate, agency, and my own sacred short life which will ultimately end in death just like all of ours.”

6. ​The Wall In The Middle Of The Book​ by Jon Agee. I have loved Jon Agee since 'Otto' (​01/2022​) and on a recent summer library load up found this book from 2018 which according to Goodreads ​seems his most popular​. “There is a wall in the middle of this book” we are told in the opening two pages and, sure enough, there’s a thick brick wall with a tiny knight and a ladder on one side and a fearsome-looking rhino and tiger on the other. We are told that the wall “is a good thing” because it “protects this side of the book from the other side.” And then, in subtle shifts, the safe side of the book starts filling with water and man-eating fish while a giant ogre emerges on the other side. In a climactic scene the giant ogre lifts the knight over the wall and we discover that the scary side of the book is really ... fun. Playfully skewers reality versus expectations and the whole grass is always greener adage. The book feels both minimalist in its prose and art but also maximalist in the sense that on every page about six different things are changing so it’s fun to reread and spot the multiple braided plotlines. You can have the book read to you ​right here on ​​YouTube​.

7. ​Learning To Sail: A No-Nonsense Guide For Beginners Of All Ages​ by Basil Mosenthal. Can you learn to sail from a book? No! You cannot. I could not sail. Then I read this book. Then I … still could not sail. But if you count reading the book as forward action then it helped me get to the next step which was sitting in a sailboat and holding a rope ("mainsheet") and holding a stick ("tiller") and pulling them and letting them go to move the sail and move the boat. Am I good at sailing? No! Nowhere close. But I’ve started. And that’s usually the hardest part. As we always say: It is easier to act yourself into a new way of thinking rather than think yourself into a new way of acting. What's something new you want try or start doing next month?

8. ​Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds​​ in Song​ by Les Beletsky (featuring audio from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology). Imagine you had a secret giant room in your house that was full of trees and on those trees were 250 birds from around North America that you had trained to sing on command. ​American Goldfinch​! ​Roseate Spoonbills​! ​Cactus Wrens​! And you could just point to any bird and they will start singing for you. That’s what this book feels like. It was my Father’s Day gift this year from my family. They know me well. We all love scrolling through the side buttons and listening to the song. Great one for any birder in your life.

9. There is no 9! Just our regular loot bag of links. My friend ​Maria Popova​ has published her incredible ​Bird Cards​ or what she calls ​“100 Divinations for Uncertain Days”​. ​Douglas Rushkoff​ asks if ​AI is the next Dumbwaiter​. Thomas Pueyo tells us the ​fundamental problem with urbanism​. Rich Roll does ​psychedelics.​ Marc Maron has ​a great chat Sarah Silverman​. (And ​Sarah's podcast​ is back, too!) Megan O’Rourke writes about the ​seductions of AI for the writer’s mind​. George Saunders gives us a ​lesson on grace​ and talks ​literary allusions​. Date Night movies: Leslie and I loved '​Friendship​' (hilarious debut from ​Andrew DeYoung​) and '​Materialists​' (wonderful new flick from ​Celine Song​ after her brilliant '​Past Lives​'!). And this astonishing New Yorker ​article on the silent solar revolution ​convinced Leslie and I to get solar panels on our roof!

Remember: You are what you eat. And you are what you read. Keep turning that page ... and I'll talk to you soon.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - June 2025

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

Was your June overwhelming, too?

We had our ​last day of school​ up here yesterday and it was a sweaty finish with approximately zero air-conditioned public schools and a blistering heat wave in the 40s/110s (Celsius/Fahrenheit).

But we made it!

This coming Tuesday is July 1st—Canada Day!—and I just made a little 78-page full-colour hardcover called ‘Canada Is Awesome.’ I’m proud of it! The publishers all said no—“Not enough runway", “Too timely”, “Doesn’t fit our vision”—so I did it myself. I am posting the whole thing for free online and selling it at cost.

But lots more to share so let’s get to it!

Neil

P.S. Invite others to join us ​here​.

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1. ​Canada is Awesome: A Little Book About a Big Country​ by Neil Pasricha (b. 1979). I think it was this tweet back in February that really got me going:

I had a visceral reaction. It was twisted into prolonged news coverage about Trump’s “51st state” comments, Justin Trudeau’s “not a snowball’s chance in hell” reaction, and much ​snarky online dialogue​ that followed. I love Canada! Lived here my whole life. I spent one summer in New York, a couple years in Boston, but the rest of my 45 years I’ve lived in Canada. I grew up with my dad telling my sister and me that we were lucky to be here. “The land of opportunity!” he’d say. And he would know. My dad was born in a village in ​Punjab, India​ in 1944. His mom died when he was 3 and he grew up sharing a small bedroom with three brothers and a sister. Twenty-two years later, while doing his Masters in Nuclear Physics at the University of New Delhi, he went to the library and looked up a list of the best countries in the world. He didn’t speak the language of the Scandinavian countries so he went down the list a little and applied to Canada and the US. He got the letter back from Canada first. My dad’s sense of wonder was this sunbeam over my childhood. It has resulted in this feeling about Canada—how we live, what we value, what that represents—which I’ve tried to articulate in a little book. This is a complete passion project. There’s probably good reason the publishers said no. Stocking tiny little books, about tiny little things, is ... hard. Penguin Random House, Simon&Schuster, House of Anansi? None of them wanted to print it. But I wanted to. So I did. You can get it ​right here on Amazon.ca​ (hardcover or paperback), right ​here on Amazon.com​ (hardcover or paperback), ​here​ as a free and complete Audiobook (​Spotify​, ​Apple​, ​YouTube​), and on Canada Day I'll post the whole thing on my blog and share a free downloadable PDF, too. Post the whole thing? Bad way to sell books! I know. And I don’t care. I made the book for the people who want it and am selling it for exactly what it costs to produce it. I make precisely zero dollars and zero cents on every sale. You can see a picture of the hardcover in the photo above, see the page I made for it ​here​, and here’s some inside pages, too:

In this era of political and algorithmic whiplashing I wanted to create a sense of grounding around my favourite country. Last year ​more​ and ​more​ articles showed Canada is still tops in the world for the best places to move—best places to live. This little book is my attempt to explain why. I hope you like it.

2. ​Learning All the Time: How small children begin to read, write, count, and investigate the world, without being taught​ by John Holt (1923-1985). I didn’t know this book existed and I didn’t know I needed it! But it does and I did. Big thank you to ​Ginny Yurich​ (“yer-itch”) of ​1000 Hours Outside​ and ‘​Homeschooling​’ for introducing me to this book on ​our long walk around frigid Toronto with Leslie a few months ago​. Once you flip through this book you start seeing how your children are learning everything, on their own, by themselves, and you start seeing your job as removing obstacles and staying quiet and calm like a tree so they keep going. Like right now my 6-year-old is learning to read and right from the beginning John reminds us that “whether you’re a ‘gifted’ five-year-old or a terrified, illiterate twelve-year-old, trying to read something new is a dangerous adventure. You may make mistakes, or fail, and so feel disappointment or shame, or anger, or disgust. Just in order to get started on this adventure, most people need as much comfort, reassurance, and security as they can find. The typical classroom, with other children ready to point out, correct, and even laugh at every mistake … is the worst possible place for a child to begin.” This book came out in 1989 and is an accessible and warm place to start for anybody interested in what might today be called ​unschooling​. A real treasure.

3. ​My Years As Prime Minister​ by Jean Chrétien (b. 1934). Over the last couple months I’ve been to Dallas, Vancouver, Las Vegas, Barcelona, Ottawa, Chicago, Dallas again, Ranchos Palos Verde, and then I got home and there were a couple calls and suddenly I had one more trip to make. So I put on a suit and tie and flew back to Ottawa to meet the 91-year-old man my wife Leslie calls “the grandfather of Canada.” The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien is one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers in Canadian history and led three successive majority terms as leader of the Liberal Party from 1993 to 2003. He ​famously said no to joining the US in the Iraq War​ (solidifying Canada’s independence on foreign policy), signed the ​Kyoto Protocol​ (committing Canada to its first-ever international environmental agreement), established the ​Oceans Act​ (helping Canada become the first country to prioritize ocean health), created the ​Clarity Act​ (to establish terms for future secession movements after the ​Quebec Referendum of 1995​), and led ​Operation Yellow Ribbon​ to help 40,000 Americans in the air and traveling through Canada on September 11, 2001 and beyond. If you don’t know Jean Chrétien I recommend starting with the ​room-rousing speech he gave this past March​ on the night Mark Carney became Prime Minister. If you do know him, or just want to know him better, read this book. Chrétien has an incredible way of getting to the nub of an issue, talking about it in a plainspoken way, and using humor and charm to get what he needs to get done done. Like at the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec which he recounts on page 292: “The summit coincided with a small but irritating border dispute in which American potato growers managed to obtain a ban on imports from Prince Edward Island after the discovery of a harmless ‘potato wart’ on the produce from one remote farm. So I gave instructions that PEI potatoes were to be served to President Bush at every meal. During the last lunch, at a NAFTA trilateral meeting held in the Citadel looking over the St. Lawrence River and north to the Laurentian Hills, Colin Powell turned to Bush and, translating the French menu, said, ‘He’s still serving us PEI potatoes.’ // ‘You see George,’ I said, ‘you’ve been eating PEI potatoes for two days now, and you’re still alive. So tell your guys in Washington that they’re wrong.’ Apparently he did, because the problem was quickly solved.” This 2007 book pulses with endless anecdotes and stories like this one and his trademark Canadian drive, grit, and determination are on full display. I am excited to share that the Right Honourable Jean Chrétien ​will be my guest on the next chapter of 3 Books​. Look up to the sky and it will drop when the moon is fully full. When I got to his office his assistant told me “We don’t do hour-long interviews … ever.” Well, I guess he’s now done one! This was a true honour and I can't wait to share it with you. Subscribe to the podcast on ​Apple​, ​Spotify​, or ​YouTube​ to listen when the chapter is released.

4. ​Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore​ by Robin Sloan. You’re playing Super Mario Kart for Super Nintendo. The original! And then this screen pops up. Who did you pick?

Let me guess: Koopa or Toad? Me too. Best all-rounders! Peach or Yoshi were fine. Mario or Luigi in a pinch. But no way anyone took DK or Bowser. Even though they had the highest top speeds! Acceleration? Too slow! Control? Too hard! For novice drivers sliding off Ghost Valleys they were a nightmare. But I will tell you this: Once, when I was at my cousin’s birthday party, he had this friend over who was some kind of Mario Kart savant and he actually played with DK or Bowser. And he won! Every time! Slow acceleration, careful steering, incredible top speed. That’s DK. That’s Bowser. And that’s ‘Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore’ by Robin Sloan. This book was a big surprise to me! I read and loved ‘Moonbound’ (​8/2024​) when it came out last year. My friend ​Michael Bungay-Stanier​ texted me saying he loved it and since I love Michael’s mind that was enough. The book blew me away and I put it in ​my best books of the year​. ‘Moonbound’ was my Robin Sloan opener. Then I went back to read this Robin Sloan classic (which, btw, boasts 213,568 Goodreads ratings to Moonbound’s still-pretty-high-otherwise 3,611). The back of Mr. Penumbra features the remarkably rare blurber 1-2 punch of ​Roxane Gay​ (“...eminently enjoyable, full of warmth and intelligence.”) and ​George Saunders​ (“It's a lot of fun, a real tour de force.”). And the book opens with a captivating scene: “Lost in the shadows of the shelves, I almost fall off the ladder. I am exactly halfway up. The floor of the bookstore is far below me, the surface of a planet I’ve left behind.” The thing you don’t realize is that he’s up, like, stories. Hapless Clay Jannon has just lost his design job for a San Francisco bagel company started by ex-Googlers. Why? Well, because of “the great food-chain contraction that swept through America in the early twenty-first century,” of course. Anyway, he needs a job. So he starts at this random downtown bookstore located beside a strip club. The bookstore has few customers. Like almost none. And the customers seem to ask for their next books in codes. The pace starts accelerating. And accelerating. And accelerating. Soon you’re on sudden cross-country flights and in dark chatrooms and creeping through subterranean lairs and having lunch in Google cafeterias and talking about secrets to immortality and I tell you there are just enough light feathery turns to keep you in this wonderfully bubbly type of nerd-out suspense. Early on the book has a short-chapter-acceleration that feels kind of like ‘​Angels and Demons​’ by Dan Brown or ‘​The Martian​’ by Andy Weir. The whole thing is some kind of magic trick and a perfect volley to the stunning ‘Moonbound’ afterwards. To get a taste for Robin Sloan try reading his blog (like his February post on AI called “​Is it okay?​”) or join his ​wonderfully geeky newsletter​ appearing exactly every 29 and a ½ days. The world needs more Robin Sloan!

5. “​The Smartphones Haven’t Defeated Us. Yet.​” By Jonathan Haidt, Will Johnson, and Zach Rausch. I grew up with one phone in the kitchen. Over there. On the wall. A benign presence. We had to make sure we had a quarter in our pockets when we got dropped at the mall so we could call home later. Today I’ve had a smartphone for, geez, 15 years, and I’ve barely felt the slow sponging and soaking in of our now-omnipresent phone-everywhere culture. Our phones have pulverized free time, wandering time, daydreaming time. They have decimated solitude, quiet, and space. We have become more frazzled, frenetic, and mentally fractured. We have the highest rates of ​anxiety​, ​depression​, and ​loneliness​ we’ve ever seen. It’s time to email our politicians! I’ve just emailed my Canadian Member of Parliament (​find yours here​!) and Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament (​find yours here​!) to share this article and ask for a phone ban in classrooms. It’s a start. The link above—​and right here!​—is a link you can share with anyone. We need to unite to ask for schools to be phone-free from bell to bell. Unconvinced? Read this article. Read it! It’s written by ​Jon Haidt​, author of ‘The Anxious Generation’ (​4/2024​), and it summarizes the current state of things. We have a nice little teetering right now but need a concerted push for it to tip. Ten states have now enacted laws to make their schools phone-free. Red states, blue states, doesn’t matter. We're looking for phone-free schools—from bell to bell. This is above political divides. When even Gen Z itself is saying they “express regret about having access to many of the most popular social media platforms” and in new surveys many parents say they “wish social media had never been invented,” it is time. Let’s bring back childhood! Read this article, share this article, contact your politician. Thank you, Jon Haidt, for your strength and galvanizing leadership. (Btw, if you haven’t read ‘The Anxious Generation’ and want the quick version here are ​Part 1​ and ​Part 2​ of my favourite pages from the book.) Let's do this!

6. ​Black Swan Green​ by David Mitchell (b. 1969). I recently made a ​video​ and ​podcast​ of ‘5 Beach Books to Stretch Your Mind.’ This is one book on my list! (I’ll leave the other four a surprise and you can get the whole chat on ​Apple​, ​Spotify​, or ​YouTube​.) OK, let me say up front: I think ​David Mitchell​ is my favourite living novelist and I think this is the book of his to start with. Sure, he’s a lot more famous for ‘Cloud Atlas’ (​6/2019​) published in 2004—partly because of the (very good!) Wachowski-directed Tom Hanks and Halle Berry ​movie it inspired​—but I think that book is too genre-bendy to begin with. So if you go with ‘Black Swan Green,’ his 2006 ​bildungsroman​, instead then it will prime you just perfectly for the Mitchellverse, the term David Mitchell fans use to describe the overarching ever-expanding relationships between all his books and characters. Let’s start with the plot: “It’s a dank January in the Worcestershire village of Black Swan Green and thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor—covert stammerer and reluctant poet—anticipates a stultifying year in the deadest village on Earth. But Jason hasn’t reckoned with a junta of bullies, simmering family discord, the Falklands War, an exotic Belgian emigre, a threatened gypsy invasion and the caprices of those mysterious entities known as girls.” Junta of bullies? Mitchell’s turns of phrase always delight. The plot moves, the narrator is entrancing, and within a couple of pages you fall right into being a 13-year-old overthinking nerdy boy. (I, uh, could relate.) From page 4: “Moron’s my height and he’s okay but Jesus he pongs of gravy. Moron wears ankle-flappers from charity shops and lives down Drugger’s End in a brick cottage that pongs of gravy too.” The paragraph continues and expands into this remarkable history of his friends nicknames, friend nickname origins, and friend nickname rankings. This is a book I wish would go on forever and one I have on my permanent reread list. ‘Black Swan Green’ just glimmers like a diamond.

7. ​Playtown: Emergency: A Lift-The-Flap Book​ by Roger Priddy. OK, now it’s time for this month’s Leslie’s Pick. Over to you, Les: “We were first gifted the original ‘​Playtown​’ when our oldest turned two and it has been a family favourite since. Neil and I almost have the text memorized, the flaps are tattered (especially the one where someone is caught using the toilet on the train!), and each kid has their favourite page (airport, construction site, zoo, or main street). We’ve read that one a LOT but not as many times as we’ve read ‘Playtown: Emergency.’ Our youngest son went through a good period of about eight months where this was the book he wanted to read EVERY SINGLE NIGHT (he also likes to wear the exact same clothes every day—he was a tiger for several months, then a skeleton for a month, and now he wears a full soccer kit all day every day including shin pads and knee high socks in 32-degree humidity). Repetition and control seem to be big things for him? Maybe it’s being the youngest of four, maybe it’s being a deeply feeling child, maybe it’s because the world is a big and confusing place and reading the same gosh darn book every night at least gives him one predictable part of the day. And so, the other day, when he asked for this old favourite again, it was clear to me he needed some comfort and familiarity, some reassurance that each problem has a solution, that each question has an answer. And that’s what ‘Playtown Emergency’ does. It’s not overly profound—in fact I’ve often wished there was a bit more complexity like maybe a second flap behind each emergency worker showing them at home thinking about hopes or fears—but it does what it does really well. Which is give young readers a window into what happens at a hospital, what types of fire vehicles are used, and what are some different types of rescue teams. It makes the world feel understandable. It opens conversation about when we’ve been to the hospital or how there are helpers all around and it makes the fear and excitement of emergencies (are injury stories also a favourite around your dinner table!?) something to connect over after a busy day. This book gives us all the feeling that there are some predictable, simple, “lift the flap” explanations in this loud and chaotic world we live in.” (Note: This review has been added to ​Leslie’s Picks​.)

8. ​Minnow: Issue 2​, Winter/Spring 2025. I’m back into zines! It happened suddenly. Do you have a favourite zine? Or just one you recommend? When I was part of a six-person junta of 16-year-olds co-founding my high school newspaper we designed it as a zine and called it ‘Headrush.’ (Shoutout to 'Headrush' co-founders Michelle Jayakumar, Garry Liu, Lawny Graham, Tanya Hunter, and Romi Raina.) We put it together and hawked it in hallways with a sour key for fifty cents. Give us your quarters, we’ll give you our zine. I just loved zines. Their accessibility, earnest amateurness, their fine-pointed focus, their screaming passion, their manifesto-cum-chapbook-cum-samizdat type energy. They’re also super skinny! So easy to read. A fat zine is no zine! I was having lunch at ​Mi Madre’s​ down in Austin, Texas with ​Austin Kleon​ ​a couple years ago​ and he gave me a copy of his zine called ‘Read Like An Artist.’ I loved it! He’s ​posted it online​. And more recently Robin Sloan (of the aforementioned ‘Mr. Penumbra’s’) has gotten into zines. He’s started making them! For himself. And selling them ​right here​! He says he wants them to carry the spirit of “energy and ephemerality.” I love that. He’s even changed his biography online from “writer” to “writer, printer, and manufacturer” zine-infusing himself! So, anyway, yeah, it was in this spirit, this zine-open spirit, that I stumbled upon a shelf of zines at a local coffee shop. The cover for ‘Minnow’ caught me as it was focused on “conservation in the Great Lakes region and species often overlooked.” I bought it started flipping and was met with a 7-page article called “Queer Ecology” with stunning photos of ​Northern green frogs​ and ​Jack-in-the-Pulpit​ plants (which can both change their sex!) and then met a local group of salamanders that are “entirely female and reproduce without having sex.” Okay! Sure! I kept flipping and learned all about the fascinating ​Eastern hognose snake​ (and learned I should befriend and respect it rather than fear it) and then met a local community group called "Water Watchers" who self-formed in Wellington, Ontario 18 years ago after a big company moved in and started draining their lakes for bottled water. (An industry, I learned, which uses 10 billion [!] litres of oil a year in Canada alone.) I kept flipping and learned about the plight of the chattering ​Chimney Swifts​ whose population has declined 90% in Ontario due to less old growth forests with giant dead hollowed trees and more recently a lot less ... wait for it ... chimneys. Ultimately this zine gave me that exact energetic ephemerality I love from zines and zine culture. Here's a couple other zines I picked up from Hard Feelings, the downtown Toronto mental health centre and bookstore run by the incredible ​Kate Scowan​:

Bold! Strong! Passionate! Economical! Long live zines. Reply and let me know if you have a favourite zine I should check out. And for those who want to make their own zine check out ​this great resource from Austin Kleon​.

9. ​Straight from the Heart​ by Jean Chrétien. Another Jean Chrétien book? Yes! The man has four memoirs. But this one is some kind of museum treasure that glows in new light today. It was written in 1985—eight years before Chrétien came to power as Prime Minister. So, wait, a head of state memoir written before being head of state? Arm of state? Leg of state? Kind of, yeah. But let's remember Jean Chrétien was politically cooking by then and had been for a few decades. He was a Member of Parliament under Lester P. Pearson when they ​made the Canadian flag​ in 1967. (Do my top 3 books in the photo above look sort of Canadian-flaggy to you? It’s the little things.) Then, as he recounts here, he had just finished serving as Minister after Minister after Minister under ​Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau​ and even helped ​patriate the Canadian Constitution​ and draft the ​Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms​. Jean Chrétien tells us his story of being born the 18th of 19th children (“In those days God decided how many kids people had”) in ​Shawinigan Falls, Quebec​, a blue-collar French-speaking paper mill town on ​the river​. “We lived in a brick house with a larger garden in which my mother grew vegetables, strawberries, rhubarb...” He drops occasional nuggets of early wisdom like on page 67 when he intones, “The public is moved by mood more than logic, by instinct more than reason” and recounts Canadian history with his knack for simile and metaphor around even tense issues. Like Trudeau’s famous invocation in 1973 of the ​War Measures Act​ after a Canadian politician was slain by the ​FLQ​, Chrétien writes: “We had a hell of a dilemma. Since there was no law that covered precisely this type of national emergency we were left with the terrible-sounding and extensive War Measures Act. I used to describe the dilemma this way: you want to transport a refrigerator, and you only have a bicycle and a van. You won’t get very far on a bicycle, but using a big van for such a little project will look silly.” (Btw, I was somewhat fascinated to learn that the way Trudeau disarmed the FLQ by “allowing the FLQ manifesto to be read on television and letting the terrorists leave for Cuba” which, according to Chrétien, “destroyed political blackmail for a long time in Canada, because Trudeau did not bend farther.) His examination of the Trudeau years is fascinating from “​Trudeaumania​,” a Canadian cultural phenomenon people still discuss, but, according to Chrétien, four years later “no one remembered that. The people only saw the downturn in the economy and the flashy guy with the long hair and a beautiful young wife, and the intellectuals turned on him.” What next? Out forever? Nope! He wins a majority, then another, then another, and goes on to be Prime Minister for over FIFTEEN years! When you hit 91 years old your life is full of history and this book is a great place to start. You can also (of course) ​check out the wondrous speech​ Chrétien made earlier this year and (of course!) ​my upcoming podcast​ with him which will appear on the exact minute of the ​Buck Moon​.

10. There is no 10! Just our regular loot bag of links. First up, I made a podcast on ‘​5 Beach Books to Stretch Your Mind​.’ I go deep explaining them differently than usual (and four of them aren’t in this list) so check it out if you’re looking for a great summer read. What else? Tyrese Haliburton’s ​inspiring post after tearing his Achilles​ at the end of the NBA Finals. Brilliant Balaji reminding us ​AI doesn’t do end-to-end​. Of course preceded by Sam Altman’s blog post on ‘​The Gentle Singularity​’ (and ​Claude’s 1-sentence summary of it​). Nick Cave answers the question, “​Are you a natalist?​” Ken Jennings riffs on how ​Jeopardy! could “save our republic.”​ Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Carol Cadwalladr (who exposed Facebook/Cambridge Analytics) on “​the dark lord of Silicon Valley​.” Cal Newport asks if we’re ​too concerned about social media​. And you know you're Canadian ​if you're salivating right now​.

Remember: You are what you eat. And you are what you read. Keep turning that page ... and I'll talk to you soon.

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Interested in more of my reviews? Read my monthly book clubs or visit my Goodreads page.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - May 2025

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

Reading is under attack!

And yet: we remain. The resistance! We may not finish books. But we start them! We buy them. We borrow them. We trade them. We open them. We read them. We pace, we press, we plod, we push. We use ​systems​, we cultivate ​habits​, and we read, dammit—we read.

Scroll down to the pic for reflections on the books I read this month or if you want to chill with me in the sidewalk lawn chairs before stepping into the shop here are this month’s “Letters”!

Okay, in response to my ​April 2025 Book Club​ Michael H. writes:

Thank you, this is actually an email I look forward to getting. I think I pick up at least one new book from this list every month. I love the challenge to be open to things that are outside of my ‘algorithm.’

Ha! Me too, Michael. As ​Doug Miller​ said to us in Chapter 99 from ​his bookstore​ in Toronto’s Koreatown, “That's what's amazing about a bookstore: you find stuff you're not looking for. ​Amazon​, you find stuff you're looking for.”

Kelly P. writes:

I'm a quiet follower but feel compelled to let you know I love seeing what you're reading. I'm going to go read that ​Atlantic article​. ‘​Educated​’ by Tara Westover has stuck with me too. Keep em coming! I too like to share what I read with my modest personal following of friends, colleagues, and neighbors...

Love it, Kelly! And totally—just telling people what you’re reading is such a great reading accelerator. Whether you post on Goodreads (​I do​!), send emails to friends (​I do​!), or just obnoxiously prattle on about books all the time to anyone who will listen (​I do!​), it all works.

OK, and let's close this month with Jennifer A. from the UK:

Hi Neil, I added ‘​Raising Calm Kids In A World of Worry​’ to my list but, recently, I have realised that I have almost outgrown parenting books. My kids are autistic and so many of the strategies outlined in mainstream parenting books just cannot work in our household, making me feel a total failure. I used to think that, if I read the right book and followed its formula exactly, all would be well. My bubble kind of burst when I went to see ​Dr. Laura Markham ​(‘​Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids​’) speak at an event in London. She had the audience in the palm of her hand, we were drinking in every word. Then it was time for questions. "How do I get my child to eat fruit?" "Just make sure you don't have any sweet treats in the house, and then they will have no choice and start eating fruit." It was as if the spell she had over the room was broken - it wasn't like we hadn't tried all these things, it's not as if people snack only for hunger! In any other situation than parenting, starving someone into doing what you want would be a criminal offence. After that, I have been a little more sceptical about parenting books and now I just try to figure out what works for my children as well as getting outside professional help for them. Other people might have some ideas but you have to be the expert on your children. Thank you for your book club letters - I imagine they take quite some time to craft. Take care and to everyone, have faith in your parenting abilities!

Wow! Thank you so much for sharing, Jennifer. So nice to hear from you. Leslie wrote that review and she happens to be sitting beside me on the couch right now! She shares back:

I totally hear you. You do not sound anywhere close to a failure but more like an INCREDIBLE parent in that you know the ultimate, most important truth—only the parent themselves can know what is best for their child. And as you say tuning into that intuition and rising above the noise of the parenting world is really all we can do. One of my favourite parenting quotes is from ​Brené Brown​ who said, "Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.” Feels like a deep calming exhale to remind myself of that, hopefully it has a similar effect on you!

OK!

As always I absolutely love your letters (just reply to this email and send me one!) and I absolutely love your phone calls (call me at ​1-833-READ-A-LOT​!).

I can’t reply to all but I do my best to read and listen to everyone one. And, as always, if I use your letter or your voicemail please reply with your address so I can sign and mail you a book—you pick!—as a way to say thanks.

AND NOW!

Let's head inside...

Neil

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1. ​For God, Country & Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It​ by Mark Pendergrast (b. 1948). First up: Yes, Coca-Cola contained cocaine. From 1885 to 1905, actually. That was when the company published the pamphlet “What Is It? Coca-Cola: What It Is” praising how cocaine “makes one active, vigorous, brilliant, and able to accomplish a great deal of tasks easily.” But, of course, ​coca​ leaves from Peru contained just one of the two key ingredients immortalized in the name with the other being the ​kola nut​ from Ghana, which provided caffeine. Cocaine plus caffeine? Yes, but importantly no alcohol, which helped the “dope” (what people called Coca-Cola for years) skitter around Atlanta’s incoming prohibition laws. Who came up with Coca-Cola? The book opens with a vivid scene of inventor John Pemberton (1831-1888) shooting morphine. He had suffered a sabre wound to the chest in the Civil War and, like over 400,000 (!) veterans, became addicted to morphine to ease the pain. (Evidently they called it “​Soldier’s Disease​” back then.) So coca leaves plus kola nuts: Is that the secret formula? Well, no, there’s a lot more, and it wasn't exactly secret. In fact it’s published right ​here on Wikipedia​ and on page 490 of the book:

Not so easy to brew in your kitchen though, right? The book explains that the reason Coca-Cola’s recipe became secret was precisely because of how not-secret it was. Pemberton’s recipe travelled far and wide and for most of the company’s first few decades was endlessly imitated. But then the guy who bought Coca-Cola (through potentially nefarious means) decided to make it secret afterwards, setting up a complex series of unmarked boxes with coded numbers to slowly hide and then (some say) alter the recipe. By 1959 the company president was saying Coca-Cola was just “a meaningless but fanciful alliterative name.” Today Coca-Cola is the world’s most widely distributed product, available in more than two hundred countries—more than the United Nations membership. And would you believe that “coke” is the second “most universally recognized word on earth” (#1 is OK). Coca-Cola history is like this mirrory reflection of American history and capitalism’s history. The drink “helped to alter not only consumption patterns but attitudes toward leisure, work, advertising, sex, family, life, and patriotism.” It’s important. And big. Really big! In fact, I just looked it up and there is no “older-bigger” drink company … ever. No “older-bigger” food company, either. I only found three “older-bigger” companies period (Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, American Express.) Last year Coca-Cola made $47,100,000,000 and (including bottlers) employed over 700,000 people. To pull off the feat of being around 145 years (!) and being endlessly “within arm’s reach of desire” there is much Shakespearean drama. I mean, things just don’t last that long without some stories for the ages. From “Bottle It” (the smartest-dumbest contract ever) to “New Coke” (with incoming CEO asking sixty-year (!) Coca-Cola head “Mr. Bob” for his blessing on his deathbed) all the way to the 8-page “Coca-Cola Magic” Appendix which distills 35 business lessons from the company—this adds up to an exquisitely researched and epically brilliant masterwork on one of the most astounding organizations of all time. This is the mother of all Harvard Business Review case studies and clearly took most of a lifetime to put together. (I'll leave Atlanta native Pendergrast’s fascinating personal relationship to the company, revealed in the preface, as a little surprise.) There were several times I found myself drinking a Coca-Cola while reading the book and just pausing to stare at the bubbling black liquid in awe. Rollicking, unbiased, eye-opening, informative, magisterial, magical, unforgettable.

2. ​The Explorer’s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map​ by Alex Hutchinson. It was six or seven years ago when I was a “celebrity author” at the ​Toronto Public Library​’s annual black tie charity gala. At the table next to me was another young author named ​Alex​ who shook my hand with a big smile and told me he had recently read my ​‘Rose Rose Thorn Bud’ article in The Toronto Star​. Both of us were relative no-names who were disappointing the high-rollers expecting to sit next to Margaret Atwood. I picked up Alex’s book ‘​Endure​’ soon after and enjoyed ​his conversation​ about it with ​Rich Roll​. Flash forward to 2025 and I’m walking through ​Type on Queen West​ and I see ‘The Explorer’s Gene’ on the front table. It's Alex! He’s back! His next book! I pick it up and the subtitle draws me in: “Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map.” I relate to the first two! Third one, not so much. Cover pic of a guy cross-country skiing on a mountain summit? Definitely not! But I buy it and reconnect immediately with Alex’s winsome, accessible genius. (Not many people have the incredible combo of a Master's in Journalism from Columbia and a PhD in Physics from Cambridge!) He wins me over right at the epigraph from Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s ‘Physiologie du goùt’ which reads: “To say that we should not change wines is a heresy; the tongue becomes saturated, and after the third glass even the best bottle yields but an obtuse sensation.” He breaks the book into three sections: 1) Why We Explore, 2) How We Explore, and 3) What Exploring Means Now. “Why We Explore” splits into 3 key points: anthropological, biological, neuroscientific. In the first point we learn “no other mammal moves around like we do” (page 21 / anthropological) and that “if you artificially boost dopamine levels in the brain, monkeys ramp up exploratory behavior” (page 43 / biological), and that people “like a frisson of uncertainty: Will this pen shock me? Is this roll stuffed with wasabi? What brand is this ad selling, anyway?” (page 63 / neuroscientific). The book helped me understand the heuristic known as the “explore – exploit dilemma” in which “a single instance of exploring will likely yield a worse-than-usual outcome, but the collective effect of repeatedly breaking free of your usual routines will be better outcomes—a faster commute, for example—in the long term. By breaking old habits, the uncertainty bonus helps you build better ones.” He teaches us that “What makes exploring hard—the uncertainty, the struggle, the possibility of failure—is, at least in part, what makes it rewarding” and that “to harness the power of exploring, then, we need to understand why we’re drawn to the unknown, what we’re seeking there, and how we can do it better.” There’s a lot of brilliance here! I was stunned into contemplation by the “Wundt Curve” he shares on page 65 which says that “in the Dark Room the situation is too simple” and in the Jungle “the situation is so complex we can’t make sense of it" … and, sort of like the last bowl of porridge, the Sweet Spot offers some “intermediate novelty and complexity” which makes it jusssssssst right.

Sort of a parallel to ​Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s​ (MEE-hy CHEEK-sent-mee-HAH-yee) concept of hitting flow. From there “How We Explore” and “What Exploring Means Now” offer a steady stream of insights (I especially enjoyed Chapter 10 on “Rediscovering Play” and Chapter 11 on “The Effort Paradox”.) If you are curious, if you itch for the other, this book will affirm and expand your awareness and understanding. A really wonderful book.

3. ​Three Days in June​ by Anne Tyler (b. 1941). I had such high hopes for this book! And there were moments of delight that would help me put it on a shelf between ‘​The Rosie Project​’ and ‘​The Maid​.’ But it didn’t have that tight dramatic “feel it in your stomach” type of coiling I got from ‘Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant’ (​05/2022​), which was recommended to me by ​Nancy the Librarian​. But this new one: It’s good! But not great. You see the talent—the quick wrist-snap backhands in the writing. But you know how ​Quentin Tarantino​ is always ​saying​ he’s only making 10 movies total because “Directors don’t get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I am all about my filmography, and one bad film fucks up three good ones.” Well, is it like that with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists, too? I had to look it up. This is Anne Tyler’s twenty-fifth novel. She wrote her first in 1964 at age 22. She won the Pulitzer for ‘Breathing Lessons’ in 1989 and ‘Homesick,’ that gem, came out in 1982. Now, I did enjoy the plot here—long-ago divorced parents cohabitate for “three days in June” over the course of their only child’s wedding in suburban Baltimore, but I felt the awkward rehearsal and shocking beauty parlour disclosure scenes had more potential. Still, it’s a great little flipper—the tart and sour tone of our first-person narrator (and mother of the bride) Gail Baines does make for a certain kind of pleasurably ornery company.

4. ​Bethlehem: A Celebration of Palestinian Food​ by Fadi Kattan (b. 1977). My grandparents-in-law are 92 and 91 and when I asked them what one of the biggest changes they’ve seen in Toronto in their lifetimes they said “The restaurants!” They told me there were diners, then Italian, then Chinese. Last year I was riding my bike past a stand advertising homemade “Damascene Cuisine!” and ended up having a great conversation with its ​two Syrian chefs​. Then a couple weeks ago Leslie and I went to ​Louf​, a new Palestinian restaurant opened by chef Fadi Kattan who also owns ​Fawda​ in Bethlehem (where he lives) and ​Akub​ in London. Place was packed, food was delicious, service wonderful, and we walked out buying his cookbook. In the introduction Kattan writes that “Cooking is how I tell Bethlehem’s story” and the book really is a mix of stories and recipes. In “Breakfasts with Baba Fuad” he writes that “As a boy, I was always required to help with breakfast preparations, making sure that the coffee cups, plates, cutlery, and napkins were all set neatly in place. Then came the tray laden with zeit o zaatar—the winning combination of olive oil and a zaatar spice blend, some addictive thick and sticky dibs o tahinia (grape molasses mixed with sesame paste), and the crown jewels, homemade jams provided by Mama Micheline.” Are you drooling? We’re not even at lunch! Like the restaurant, this book has a deep soul and it’s clear it was made with so much care and heart. It’s a cookbook so let me close with a few mouth-watering photos:

5. ​This Book is a Planetarium​ by Kelli Anderson. A wonderful book that’s only five two-page spreads. But each one pops out and is interactive. I wish they’d called it “This Book is a Guitar” or “This Book is a Speaker” because I think that might be a bit more accessible but I will say my kid’s eyes lit up when I turned the lights off in our windowless bathroom and slid my phone up from the bottom of the page under and into the “planetarium” to make the ceiling and walls glow with constellations:

And then on the “Instrument” page there’s a little pick in the top left that you can pull out and then strum the strings on a a guitar:

Older kids may get a kick out of the “Perpetual Calendar” which (in our family) meant everybody spinning the dials to figure out what day of the week their birthday will be when they turn 16, 18, or 100.

There’s also a speaker, decoder ring, and a spirograph. A bookish book showing books are not just books.

6. ​Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility​ by James Carse. I was playing road hockey with my kids. We played best of three, then best of five, then best of seven. I started telling them there was no point keeping score. That we’re one team. One family. That the real focus of this game is for these relationships to last forever. That’s the “infinite game” we’re playing above the “finite game” that is road hockey. They had stopped listening by then but, honestly, reading this book just helps you see things like that over and over ... everywhere. (Here’s my original review from ​8/2022​.) The book is 101 short chapters—a structure wonderfully copied by ​Douglas Rushkoff​ in ‘Team Human’ (​2/2021​)—and the first chapter is printed in full on the cover: “There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite; the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.” Ball hockey? Finite. Togetherness? Infinite. One of my favourite quotes comes on page 73: “Winners, especially celebrated winners, must prove repeatedly they are winners. The script must be played over and over again. Titles must be defended by new contests. No one is ever wealthy enough, honored enough, applauded enough.” How true! The conclusion is of course that infinite games are all that matter. Love, friendship, marriage—constantly seeking to see that bigger picture, pushing ourselves out of win-lose scenarios, and helping make things work over the long term.

7. ​The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents​ by William Martin. And now it’s time Leslie’s Pick! Over to you Les: “Life has been flying fast (almost too fast!) for me lately and I have been finding it hard to slow down and dive deeply into a book (even though it’s probably exactly what I need). In times like these, books like this one help me find moments of calm, remind me what matters, and focus my mind on an intention or mantra. This book was gifted to me by my dear friend and mentor, Barb, who inspires me in the way that she moves slowly in a fast world, gardening in the sun, connecting deeply with the people right in front of her, and in how she can hold both the beauty and the hard of life at the same time. And so, reading this book also makes me feel connected to her. The poem that stuck out to me last night is called “Less Is More” and reads: ‘Your children do not need more. Each day adds more facts, more gadgets, more activities, more desires, and more confusion to their lives. Your task is to subtract. Each day seek to remove, to clarify, to simplify. Society’s wisdom adds, and confusion grows. The wisdom of the Tao subtracts, and serenity flourishes. If each day one minute less was spent doing something, and one minute more was spent being present, in simple pleasures, with your children, in two months you would transform your life, and theirs. One minute less.’ And so, my wish for you, is that if you choose to pick this book up it helps you find comfort and connection to all the other deeply feeling humans looking to embrace slow, less, bittersweetness, and meaning.”

8. ​On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century​ by Timothy Snyder (b. 1969). I was walking through Del Mar, California a few weeks ago when I stumbled on ​Camino Books​, a new shop from veteran booksellers John and Alison who met in Berkeley in the early 1980s. I had a wonderful conversation with them which will come out as the next chapter of ​3 Books​. (Join us on ​Apple​ or ​Spotify​.) When I first walked into Camino I felt like I was entering some kind of biblio-wonderland with stimulating displays, thoughtful curation, and ideas everywhere:

I ended up buying nine books (my haul is the second-to-last pic) but shipped a few locally (golf books for ​Freddo​) and the rest in a small box to Canada due to a crammed suitcase. Buuuut I was able to slip into my pocket this thin 126-page manifesto-as-listicle from professor Timothy Snyder (​formerly of Yale​ now at ​University of Toronto​) which draws on twentieth-century history and sifts it into simple lessons to help us navigate today’s era. In #2 “Defend Institutions” he writes, “The mistake is to assume that rules who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.” In #7 “Be reflective if you must be armed” he writes, “If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.” In #12 “Make eye contact and small talk” he writes, “Whether the recollection is of fascist Italy in the 1920s, of Nazi Germany of the 1930s, of the Soviet Union during the Great Terror of 1937-38, or of the purges in communist eastern Europe in the 1940s and ’50s, people who were living in fear of repression remembered how their neighbors treated them. A smile, a handshake, or a word of greeting—banal gestures in normal times—took on great significance. When friends, colleagues, and acquaintances looked away or crossed the street to avoid contact, fear grew. You might not be sure, today or tomorrow, who feels threatened in the United States. But if you affirm everyone, you can be sure that certain people will feel better.” From #14 “Establish a private life” to #15 “Contribute to good causes” to #20 “Be as courageous as you can” he shines light through a dark vision of today’s world.

9. ​Pastoralia: Stories and a Novella​ by George Saunders (b. 1958). My first George Saunders was ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ (​4/2018​) and since then I’ve loved his short stories (he has a ​new one in The Atlantic​) and signed up for his ​Story Club​ Substack—which I highly recommend if you want to grow as a writer. A few years ago George gave us a ​generous interview on 3 Books​ (he's the definition of ​kind​) and I thought of him again this month after reading his piercing “​On the Firing of Dr. Carla D. Hayden​” Op-Ed in The New York Times. I love George. I love George’s writing. Tight, unpredictable. This is a perfect book with endless moments so absurd, so silly, so striking, that I carried it with me this month and it helped jostle me off of anything bugging me so I could briefly live somewhere else.

10. There is no 10! Just a little lootbag of links. After five years of birding I finally wrote a long article giving my former self (and anybody needing a nudge) ​8 reasons to get into birdwatching​. Leslie and I had fun ​walking around Toronto with​ ​Ginny Yurich​ of ​1000 Hours Outside​. Ryan Holiday ​shares wonderful lessons​ from running his own independent book store. (Props to ​independent bookstores​!) ​Is it Nic Cage or Nick Cave​? Master distiller Tomas Peuyo on ​why ​​Canada's population ​is so concentrated. My friend Panio has a ​new project​ that gives you direct access to your favorite authors. ​Mark Manson​ tells us “​why everybody's stopped reading​.” “​Uber just invented... the bus.​” “​Basic human hygiene​” says Dan Go. Ever wondered what ​gets mongered besides fear and fish​? ​Terry​​ Fox is my Tom Brady​. e e cummings on ​being yourself​. And ​Alex​ reminds us to ​break book rules​!

Remember: You are what you eat. And you are what you read. Keep turning that page ... and I'll talk to you soon.

Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - April 2025

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

Thank you for being part of the resistance!

A loyal band of people flipping pages in the age of infinite scrolls!

Last issue I shared some of your letters in the opening. It was popular so I'm doing it again! Scroll down to the picture if you want to skip to the reviews.

In response to my last ​Book Club​ (​03/2025​) Beth A. wrote:

I use this newsletter as a form of entertainment, as a form of finding books to add to my to-read list, and as a way to hear from someone else with a slightly different point of view. I'm challenged to read outside my genre and comfort. It makes me a better reader and a better person. I also appreciate Leslie's additions for the same reason.

Thanks Beth! Leslie is back this month with a book she’s been raving about. I love hearing about different reading habits so much. Mary S. shared hers:

I do not have time for much fiction. I am much more interested in learning about relevant world problems and subjects like longevity and brain trauma research. Right now I am reading ‘​The Ageless Brain​’ by Dale Bredesen.

Looks great. Adding to my TBR! Thanks Mary. And then Bo B. wrote saying:

I also recently read Sahil's ‘​5 Types of Wealth​,’ and I can totally relate to your review. The book is quite an accomplishment, how he brought together some of the most popular studies, practices, and principles. The bibliography section alone is probably worth the price of the book. I can see it showing up in lists like “Most Practical Books for Graduates” or something. But did I like the book? Would I recommend it to a friend? That's tougher for me to answer. I found it mildly exhausting to read for any stretch of time, like doing a mental HIIT workout. Maybe it's too optimized, kinda how a ChatGPT summary of an article seems to lose the charm of the fabric of thought that the author was working with. I highlighted the hell out of the book, but I wouldn't say it was an enjoyable read. In contrast, I also read ‘​The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life​’ by Boyd Varty. It's a fraction of the length. There are virtually no references to any studies. But I found this book to have much more heart, and the message was more impactful. I recommend it!

Thank you, Bo! Always good to hear from you. The book recos we share here are gold. I value this Saturday morning coffee shop chat so much. We help each other grow. I'd like to start ‘opening letters’ as a regular feature! If I feature a snip of your letter (i.e., email-reply) to my book club I'll sign and mail you ​a book​ to say thanks. OK, finally this month let's go to Devra T.:

Must hear more about FFF!! I've been thinking about the comings and goings of friendships, having naturally grown out of one last year and we are building a new one with some of our youngest daughter's friend's parents currently. I haven't read widely on the topic (yet), being a natural extrovert I am quick to ‘make friends.’ But it is true that we expect friendships, like romantic relationships, to be effortless, and if there is effort involved, then it's not worthwhile to continue trying. The same is true of neighbors and neighborhoods. To ponder when looking at the rise in loneliness.

Interesting, Devra. Thank you. Friendships are definitely two-way. My favorite book on friends is ​Robin Dunbar's​ ‘How Many Friends Does One Person Need?’ (​BO2023​).

Fun hearing from you and keep ’em coming. Apologies in advance if I miss your note or don't reply. I try!

Now let's hit the books!

Neil

P.S. I don't advertise. This is word of mouth. Invite others ​here​.

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1. ​High Five​ by Adam Rubin. Illustrated by Daniel Salmieri. I think this is the most underrated children’s book of the past few years. Came out in 2019 before getting buried in pandemic quicksand. Bookstores closed, browsing closed—boxing-glove-to-jaw punchout for picture books. Yet years later I still find myself turning to it every month or two when I’ve been away and need a fun, long, cuddly half-hour read to fill up. Who else has a good book for staying in their kid's beds—lingering, loitering, lavishly languishing? The book opens with an announcement! Told in just two of its magnificent forty rhyming paragraphs:

For the rest of the book the reader is thrust into participating in the “75th Annual High Five Tournament” and then steps into the ring to physically battle—high five!—a series of contestants ranging from “Gigantic The Bear with 700 pounds of hair” to “Kangaroo Paul with Fastest Hands Of Them All” to “Octopus Jones” who, of course, requires eight high fives to defeat. With a scribbly first-person perspective and boxing-ring-style judges rating your high fives in front of a thunderous crowd in a packed arena, you somehow manage to obliterate the competition. Reads like you’re Little Mac playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!. Who is the scarier final opponent?

I’m adding this to my new list (​Neil.blog​, ​Goodreads​) called “Massively Underrated Picture Books.”

2. ​In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed ​by Carl Honoré. Do you inspect other people’s bookshelves? It’s okay. You can admit it. You’re not judging them—​no book guilt, no book shame!​—but … getting to know them. Paying attention to what they’re paying attention to! (​Anne Bogel ​of ​What Should I Read Next?​ shares this fascination and we discussed it in ​Union Square​). Well, I’m a book shelf inspector too, and thank goodness for that. Otherwise I may never have found this gem more than a decade ago when I visited my then-girlfriend Leslie’s parent’s house and found a couple bookshelves by the ping pong table. I love this book. I’ve read it three times now. If you don’t know Carl Honoré you could start with his hit 2005 TED Talk ​of the same name​. Or, you know, ​just read the transcript​. Why? Because as Carl says: “Everyone wants to know how to slow down but they want to know how to slow down quickly.” Since its 2004 publication this magnum opus has only become more important. On page 9 Carl quotes Milan Kundera’s ‘Slowness’ (​3/2025​) “When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything, about anything at all, not even about himself.” Milan Kundera, where art thou now? Maybe having coffee in the clouds with ​Neil Postman​, ​Jiddu Krishnamurti​, and ​David Foster Wallace​? Part of the reason I force myself to write these superlong book clubs, and do them by, you know, writing with my own fingers instead of using AI is … to help my own brain slow down. We have to remember: Endless scrolling was invented in 2006, TikTok in 2016, 5-second images of anything you can think of in 2025. We are experiencing a grand quickening. The danger is that Kundera’s prophecy may come true. Step one in steadying yourself in the tidal wave? Read this book. Learn to find your own pace in the machine and find areas in your life you can purposefully shift the gears back down to “human.” One of the most eye-opening sections comes early when from pages 42-44 ​he traces the resistance to the cult of speed over the ages​. There are so many tidbits on slowing down, though—in food, in sex, in … everything. On page 228 he describes how educator Jenny Harley and her reading club consumed ‘​Little Dorrit​’ by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) “in the same way it would have been read in its day—in monthly instalments spread over a year and a half.” I love that! And what does she say afterwards? “When you rattle through it, you don’t appreciate some of the jokes and waiting games, and the play that Dickens makes with secret stories and hidden plots.” Secret stories? Hidden plots? Sounds like detail, mystery, complexity, nuance! Not sure about you but I’m not getting much of that on social media. How about this provocative idea on page 101: “In a recent British show, motorists caught driving too fast in a school zone were given a choice between paying the fine and facing the local children. Those who chose the latter sat ashen-faced at the head of a classroom, fielding poignant questions from kids as young as six: How would you feel if you ran me over? What would you say to my parents if you killed me? The drivers were visibly shaken. One woman wept. All went away vowing never to break the speed limit again.” Crazy idea? Bit unethical as rich people can just buy their way out, maybe? (Should we adopt the ​Finnish community trust-building strategy of charging traffic violations as a percentage of income​?) This book isn’t just preaching a “slow at all costs vibe” though. It’s preaching mastery. (​Preach about mastery, Derek​!) Silencing your inner sea so greatness can bubble up from the deep. He peppers in great quotes from Captain J. A. Hadfield (“This art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.”) and Albert Einstein (“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.”) Taken together it’s a manifesto—a hold onto your caps and your brains, folks—as we continue plugging ourselves deeper into the matrix. Benefits of meditation, resurgence of tantra sex, how garden views reduce pain—it’s all here. A masterful tour de force.

3. ​Ghost​ by Jason Reynolds. A 180-page, 14-point-font book you will feel, love, learn from, and fly through. My wife was scrolling through ​Indigo’s well-curated lists​ hunting for books for our oldest. He’d just finished the 5-book ‘​The Academy​’ series—about a boy who works towards living his dream playing in the ​Premier League​—and she found … this. Confusing title, maybe. Ghost? But it pulls you in with a loud, punchy, center-channel voice. Ghost is the self-anointed nom-de-plume of Castle Cranshaw, a poor seventh grade kid who accidentally joins a local track team and finds himself addressing his own trauma (on page 5 his dad drunkenly fires a gun at him and his mom as they flee their apartment and gets sentenced to 10 years in prison) and anger (he punches a bully out in the cafeteria a few pages later) on a deep, visceral, emotional level. Jason Reynolds is a magician. And the voice—what a voice. From page 4: “I got to punch that jerk Brandon in the face—I know, I know, not cool, but still!—leave school early, and hang out at the track with my new coach—because I was on a team now—who turned out to be a pretty cool dude. Me and Coach didn’t go no further into my life or nothing like that, which was a good thing because I never really told nobody about my dad.” Perfect storytelling, memorable characters—it'll have you feeling like you can do the 100 meters in under 10 by the end.

4. ​Educated: A Memoir​ by Tara Westover. Years ago I flew to New York for ​Book Expo​ and went to some fancy dinner with my literary agent and a dozen publishing people. I remember like half of them were carrying this book. So I bought it … and put it on my shelf … where it sat for 7 years until the ever-insightful ​Kim Holderness​ told me it’s one of her 3 most formative (along with ‘​Quiet​’ by Susan Cain [​2/2020​] and ‘​Bossypants​’ by Tina Fey) and that she still thinks about every week. Every week? 7 years later? I cracked it open. And the energy that shot out of the pages kept me gripped late into the night for weeks. The book took me far, far away before slingshotting me back to a here and now that felt strange and familiar. We open in the 90s on the side of an Idaho mountain where “cliffs appeared suddenly [and] feral horses, belonging to my grandpa, ran wild over thick banks of water hemlock, and there were more than a few rattlesnakes.” Tara tells her tale in endless tight, gripping stories from her vantage point as the youngest of seven in a large family with an extremist father who works at “scrapping” and doesn’t trust the government or doctors or schools. (“I may as well surrender my kids to the devil himself as send them down the road to that school.”) No one goes to school. They wander, work, get hit in the head by metal tossed at them by their dad, fall off skids high in the air on unstable forklifts their dad is steering and crack their heads on concrete, get into car accidents in the middle of nights in their car full of kids lying everywhere with no seatbelts, and drive with their mom to high-risk pregnancies helping deliver babies for people who would rather die than go to a hospital. This book isn’t as good as everyone says—it’s better. Slap to the face, splash to the face. And it’s two books, really. The first half you’re living a wild, thrilling, confusing, loving, frenzied upbringing of self-discovery and the second you’re with Tara as she goes to BYU then Cambridge then Harvard then Cambridge again. Together they make a sour-sweet-sour read that is a wondrous eyes-open summary of the supremely talented Tara Westover’s first 34 years. A take-your-breath-away book.

5. ​The Days Are Just Packed: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection​ by Bill Watterson (b. 1958). Last week I saw ​Ryan Holiday​ ask people on Twitter, “What’s your favorite book to re-read?” so I threw in my response:

Replying made me realize I ... hadn’t actually picked up a Calvin and Hobbes in a while. Over a year? For sure I read the first and last ones when ​Daniels​ (​Everything Everywhere All At Once​) picked them as formative. But it's been too long! The strip is one of the world’s most exquisite artistic feats. For ten straight years from 1985 to 1995 Bill Watterson (then aged 27 to 37) published a brand new Calvin and Hobbes strip … every day. Every day! And this collection in particular is his first “widescreen” book where Watterson, who was being published in over 2000 major newspapers at the time, unleashed his full powers and unshackled himself from the constrained universe of small-box funnies. Like on page 7 and 10 of the book the first two Sunday strips still have that awkward-but-mandatory “2-panel punchline” because some papers ran with the header and some ran without:

But Watterson then started putting out his newfangled “take it or leave it” big Sunday rectangles which trashed convention and introduced dynamic new ways to tell stories. (I love the opening line in the first-ever Sunday box-busting strip with Calvin transgressively saying: “If you ask me, Hobbes, the whole notion of ‘instant gratification’ is a myth!”) By the end of this book he's doing acrobatic leaps, bounds—into the clouds, into the stratosphere—beyond the reach of every other cartoonist of the time and (maybe) since:

Watterson never commercialized Calvin. No ads, no sponsors, no commercials, no interruptions. I love it. I admire it. I respect it. There are no Hobbes stuffies, no Miss Wormwood dartboards, no horrible "Calviner and Hobbes" Netflix version with too-high-pitched-and-too-low-pitched voices. So the comic books remain highly, highly potent. Plus, over the years, they've become increasingly prophetic. Much of what maligned Watterson through his 20s and 30s feels like it’s been blooming like a grey cloud. No wonder after his sudden and surprising retirement he has seemingly spent his 40s, 50s, and now 60s with his family—painting pictures he doesn’t share or post, declining every interview request, and steering well clear of any kind of public or online existence. His strips serve as brain jostles. Pokes in the dark. They haven't aged a bit! Like where Calvin is wearing pyjamas standing in front of his TV holding a bowl in the first panel saying “Oh greatest of the mass media, thank you for elevating emotion, reducing thought, and stifling imagination” before continuing in the second “Thank you for the artificiality of quick solutions and for the insidious manipulation of human desires for commercial purposes” before bowing down with the bowl in front of him in the third panel saying “This bowl of lukewarm tapioca represents my brain. I offer it in humble sacrifice. Bestow thy flickering light forever.” A final panel shows his mom in her nightie with bleary eyes staring at the flashing TV in the middle of the night. Um, indeed. Ever-illuminating. Ever-wondrous. Worth being read again ... and again ... and again. (P.S. If you haven’t read it I recommend Bill's ​1990 Commencement speech​ to Kenyon College—to my knowledge the only public speech he's ever done.)

6. ​Raising Calm Kids in a World of Worry: Tools to Ease Anxiety and Overwhelm​ by Ashley Graber and Maria Evans. And now it’s time for a “Leslie’s Pick” where we feature a book recently read and loved by my beautiful wife, Leslie. Over to her! “There’s a real buzz of anxiety and worry in the world right now. With AI, political headlines, and climate doom, parents have a lot to stress over—both in our everyday reality and in our long term guiding of our children. We all know there’s no such thing as ‘perfect parenting’ and Graber and Evans's writing is warm and accessible as they share concrete strategies to develop psychological safety for children using an acronym called SAFER (Set the tone, Allow feelings to guide behaviours, Form identity, Engage like a pro, Role model). They also outline for parents how to understand our child’s worry and place it in context of what’s developmentally normal as well as when to get extra help. Full of relatable stories about real life current day families and unlike many parenting books that just make me feel like there’s more to do, this is a calming, comforting support on the honourable, challenging, and ever-rewarding journey of parenting in today’s demanding times!”

7. “​The World Porn Made​” by Sophie Gilbert. Not a book! But a long 10-page feature article that will stop you in your tracks. I was walking through the Orlando airport last week after missing my flight when I picked up the current issue of The Atlantic. A few flips in came this astounding feature by Sophie Gilbert who takes a from-outer-space view of pornography’s impact on culture over the past 50 years from VCRs to Trump’s latest retweet. I am 45—just 3 years older than the author—and she completely nails the social zeitgeist I grew up in, too. One that starts at the dawn of the millennium when “Britney Spears appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone lying on a pink bed wearing polka-dot panties and a black push-up bra, clutching a Teletubby doll” in the swirl of Best Picture-winner ​American Beauty​ where “a middle-aged man has florid sexual fantasies about his teenage daughter’s best friend” and the introduction of the Abercrombie & Fitch holiday catalog which featured “nude photo spreads, sly references to oral sex and threesomes, and an interview with porn actress Jenna Jameson, in which she was repeatedly harangued by the interviewer to let him touch her breasts.” What’s the lesson she and her friends pick up? That their power was sexual. Flash forward a couple decades and ​Roe v. Wade​ is overturned and now we have Gilbert, post-pandemic, post-kids, looking back and observing how porn has “changed our culture, and, in doing so, has filtered into our subconscious minds, beyond the reach of rationality and reason.” In 1985 Americans rented 75 million adult videos. In 1995 that number was 750 million. Performers from Madonna to Snoop Dogg to The Weeknd were quick to cash in by starring in pornographic offerings and technology was often reverse engineered based on demands from porn. “Google Images was created after Jennifer Lopez wore a vivid-green jungle-print Versace dress to the 2000 Grammy Awards, cut so spectacularly low that it became the most popular search query Google had seen to date. Facebook was born in 2004, after Mark Zuckerberg first experimented with making a website dedicated to assessing the relative hotness of Harvard undergraduates. And when Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen founded YouTube in 2005, it was partly because Karim had been searching for videos of Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the Super Bowl and couldn’t easily find one.” She catalogs what we did to people—from underage women in ‘Girls Gone Wild’ tapes to Pamela Anderson’s illegally stolen-from-her-locked-bedroom-safe-and-released honeymoon sex tape to Jennifer Ringley, college nerd and first ‘cam girl’ of Jennicam to VP-candidate Sarah Palin who, after her nomination, had lookalikes hired by Larry Flynt off Craigslist to shoot a pornographic film in 10 days called Who’s Nailin’ Paylin?. It’s scary how the algorithm’s thirst for endless extremes to get eyeballs is what’s driven culture. In 2001 in The Guardian Martin Amis ​wrote about the business of porn​ and said that “The new element is violence.” Perhaps the most horrifying takeaways come today when the author discusses elements of the campaign against Kamala Harris that are honestly too shocking for me to even write here. I struggle with pornography’s deep intertwining relationship in our culture. I’m raising kids. I worry about what they’ll see, when they’ll see it, how to keep them safe—how to keep them sane. For fathers, for mothers, for sisters, for brothers, this is an illuminating light on our culture with the goal, the hopeful goal, of seeing it and observing it, so we may rid ourselves of the mask, and then discuss and engage with it in an open and healthier way. I’ve had a subscription to The Atlantic off and on for decades and just renewed it. They've been independent for 168 years! It started with Thoreau writing about abolitionism! I applaud their dedication to longform journalism, I crave their deep research in an era of the sound bite, and I have loved recent featured articles and short stories from people like ​Jonathan Haidt​, Anne Applebaum, and ​George Saunders​. ​Click here to read this article (via a gift link)​ and ​click here to join me with a subscription​.

8. ​Fifty Ideas For Building Better Cities: The Monocle Companion​. Maybe six or seven years ago my neighbour Jason and I went up and down the street and knocked on doors to collect fifty signatures on a homemade letter which we gave to our city councillor who presented it to Toronto City Council. Six weeks later we had speed bumps installed on our street and our kids only needed to beware of cars going 30 or 40km/hour instead of 60 or 70. I am slightly embarrassed that this was probably my first form of civic activism. I liked it! Since then I’ve helped get traffic lights installed, repaired dangerous sidewalks, and helped ​beautify corners​. I haven’t done much—praise be to mayors and councillors!—but I’m learning how easy it is to be helpful on a small scale. Sometimes international and national news stories can feel just way above our abilities to do anything. But we can read neighbourhood signs, talk to interesting people we meet (like ​Doug​, ​Soyoung​, or ​Nickisha​), and send in ​protest letters​. What helps? This book! I bought it last year from the Monocle Store on College Street West in downtown Toronto (​one of six Monocle stores​ globally with the others in London, Zürich, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, and Tokyo). And I love Monocle’s ethos of graphic design, culture, and travel together with their philosophy of being totally off social media and instead focusing on very human and analog-y outputs of ​print​, ​radio​, ​books​, and ​newsletters​. So what’s in the book? 50 loosely held-together ideas presented in accessibly tart essays which include “#12 Playgrounds for change” (“Residents should be annoyed if a crude graffiti tag appears on a new slide. They need to care if teenagers start littering a playground floor”) to “#19 The sensory city” (“The membrane of touchpoints and details that connect us to urban life on the surface—planting, seating, music, games—are being value-engineered out of existence”) to “#21 A Sky full of plants” (“Gustavo Gandini, a professor of animal genetics at the University of Milan, is tending to a lavender bush on his abundantly green seventh-floor terrace”). Some essays are lyrical like the four-page gem “#25 Why we need city laureates,” some articulate truths you may have felt before like “#31 The pedestrian manifesto,” and others provoke imagination and energy like “#34 Every city needs a fairground.” I like this book because it makes civic activism and political change feel … accessible. We can’t call the President but we can call our locals! We can protest! We can. We should. Sometimes, honestly, if you’re inclined to help then the old adage to “Think Global and Act Local” still applies. Whether it’s picking up trash at the park, joining a local group asking for change, or just collecting signatures for a set of speed bumps or a traffic light, this book offers a set of spurs and inspiration to help.

9. Nine! There is no nine. Just a little diary entry and some links. I've been in Airplane Mode lately. Suddenly everyone's having a conference! San Diego, Nashville, Dallas, Houston, Wichita, and Orlando ... in two weeks. In Orlando I spoke to 1500 911 (and ​999​!) operators about research-backed ways to take care of our mental health so we can show up for others. I shared ​many​ ​things​ ​you’ve​ ​heard​ ​me​ ​talk​ ​about​ before including, of course, reading ​2 pages of fiction​ before bed. (​46% of us read 0 books in the past year​.) I wrote down ‘​19 Things I Would Tell Myself At Age 19​’ and slipped in a fun walk with ​Nickisha the Dog Walker​—who walks 100km a week! I enjoyed ​this new conversation​ between Jonathan Haidt and Ezra Klein on the status of the phone-free childhood. Btw, Jon’s book, ‘​The Anxious Generation,​’ just hit a year straight on the New York Times bestseller list since it came out. My review is ​here​ and my favorite pages ​here​ and ​here​. As AI quickly soaks into everything at its endlessly dizzying pace I found some comfort in the ideas in Mat Balez's wonderful essay “​Parenting for superintelligence​.” The woodpeckers are ​fighting back​. Karen W. let me know that Little Free Library just opened its ​200,000th book box​! Are you ​high agency or low agency​? You've heard of ​slow productivity​; now it's time for ​slow travel​. ​Great article ​on developing a deep reading habit. Eric Jorgenson asks “​What guest will you listen to on ANY podcast?​” Gladwell ​twitter-punches​. Dan Go reminds us ​health doesn't have to be hard​. NNT gets ​corrected by Community Notes​. What TikTok execs ​say about TikTok​. I thought Mark Carney was ​thanking me​ for a second! (Though I agree with the other Neil.) And may we always remember: We can't do it alone. Thank you for reading to the end. Thank you for being here. ​It really does take a village.​

Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - March 2025

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

We’re still reading!

Trying, anyway. Even ​two pages​ a night helps! Peeling ourselves off screens an hour before bed lets our pineal gland crank out more melatonin to help us sleep. Less screens, more books!

I love the replies you sent me on last month's book club like from Melissa C who wrote:

Your Bookclub refreshes me. I find new books, I share your thoughts on old favourites; and many of your reviews push me to read a book I have known about but for no known reason avoided (I’m ready for ​H is for Hawk​ now!). The Little House on the Prairie series got me through the pandemic. I listened to Cherry Jones read the series via my library app, and it took me away from my worries and anxieties…

I’ll check out Cherry Jones! And I’m hearing a lot of you using library apps like ​Libby​. I do prefer paper, I admit—but all reading is reading! Keep the recos coming. Like this from Casey F:

Apologies if these were in an episode of ​3 Books​ (I am so far behind!), but have you ever read any of the ​Mrs. Piggle Wiggle​ books? They're old fashioned, feature lots of different bratty-but-normal kids, and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is amazing and also a little nuts. PS Read one of the original 4, by Betty MacDonald, not “Happy Birthday, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle” which was completed by her daughter and isn't quite the same.

I haven’t! But now I will add it to my skyscraper-high TBR. I also love hearing your reading stories like from Lidia M:

Dear Neil, I developed a love of reading early in life, I could see the scenes in my head and dreamed the stories at night. The characters peopled my life with vivid images of exotic lives outside of my own and fueled my imagination. I read voraciously. Now, later in life I have little time for devouring books but your reviews inspire me to read and pull me back to when this was so possible. Something I anticipate returning to. Thank you for contributing to keeping this alive for me...

And you for me! Reading isn’t always easy so we need each other’s encouragement. Keep it coming! Just reply to this email anytime…

Now let’s hit the books!

Neil

P.S. Invite others to join us ​here​.

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1. ​Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want To Run The World​ by Anne Applebaum (b. 1964). What is going on in the world right now? There’s an incessant rubber-mallet-to-the-forehead quality in the news. The zone is officially flooded and the overwhelming quantity of cheap misinformation together with the proliferation of bots, trolls, and AI-backed spammers manipulating the algorithms (who are incentivized to feed us anything to draws us in!) threatens to destabilize reality and obscure what’s really happening. This tiny and powerful book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum zooms up and above the daily “whats” and gives us the more illuminating and horrifying “whys” and “hows.” From page 27: “Everyone assumed that in a more open, interconnected world, democracy and liberal ideas would spread to the autocratic states. Nobody imagined that autocracy and illiberalism would spread to the democratic world instead.” And yet they have! Deeply so. In the first of 5 compressed and highly detailed chapters she writes: “The globalization of finance, the plethora of hiding places, and the benign tolerance the democracies have shown for foreign graft now give autocrats opportunities that few could have imagined a couple of decades ago.” I mean: I remember going on Twitter a decade ago when some big event was happening—the Oscars, the World Series, a big political announcement—and I’d hit the ‘For You’ feed and it was this beautiful cacophony of voices. Now it’s bogged down by unreliable spam. And it’s not just Twitter but most places. I learned in this book that in Central and South America the most common news is Chinese. Chinese news! China is one of a growing number of countries making up “Autocracy Inc” and we learn in Chapter 3 on “Controlling the narrative” how deep the surveillance goes. From page 69 we learn how China requires all Uighur muslims to download

...nanny apps on their phones which constantly search for ‘ideological viruses,’ including Koranic verses and religious references as well as suspicious statements in all forms of correspondence. The apps can monitor purchases of digital books and track an individual’s location, sending the information back to police. They can also pick up unusual behavior: anyone who downloads a virtual private network, anyone who stays off-line altogether, and anyone whose home uses too much electricity (which could be evidence of a secret houseguest) can arouse suspicion. Voice-recognition technology and even DNA swabs are used to monitor where Uighurs walk, drive, and shop.

But it is just oppressed minorities under dictatorships? Or … all of us? It’s not like the autocracies—defined as governments where one person possess unlimited power—are doing the twentieth century thing of pretending they’re giving us utopias. No, on page 74, Applebaum writes that the “…propagandists of Autocracy, Inc., have learned from the mistakes … they don’t offer their fellow citizens a vision of utopia, and they don’t inspire them to build a better world. Instead, they teach people to be cynical and passive, because there is no better world to build.” The decline in power of international organizations—like NATO, the WHO, and International Courts—reduces accountability for autocratic nations to suffer any kind of retribution for breaking global laws. Before our incoming ​Prime Minister Mark Carney​ took office a couple weeks ago we saw him resign from private boards and put his personal assets in blind trust to avoid conflict of interests. Contrast this to Presidents selling private crypto-coins or shilling cars from White House lawn. “Come on down!” Language is of course emerging as a battleground. I read with horror about the ​Newspeak​ emerging as words such as ​‘inclusivity,’ ‘mental health,’ and ‘activism’ are being phased out​. Don’t say those words! Can’t say those words! From page 102:

To protect its sovereignty, China seeks to change other kinds of language too. Instead of ‘political rights’ or ‘human rights’, the Chinese want the UN and other international organizations to talk about win-win cooperation—by which they mean that everyone will benefit if each country maintains its own political system. They also want to popularize mutual respect—by which they mean that no one should criticize anyone else.

These words are getting inserted into UN documents and “if mutual respect, win-win cooperation, and sovereignty prevail, then there is no role for human rights advocates, international commissions of inquiry, or any public criticism of Chinese policy in Tibet, Hong Kong, or Xinjiang at all.” Chapter 4 on “Smearing the democrats” shows how reputations in the era of social media overwhelm are taken down by anyone trying to fight for freedom and democracy. Why? Because as Anne writes on page 142 “when something ‘secret’ is revealed about an activist or political figure, perhaps through the publication of a taped conversation or a hacked email, it creates an impression that the person is dishonest and has something to hide, even when the tape or the hacked email contains no evidence of wrongdoing.” This book was published just before the US election of 2024 and there is an ominous close where Anne reminds us on page 148 that Trump seeks to “stoke anger and even violence against people he dislikes, including federal judges” and that “If he ever succeeds in directing federal courts and law enforcement at his enemies, in combination with a mass trolling campaign, then the blending of the autocratic and democratic worlds will be complete.” Is there hope? I mean—yes, thankfully. The closing chapter is a call to arms for people to rise up and fight through legal means the growing autocracy. It’s not easy. But it starts with books. Peeling ourselves off ad-based algorithms full of misinformation wired to confuse us—and getting back into books like this accessible and fearless writeup by a super-articulate history-based Pulitzer-prize winning Yale, LSE, and Oxford-educated journalist. She’s got the chops and she’s breathtakingly fearless in calling spades spades. This is a wake-up call we owe it to ourselves to read, share, and pass along. Highly recommended.

2. ​Crooked Plow: A Novel​ by Itamar Vieira Junior (b. 1979). The Atlantic slave trade lasted nearly 400 years from the early 1500s to the late 1800s with over 12 million Africans shipped to toil in plantations across the Americas. The number is actually far higher than 12 million because so many people died en route or upon arriving. (As an aside, the most vivid description of slave ships I’ve read is in the phenomenal novel ‘​The Book of Negroes​’ by ​Lawrence Hill​.) I didn’t know Brazil is where the *first* slave ships went, the *most* slaves went (nearly half the 12 million), and the *last* slave ships went—with slavery abolished there in 1888. But what is abolished? As Vieira Junior writes through a character on page 170: “My father, she went on, was born almost thirty years after enslaved Blacks had been declared free, when in reality they were still captives of the descendants of their grandparents’ masters.” This is a transporting 276-page novel almost entirely taking place in a camp on a plantation in Northeastern Brazil from early to late twentieth century. It is told in three sweeping chunks by three different narrators. In the first pages a seven-year-old girl named Bibiana and her sister find a knife under their grandmothers’ bed and tragedy ensues with one girl accidentally slicing off her tongue. The writing ingeniously hides what really happened to whom until the second part of the book begins with the story told and expanded upon from the other sister’s perspective. A haunting, fly somewhere far-far-away novel that takes you deep into mud huts on the Água Negra plantation. You feel like you’re there: in the backbreaking labor while “pressing palm oil” and “peeling buriti” and navigating puberty and tragedy and oppression and violence and love. The title of the book is revealed on page 179 through the voice of the tongue-less character: “… the sound that came from my mouth was an aberration, chaotic, as if the severed chunk of my tongue had been replaced by a hard-boiled egg. My voice was a crooked plow, deformed, penetrating the soil only to leave it infertile, ravaged, destroyed.” If you liked ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ by Zora Neale Hurston (​2/2018​) you’ll love this, too. With some pepper shakes of magic realism and an endlessly floaty vibe that leaves you feeling like you’re on a boat. I was sent the book from my friend ​Wagner Moura​ (​Civil War​, ​Elite Squad​) who called it a “beautiful book with strong social criticism and depiction of injustices in poor rural areas.” Published in 2018 and translated into English in 2023 this book won *all three* of Brazil’s top literary prizes.

3. ​The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide To Design Your Dream Life​ by Sahil Bloom. I struggled to write this review. This book is good. Really good! Did we expect anything less from Sahil (“SA-hill”) Bloom, *the* Sahil Bloom, the potentially most optimized person I’ve ever met, with his ​six-pack of steel​, his membership to the Core Club in Manhattan (where he’s the youngest member), his double-Stanford pedigree (which he jokes in the book and other spots doesn’t keep up with his Yale sister, ​Harvard dad​, and Princeton mom, who still encourages him, to this day, to “try for medical school” (page 5)). Even his haircut is “​intimidating​”—according to Susan Cain, who makes a wonderful wisdom-drenched cameo on page 229 in a two-pager co-written with Sahil titled, somewhat unSusanny, “​Mental Hacks I Wish I Knew At Twenty-Two​.” I mean, the man ​wakes up at 4am every day​ to take a televised ice bath. He is OPTIMIZED. I picture him discussing one-legged Romanian Deadlift angles and best brands of organic avocado oil in a group chat with Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss, and Bryan Johnson. And big respect to all those guys—it’s not easy being so public, pushing yourself, pushing our understanding of how hard pushing is possible. Just for me I … didn’t quite connect with the book the way I expected to and way I often do with Sahil’s wonderful email newsletter ​The Curiosity Chronicle​. On page 7 Sahil writes: “I was thirty years old and making millions of dollars.” And right away it’s like—um, that’s a tough place to connect. He confesses right afterwards that “…the feelings of happiness and fulfillment I expected were nowhere to be found.” We know this! We hear this everywhere. Money doesn’t make you happy! Just that most of us would like the millions of dollars first—you know, just to be sure. Unfulfilled workaholic twentysomething multimillionaire? This is your bible! He speaks, like we all do I suppose, to the me-of-yesteryear. I guess for me that super left-brainy, quantitative, systems-everything guy is still in there, for sure … just a bit distant. I think I kept wanting to *feel* the book more—in my gut, in my heart. But it just kind of put its feet up in my left brain. I like my left brain! I have sticker charts and trackers up the wazoo. But I also think I read, partly, to get away from that, to tone down that side of myself, to enter places of greater vastness and spirit and soul. As ever: right book, right time. And I do think this book will catch people—like it caught famed billionaire investor ​Bill Ackman​, who Sahil shares he reached out to over Twitter for lunch years ago, or billionaire Apple CEO ​Tim Cook​, who Sahil shares he met while working out regularly in a gym in SF at 4am (“There are no losers in the gym at 4:45 AM,” he says). It’ll catch people who maybe need to chill more? Need to call their mom more, need to get outside more, need to sleep more … need to think about money *less*. In some sense this book feels like you fed every uber-popular self-help book (like those that’ve sold >5 million copies) and every uber-popular self-help viral tweet or LinkedIn post (those that’ve been viewed >5 million times) and you stirred, stirred, stirred them together in a big yellow bowl before pouring that chunky batter into muffin-cup chapters and baked it all into something moist and delightfully chunk-free. Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s incredibly hard to do this! I’m just saying that if you’ve read the genre widely then you probably read about the Eisenhower Matrix (pages 96-97) in ‘​The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People​’; the history of Parkinson’s Law (pages 100-101) in ‘​The Happiness Equation​’ and, let’s be honest, before that in ‘​The 4-Hour Workweek​’ (and, before that, probably in ‘​Getting Things Done​’ by David Allen); and you probably saw Benjamin Franklin’s ‘daily calendar’ (pages 115-116) in … ‘​The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin​.’ If you’ve been online a lot you’ve probably seen the viral ​Ikigai graphic​ (pages 212-213), heard the ​Steve Jobs commencement speech​ (pages 216-217), and heard many versions of famous Joseph Heller “I’ve got something he can never have … enough” story (pages 313-314) a few places. But, of course, those pieces have gone viral for a reason, and finding them all, bringing them together, is no small feat. This is a book full of “life productivity techniques.” Not getting more done, but maximizing yourself on all the scales. On page 55 he encourages everyone to sit down and write a letter to their future selves. This is the kind of thing I want to do, and maybe should do—but it’s hard. It helps that Sahil generously shares the letter he wrote to himself in 2014 at age 23 which includes lines like “You have a lot you hide from the world. You’re insecure. You compare yourself to everyone but yourself.” and “I hope you live closer to your family” and “I hope you’re working on something that feels meaningful.” Now he his! And you love him for it, for finding and following his dream. He details in the opening chapter a story that feels like Tim Urban’s “​The Tail End​”—about how a friend told him given he only sees his east coast parents once a year, and they’re in their mid-sixties, he’ll only see them 15 more times in his life. Of course, some of the examples on how to correct this, are … kind of funny. Like on page 37, when ​Sahil discusses Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph's sturdy rule for himself​. What’s the sturdy rule? Every Tuesday night Marc makes sure work is “wrapped up by five” so he can have dinner with his wife. He developed the system after working “eighty hour weeks.” I mean, on one hand, sure. But on the other hand, who the heck is working 7am to 7pm for 7 days a week—so much so they need to calendar in a weekly dinner with their wife? I’d resonate more with the story if it was the other way: tracking nights away from dinner with your family, which feels like the more obvious expected baseline. But I do agree: if you never have dinner with your wife scheduling one a week is a good start! Sahil is an eager and hard-working disciple and distiller and his efforts come through. In this 369-page book, stuffed to the absolute brim with tools, models, “razors,” quotes, and heuristics, you will likely find one thing, perhaps many things, that you can reliably and valuably apply to improve your life. This man has the steepest learning curve, the steepest output curve, and one of the sharpest minds of anyone I know. He's in his early thirties and I know will be someone to follow for decades. I can't wait to see what he gives us in 5 years, 10 years, and beyond.

4. ​What An Owl Knows: The New Science Of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds​ by Jennifer Ackerman (b. 1959). A couple months ago my friend ​Scott​ and I were traipsing through knee-deep snow in -20C/-4F weather just after sunrise way, way out on the ​Leslie Spit​—an ancient garbage pile poking into Lake Ontario that’s since evolved into a bird paradise—when we suddenly saw a ​Long-Eared Owl​ glowering at us. Scott snapped a picture, we stepped backwards, one of us stepped on a stick that cracked and just like that the bird was gone. But what a picture he nabbed!

I don’t see owls very often. None of us do! That word “enigmatic” is so perfect—“hard to understand or explain, inscrutable or mysterious” according to Merriam Webster—when describing these 60-million-year-old (!) birds. For reference, Home Sapiens have been around 300,000 years and Homo Erectus were about 1.5 million years ago. Said another way: This planet belongs to the owls. We just live here! What an intoxicating and never-ending pleasure of trivia this book is as we follow the warm and sagacious Jennifer Ackerman through her pilgrimage to better understand these fascinating birds. From page xvii: “Why do an owl’s eyes, alone in the bird world, face the same way ours do? What made the early ancestors of owls cross the boundary into night?... How are owls adapting to shifts in their habitat and global climate?” First up! Where did they come from. Well, “like all birds, they initially arose from a group of small, mostly predatory, running dinosaurs that were coexisting with other, larger dinosaurs sixty-six million years ago.” The trivia is endless: “Of the 11,000 or so species of birds alive today, only 3 percent have adaptations that allow for stalking prey in the dark.” Feathered talons help! As do satellite dome faces! And the ability to hear a mouse running under a foot of snow! We learn on page 90 that “if a nesting ​Great Horned Owl​ is threatened by a dog or other predator, it will fluff up its feathers and throw itself to the ground, flapping around as if its wing is injured and squealing once or twice…” and on page 91 that “owlets begin vocalizing in the egg, even before they hatch.” Btw, did you know Great Horned Owls consume over *500* species? From shrews to rats to jackrabbits to ducks to ferrets to foxes to skunks! (They don’t smell skunks like pretty much everything else making them the only predator for most skunks, which are 3 times as heavy!) WATCH OUT EVERYTHING! I love this book. It’s owl trivia forever. From “Female ​Snowy Owls​ choose to breed only with males that are really white” (page 126) to the fact that ​Burrowing Owls​ decorate their nests which chunks of concrete decorations or “122 pieces of coyote scat” (page 132) to problematic issues like Japan’s “owl cafés” (page 213) or The Hedwig Problem, where Harry Potter created a bit of a global boom on illegal owls as pets. Quiet, mysterious, ever-hidden, ever-lurking, this is a wonderfully curious and scientific look into the 254 species of owls we share the planet with.

5. ​Birds​ by Kevin Henkes, illustrated by Laura Dronzek. Another book about birds but this one takes about 1/10,000th the time to read. A little girl looks out her window and describes birds from the simplest possible lens—but with enough little a-has that give the book angles and wonder. Like a quick scene when she says she sees birds sitting still on a wire for a long time and then looks back and they’re all gone or when she sees birds all take off and it looks like the tree is sneezing. Great one for your tiniest! Have it read-a-loud to you on YT ​right here​.

6. ​Useful Not True​ by Derek Sivers. I remember way back in 2010 when I was working in Leadership Development at Walmart and this little 5 minute TED Talk went viral internally called “​How To Start A Movement​.” I loved it! All about the leadership of “first follower” as told through a hill of people dancing at a music festival. It was vintage ​Derek Sivers​, though I didn’t know who Derek was at the time—with his unique blend of poetic wisdom distilled, distilled, distilled down into simple parts. The man is obsessed with simplifying! He let me use his wonderfully distilled “​horse fable​” in the Introduction to ‘​You Are Awesome​,’ my book on resilience, and I remember when his personal website was at sivers.org but he must have thought that URL was too flabby because he got it from 10 characters to 7 with ​sive.rs​. (Btw, bookmark his “​Book Notes​” over there—a wonderful summary of what he’s read.) Now comes his newest book! Another slim self-published hardcover that in 88 pages takes us from “Almost Nothing People Say Is True” to “Your Thoughts Aren’t True” to “Ideas Can Be Useful, Not True” to “Adopt What Works For You.” He makes the simple point over and over: we make stuff up. That’s how we live. We adopt beliefs, we tell ourselves stories, we create realities that aren’t true—but they help us navigate through life. So, given that, we may as well make up things that help us. The idea reminds me of a familiar refrain in Cheryl Strayed’s ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ (​10/2020​)—that we should let go what isn’t serving us and adopt beliefs or behaviors that do. Ironically, even though Derek’s the king of simple and short writing, I did feel like I could glean the entire takeaway of this book through the chapter headlines. But for me this is a reminder book: something to set on your shelf, and face outwards, when you find yourself stuck chasing a dream or a wish or an ideal that … maybe doesn’t help you? A ”from first principles” book that’s useful to reduce guilt, inspire direction, or get unstuck.

7. ​Slowness: A Novel​ by Milan Kundera (1929-2023). I read this whole novel and am not exactly sure what just happened. I heard it described as the “most accessible” of the famed exiled Czech novelist’s works and, uh, well, now I’m scared of the rest. This is the first novel Kundera wrote in French and it’s a completely disjointed narration of a midsummer’s night with a series of abstract tales of seduction—centuries apart!—all woven together. Modern art! Hard to follow! But punctuated with moments of such clairvoyant poignancy that I alternated between frustration and delight. From page 3:

Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared? Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear? Where have they gone, those loafing heroes of folk song, those vagabonds who roam from one mill to another and bed down under the stars? Have they vanished along with footpaths, with grasslands and clearings, with nature?

I like that. This is my kind of guy! A wanderer of hills, a lover of nature. And then he keeps going:

There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. Consider this utterly commonplace situation: a man is walking down the street. At a certain moment, he tries to recall something, but the recollection escapes him. Automatically, he slows down. Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through speeds up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still too close to him at times

I learned that this particular paragraph was part of Carl Honoré’s inspiration to write the wonderful ‘In Praise of Slowness’ (​5/2020​), which I’m revisiting these days. A confusing, poignant, flowing funny, and genuinely weird book.

8. ‘​The Anti-Social Century​’ by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic. Do you think that spending time on social media is… social? I know it is *social* media, but is it social the way The Olive Garden is Italian? If you think it's social, you will disagree with the thesis of this article which begins at a restaurant that permanently closes its bar after Covid and evolves into ​Robert Putnam​-like analysis of key figures, variables, and metrics that seem to be accelerating both our loneliness pandemic and our left brain’s desire to always be alone. But our hearts and our bodies desire to be together … To hang out with friends. One key chart:

We went inside for the pandemic... and we didn't come out! Is that a problem? Yup! As Thompson writes (and the bold is mine):

...people who spend more time alone, year after year, become meaningfully less happy. In his 2023 paper on the rise of 21st-century solitude, Atalay, at the Philadelphia Fed, calculated that by one measure, sociability means considerably more for happiness than money does: A five-percentage-point increase in alone time was associated with about the same decline in life satisfaction as was a 10 percent lower household income. Nonetheless, many people keep choosing to spend free time alone, in their home, away from other people.

Not all surprising, but still shocking. The conclusion is after reading this book club—and thank you for being here—call your mom, call your dad, call your sister, call your brother, call your friends, or call your neighbors … make some plans for tonight! One new thing we're trying at home is FFF. It's “Family and Friends Friday,” at our house, every Friday. Every member of the family can bring somebody over for dinner. It's always a crazy concoction of people and seems to be helping us provoke more human-to-human friendships.

9. There is no 9! Just our regular lootbag of links. I transcribed 91-year-old former Canadian Prime Minister's ​recent speech about this moment​. I posted my review of ‘The Let Them Theory’ ​over on LinkedIn​. Smart phones ​are bad for boys too​. David Perell on ​what's broken in education​. Jefferson Fisher on Mel Robbins' show ​about communicating confidently​. Lindyman on ​re-inventing yourself in the US and how it's harder elsewhere​. I love ​George Saunders​ and ​his recent Substack post was terrific​. A polluted Ontario creek ​is bouncing back​. Bryan Johnson's ​new morning routine​. Nick Cave on ​spiteful comments and friendship​. And if you made it this far check out my recent chat with ​Emily Nagoski​. Thanks for reading all the way to the end!

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Interested in more of my reviews? Read my monthly book clubs or visit my Goodreads page.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - February 2025

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

This is the 100th issue of my monthly book club.

I emailed you the first issue back in November 2016 and have sent another on the last Saturday of every month since.

The goal remains the same! To inspire us both to read. Books, specifically. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it's hard! Attention remains the battleground. The more extreme, more violent, more shocking—the more it'll be firehosed at our faces. We know what to do—

—but that doesn't mean it's easy. Still: the richest pleasures lie way down in the deep. I talked about that ​with Lindyman this month​. What lasts a long time will last a long time more. Family, friends, togetherness, time in nature, good walks, good food, good books.

This month let's fall into screenless Middle-earth in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring,’ connect with endangered species leaving us in ‘Last Chance to See,’ and master the ancient art of falconry with Helen Macdonald in ‘H is for Hawk.’ Of course, while reading these books I fell into attention-splintering holes. But the goal is never to be perfect. Just a little better than before.

Let's keep inspiring each other to read—just a little more.

Thank you for your attention.

I value it sacredly.

Neil

P.S. Invite others to join us ​here​.

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1. ​The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring ​by J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973). My first exposure to The Lord of The Rings was through the 2001-2003 Peter Jackson trilogy which I saw down by the lake at Whitby’s fancy new AMC 24 theaters. Then when the movies came out on DVD my friends and I would watch the “Director’s Cut” versions and enjoy the side-plots while reciting some of the lines. (“These men are thirsty—bring them some mead!”). Back then I remember the Shire feeling cozy, the black riders terrifying, and the flying cameras through ​the mines of Moria​ thrilling. The first book in the trilogy looked ... thick. It was written in 1954. And since I loved the films I decided to chalk it up as "optional." That changed in 2019 when I spent a wild afternoon hanging out with ​Kevin The Bookseller​ in his tiny Indigo bookshop in the lobby of Mount Sinai hospital. Kevin is an incredible bookseller popular with staff and readers. Pinch in on his moustache!

In addition to ‘The Twits’ by Roald Dahl (​7/2020​) and ‘The Power of Habit’ by Charles Duhigg, Kevin decisively declared the entire LOTR trilogy as formative—and told us he was currently reading it to his kids. Well, thanks to Kevin, I spent the past eight months reading this 423-page 5-point font vintage copy of ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ and, uh, it took a while. But now The Shire has expanded from cozy to … mystical, magical, and complicated with so many twisted family histories over so many years. The black riders have grown from terrifying to … mythological, ethereal, ominous, ever-lurking. And the mines of Moria have expanded from thrilling to… dark, dismal, distressing. And the songs! So many songs. Brought to life with poetic and literary flair by ​Tolkien The Philogist​ (who once worked for the Oxford English Dictionary on, specifically, the letter W!), from so many characters, from so many backgrounds. I admit at multiple points my son screamed “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON!”, and I felt the same way—I mean it gets dense—but it just has this floating ferry-ship feeling that rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls and you feel like you're living real-time with grand moments peppered between much longer moments of pause, confusion, or rest. The story is well-known: The Dark Lord created "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them," but oh crap—the ring got chopped off his finger! Then Gollum got it! Then Bilbo—back in ‘The Hobbit.’ (​8/2022​). And now from Bilbo to Frodo, who is tasked with throwing it back into the fires in Mordor where the thing was made. But the story is small here: it's the lessons learned on the way. From page 69 of my 1977 “Authorized Canadian Edition” after Frodo says Gollum deserves death for what he has done Gandalf retorts: “Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” On page 294 after the grim Council of Elrond we hear from Gimli: Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.” There is so much more texture here with endless descriptions that sound like paintings and long histories that make you want to draw out family trees. This is a big book that, if you're me and my son, you spend a long time with. I don't recommend reading it out loud but I do recommend reading it. Maybe the just-under-23hrs version on ​Libro​ or ​Audible​! (I have no affiliation with either but use Libro since ​Latanya and Jerry of Bronx Bound Books​ told us about it. I like that you can steer the audiobook profits to the indie bookstore of your choice.)

2. ​The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions Of People Can’t Stop Talking About ​by Mel Robbins (b. 1968). I love Mel Robbins. I’ve said this maybe … 90 times? … in the 9 years since I met her ​back at Caesar's Palace​. That’s not a lot considering how many times I’ve heard others saying it: giant ballrooms full of people standing after a big motivational speech, people scrolling in headphones beside me on airplanes smiling at one of Mel’s sassy ​Instagram pep talks​, or even my mother-in-law who took Mel’s suggestion years ago to sign up for the ​‘Growth Day’ app​ and who still faithfully checks in with it every morning for inspiration. Mel has this old-friend-at-your-kitchen-table knack for stirring the 1000 most common English words into something that feels akin to a slap-in-the-face followed by a hug. She never says she’s invented the tools she shares but breaks them down, down, down into simple, almost molecular, lessons which she brings to life with stories. Like the time she bought her son’s date a corsage for high school prom and after he said he didn’t want to take it and after Mel’s older daughter whispered to Mel that they didn’t really know each other super well Mel just, y’know, decided to hide the corsage in her purse, take it to the prom photo shoot, and … give it to the date anyway! While telling the date that her son didn't want her to do this. Ummm. Is your face contorted into something between crying and laughing? Mine too. Mel continues: “And that’s when I noticed she had made her own corsage, which she was already wearing on one of her wrists. [My daughter] Kendall rolled her eyes. [My husband] Chris shifted. If I could have evaporated in that moment, I would have.” And then you’re back on her team. Because can’t we all relate to a bunch of stupid and humiliating things we did? Of course we can. After the photo shoot it begins pouring and Mel is horrified at her son’s clothes getting soaked and the fact he and his friends don’t have reservations and want to take their dates to a cheap Mexican spot. When she begins to interfere again her daughter chimes in: “Mom, if Oakley and his friends want to go to a taco bar for pre-prom, LET THEM … (“But it’s too small for all of them to fit in and they’ll get soaked”) … LET THEM get soaked … (“But his new sneakers are going to get ruined!”) … LET THEM get ruined.” And now you know the Let Them Theory! But what seems braindead obvious isn’t necessarily. I mean, how often do you find yourself overly involved, worried, stressed, or upset at something somebody else said or did? Pretty damn often, right! Me too. Everyone too! So we’re meant to use this internal two-word mantra to practice acceptance, let the world keep moving, while then practicing the follow-up mantra—“Let Me”—to affect, change, or improve our own behavior instead. (On page 70 she says “Let Me is an opportunity for you to put your time, energy, and values at the center of your life.”) Like when Mel’s mom's friends all go on a vacation without her and she finds herself doomscrolling in “full stalker mode” she has to remind herself: Let Them. And then Let Me show up and reach out as a better friend than I’ve been over the past few years. Simple, right? Vintage Mel. That’s her straight talking, vulnerable friend-to-millions conversation. She talks openly about the fear of being worried what other people would think (like when she was doing keynote speeches for free but didn't want to post about them) and how to use the theory (and a great tangent called ‘frame of reference’) to work with people especially close to you. She writes about how she grew to understand her mom’s early unhappiness with Mel’s marriage because of what happened to her after she got married—namely moving away from all her family and friends to be with her hubby. I am not surprised this book just became the fastest selling non-fiction book in publishing history. It's talking to people. For scale reference ‘​The Book of Awesome​’ was a New York Times and #1 international bestseller for 3 straight years ... and Mel's book sold more copies in 3 straight weeks. (That would be over 800,000!) Last month I couldn’t even find a copy at any bookstore:

And then when the book came flooding back in-stock the stores had it everywhere. Front displays, front tables, every single cash register:

Why? Because we’re lonely. We’re scared. We’re anxious. We’re imperfect. We need Mel’s guiding, supportive, empowering spirit. She creates such a karmic imbalance in the world by offering so much of herself. You can almost mainline her on ​Instagram​ or ​YouTube​. Millions do! After it didn’t work out being a life coach or CNN radio host or TV Talk Show host she’s found her Big Megaphone with ​The Mel Robbins Podcast​ (often the top-ranked podcast in the world), her ​Instagram feed with its 8.2M followers​, and her series of ​rallying books​. You can honestly flip this book to any page, read a couple minutes, and feel like you just got a personal pep talk. It looks so easy you don't realize it's hard. Mel Robbins: a voice for the rest of us on hard days. P.S. If you want to fall down a Mel rabbit hole here are “​7 Leadership Lessons I Learned from Mel Robbins​” which I wrote 5 years ago and ​our live 3 Books podcast​ together in ​Bryant Park​ 2 years ago.

3. ​Fantastic Mr. Fox​ by Roald Dahl (1916–1990). I’ve been on a ​read-aloud roll​ with my third kid. We did ‘Little House in the Big Woods’ (​4/2024​), ‘Little House in the Prairie’ (​8/2024​), ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ (​8/2024​), and ‘The BFG’ (​11/2024​). Leslie’s been having fun reading him ‘Marge In Charge’ and so I felt it made sense to turn to ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ next which has to be one of the sharpest, tightest stories in the Dahl canon. Mr. Fox steals food every night from Boggis, Bunce, and Bean (“one fat, one short, one lean”) who, you know makes sense, grow frustrated and wage an escalating war on Mr. Fox and his family. Twists, turns, with wonderful illustrations from Donald Chaffin in 1970 or Quentin Blake in 1995:

Thank goodness the ​2023 Puffin censors didn’t get their way in their bizarre attempts​ to remove the word ‘black’ as a tractor descriptor, taking out any references to height and weight, and changing Mr. Fox’s son to a daughter. An absolutely wonderful book and, I will add, I also recommend the 2009 Wes Anderson ​stop-motion film​ of the same name. ​93% on RT​!

4. ​Marge In Charge​ by Isla Fisher (b. 1976). Since I just mentioned ‘Marge’ and have never read it but always hear them giggling and laughing about it I thought I’d shoulder-tap Leslie for a review. Over to you Les: “I’m always looking for opportunities to laugh with our kids. Nothing clears the cobwebs and greases the gears of our relationship like a good laugh (other than also a good cry and snuggle!) and so ‘Marge In Charge’ by Isla Fisher is one of my all-time favorite read-alouds! Not only does it get kids as young as 4 laughing out loud but I find myself cracking up alongside them and it just feels so darn good. Isla Fisher, comedian and actress, wrote these books after having told the stories to her children at bedtime and you can just feel the love, creativity, and spontaneity laced through them. Marge is a rainbow-haired and retired duchess (or so she loves to say!) who falls asleep on the job babysitting Jemima and Jakey. She always somehow finishes all of the jobs on the mom’s list but in the most fantastical hilarious ways. Like when she convinces Jakey, who refuses to wash his hair, to wash his hair in the bubble-flooded bathroom and clean it all up before the parents get home. It’s light and fun and entertaining and I dare you not to laugh with your kids while reading any of the wonderful four books in the series.”

5. ​1000 Hours Outside: Activities To Match Screen Time With Green Time​ by Ginny Yurich. Ginny Yurich wasn’t enjoying motherhood. It was September 2011 and the Michigan mom of three felt exhausted, trapped, pinned down by 12-hour stretches of “crying, screaming, diapers, noses, sweeping, one-handed cooking, and the minutia that accompanies life with little ones.” A friend mentioned that education guru ​Charlotte Mason​ says children should spend 4-6 hours outside a day. “No way,” Ginny thought. “How can anyone do that?” But she didn’t have anything to lose so figured she’d give it a shot. She packed sandwiches and took her kids to a field one morning along with that same friend. “That day changed my life,” she told me. “They played and played. They invented new games. They jumped off logs. They weren’t fighting. And I had my first adult conversation since having kids.” (She found out later this Charlotte person lived in the 1800s!) Anyway, the energy from that day powered Ginny and her husband Josh’s “1000 Hours Outside” movement which has grown from a focus on homeschooling their five kids into a ​viral Instagram feed​, popular ​1000 Hours Outside podcast​, and even little ​coloring sheets​ to help the sticker-chart people among us (hi) track our progress. Which is? 1000 hours outside a year. Simple! Almost 3 hours a day. Tiny compared to our roots but massive compared to the 10-minutes-outside-a-day culture we’ve evolved into. Where does the book come in? Well, it’s a full-color, 287-page flipper offering 136 ideas for outdoor family activities conveniently organized into Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall. From “Hot Chocolate Hikes” (what it sounds like) to “Snow Hot Tubs” (putting on your bathing suit and filling a kiddie pool with hot water in the winter) to “Fairy Doors” (painted cardboard and popsicle stick ‘doors’ to put at the base of tall trees), this is a simple reminder that nature has deep powers and encourages all of us to peel ourselves off the screens.

6. ​All Fours​ by Miranda July (b. 1974). When Leslie and I first moved in together I assumed we would merge bookshelves. I had a paltry 20 or 30 but she had at least a hundred so I thought we could just sort of … sift them together. “What?,” I remember Leslie asking when I mentioned this in passing, “That would be like merging brains. That’s like—who we are. You can’t merge brains. You can't merge bookshelves.” Whoa! Time for a new ​Billy​. But, also, looking back: props. I just hadn’t had that enlightened thought but now I definitely see the importance. Our conjoined shelves are now like vines creeping out of their pots slowly unfurling for extra space anywhere We have bookshelves on two of four walls and now it’s time to build more over the windows and down the other sides behind this picture … I mean, when you start losing the floors you know it's time:

One thing that’s fun when you have two people’s bookshelves in the same room is seeing which books you have ‘doubles’ of. Like pre-merger or post-merger you both decided this book was too important to not to individually own. Right now we have doubles of ‘A Million Little Pieces’ by ​James Frey​, ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ by Anne Frank, ‘Influence’ by Robert Cialdini, ‘How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk’ by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, and yes, as of last month, ‘All Fours’ by Miranda July. I admit my copy remains pristine as I got the pleasure of reading Leslie’s copy with her underlines and Post-It notes pasted in it (​read Leslie's 8/2024 review​). The book came to us in different ways. She saw it recommended in ​Cat and Nat's​ ​email newsletter​ and I bought it after getting one of those GoodReads “New Books Out This Month From Authors You Loved” emails and they both arrived before we discussed. Right away I loved the cover blurb from George Saunders: “A giddy, bold, mind-blowing tour de force.” George runs the wonderful ​Story Club​ Substack (I’m a member!) and I love the way he describes ultimate prose as ‘undeniable.’ Like you just could not imagine a sentence or string of sentences being better. Crisper, funnier, zingier? No! You cannot. Because the prose … is undeniable. I’m telling you today that Miranda July may be second only to George himself at the non-existent awards The Undeniable Prosies. She begins wooing us with the first four sentences: “Sorry to trouble you was how the note began, which is such a good opener. Please, trouble me! Trouble me! I’ve been waiting my whole life to be troubled like this.” Jarringly self-aware, flamboyantly unhinged, unapologetically sexual, subversively funny. The book is a study in how to write a book. The way she constantly unveils our unnamed 45-year-old protagonist’s character to us is astounding. Like when on page 13 she steps away from a chat with her husband and another couple at a party and then … suddenly joins a dance floor?

There was a small group of people dancing in the living room. I moved discreetly at first, getting my bearings, then the beat took hold and I let my vision blur. I fucked the air. All my limbs were in motion, making shapes that felt brand-new. My skirt was tight, my top was sheer, my heels were high. The people around me were nodding and smiling; I couldn’t tell if they were embarrassed for me or actually impressed. The host’s father looked me up and down and winked—he was in his eighties. Was that how old a person had to be to think I was hot these days? I moved deeper into the crowd, shut my eyes, and slid side to side, shoulder first, like I was protecting stolen loot. Now I added a fist like a brawler, punching. I made figure eights with my ass at what felt like an incredible speed while holding my hands straight up in the air...

LOL. And the plot? The narrator starts off from LA on a two-week road trip to New York and back but then stops in a suburb half an hour outside town where she remodels a motel room with a young designer and then seduces her husband who is a hip-hop dancer who works at the local Hertz ... before tipping back into what this all means for her and her marriage. There are scenes in this book I could not believe I was reading. I wasn’t shocked. Too tight a word. More like I found myself out in the middle of a swinging bridge between cliff edges and had to steady myself to stare into the suddenly blinding sun and galing wind. The book swings, sways, shocks, skewers. It's titillating and tantric. I suggest starting with ‘No One Belongs Here More Than You’ (​3/2022)​, her nearly 20-year-old collection of short stories, which was one of the collective formative books from ​Daniel Kwan and Daniel Sheinert​, filmmakers behind ‘​Turn Down For What​’ and ‘​Swiss Army Man​.’ Miranda July writes like nobody else. A strong, fierce, rubber-band brainslap of book.

7. ​H is for Hawk​ by Helen Macdonald (b. 1970). This book has been spying me from bookshelves since it came out in 2015. You too? That hawk—glowering from the shelf!

I had seen that cover so much but finally talon-snared it off the front display at ​Doug Miller Books​ in ​Koreatown​. Looking closer on the cover I see it’s a painting by ​Chris Wormell​ and it’s not just a hawk either, but a ​Eurasian Goshawk​— “bulkier, bloodier, deadlier, scarier.” A couple years ago ​I was birding with my birder pal Jody​ out in Edmonton and he was telling me about getting attacked by a ​Northern Goshawk​. Just swooping hard and fast at him down a forest clearing to the point he had to dive out of the way. “Really?,” I asked. “Oh yeah,” he said, bending over to focus his scope on 1000s of migrating ​American Avocets​ on a distant shore. “Goshawks are vicious, man. A friend of mine used to count their eggs for research. He looks like he’s lost a couple knife fights.” So what would compel a Cambridge professor to … raise one? To become a falconer? To master that ancient 4000 year-old art of taming your own bird of prey and training it to hunt? Well, after their father dies Helen falls into deep grief and revisits their childhood desire to become a falconer. They come up with the idea to train a goshawk as a way to, perhaps, be “feral”—to be free, to be ferocious. To come closer to life and examine it with intensity from many sides. On page 85: “The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.” On page 110: “…in all my days of walking with Mabel [the hawk] the only people who have come up and spoken to us have been outsiders: children, teenage goths, homeless people, overseas students, travellers, drunks… ‘We are outsiders now, Mabel’, I say, and the thought is not unpleasant.” They let the hawk take over their life. On page 123: “I can’t go to Berlin in December, I’d thought, appalled. I have a hawk to fly. Ambitions, life-plans: these were for other people.” The book is a detailed literary journal that can be ominous and even spooky but is always somehow light enough to be death-examining without being a downer. Emotional lifts and tumbles left me in tears. And the entire book feels like a double-tunnel back in time a century ago as everything is paired with a ​Maria Popova​-esque examination of ​T.H. White​’s 1939-written (1951-published) ‘​The Goshawk​,’ which today may stand even higher than his other books like ‘​The Sword In The Stone​.’ Macdonald quotes White’s personal journals from the time which caution of a world heading to war all because “masters of men, everywhere, who subconsciously thrust others into suffering in order to advance their own powers.” History rings through this deep, exotic, mind-transplant to wet forests as you, yourself, become a falconer. And, maybe-hopefully, metabolize a bit of grief, doubt, or sadness you forgot you still had stuck inside.

8. ​Last Chance To See​ by Douglas Adams (1952–2001) and Mark Carwardine (b. 1959). I must have subconsciously been on a death-examining bender this month because here comes another one! (​I guess I tend to do that?​) Fact is: None of us know how long we have … as individuals nor as species as a whole. Douglas Adams left us in 2001 at 49 (​ugh​), long after bequeathing us his series of comic masterpieces including ‘​The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy​’ which came out in 1979. I’d read and loved that book as a teen and knew of his other fiction but I had no idea he spent a chunk of his late 30s criss-crossing the world with a zoologist pal looking for the world’s most endangered species. ​Komodo dragons​ of Indonesia! ​Kakapos​ of New Zealand! ​Blind river dolphins​ of China! ​White rhinos​ of Zaire! Originally broadcast as a radio show on the BBC, the written result is a zippy 218-page travel diary that is by turns fun … aggravating … and poignant. Perhaps like travel in general. In the first chapter while looking for Komodos he writes:

It is then quite an education to learn that two cats fighting can make easily as much noise as forty dogs. It is a pity to have to learn this at two-fifteen in the morning, but then the cats have a lot to complain about in Labuan Bajo. They all have their tails docked at birth, which is supposed to bring good luck, though presumably not to the cats.

In the second chapter in Zaire he writes “I wasn’t disturbed so much by the ‘Oh Lord, we thank Thee for the blessing of this Thy day,’ but ‘We commend our lives into Thy Hands, O Lord’ is frankly not the sort of thing you want to hear from a pilot as his hand is reaching for the throttle.” The book is mostly journey, not destination, but Adams’ sharp and curious mind always takes us down endless rabbit holes. He tells the story of the southern white rhino’s presumed extinction in the mid-1800s and then how a group of 9 (!) of them were found fifty years later and then taken care of so their population grew to 5000. When Douglas and his group are 40 yards away from the rhino he remarks on how its “nasal passages are bigger than its brain” and then tells us that:

The world of smells is now virtually closed to modern man. Not that we haven’t got a sense of smell—we sniff our food or wine, we occasionally smell a flower, and can usually tell if there’s a gas leak—but generally it’s all a bit of a blur, and often an irrelevant or bothersome blur at that. When we read that Napoleon wrote to Josephine on one occasion, ‘Don’t wash—I’m coming home,’ we are simply bemused, and almost think of it as a deviant behaviour. We are so used to thinking of sight, closely followed by hearing, as the chief of the senses that we find it hard to visualise (the word itself is a giveaway) a world that declares itself primarily to the sense of smell.

Something you don’t think about often! But true. And hopefully one thing AI won’t replicate for a while, right? Let’s enjoy those sacred smells of your mom’s cooking or your partner’s neck or your kid's hair and sweaty cheeks when you kiss them goodnight before bed. Through Adams’ early death and the disappearing animals he’s cataloguing the book serves as a mirrory reminder of the fragility and fleetingness … of everything.

9. There is no 9! Just our regular lootbag of links. Friend of 3 Books ​Sahil Bloom​ has ​his first book out​. I just got a copy and am excited to dig in. ​This episode of Brené Brown's podcast​ on burnout with Emily and Amelia Nagoski was transfixing and had so many great tips for the overworked among us. ​Does where you live impact your happiness​? Adam Grant tells us ​why we should read more fiction​. I try to avoid Meta and use the privacy-focused, donation-based, non-profit WhatsApp-alternative ​Signal​ for most of my texts and group chats. (I have no connection—just a fan and donor.) My friend ​Michael Bungay Stanier​ has ​a brand-new podcast​ focused on organizational change. I loved these ​incredible travel tips​ from ​Kevin Kelly​. ​Only Canadians will understand what's happening here​. A little ​more motivation​ to pick up the gym routine. And big thanks to Book Clubber Devra T. for sending me this article on ​how to read 100(!) pages a day​.

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Interested in more of my reviews? Read my monthly book clubs or visit my Goodreads page.

Click here to join the Book Club email list.

Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - January 2025

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

For most of my adult life I read 4 or 5 books a year. Not much! I read a lot as a kid but found my adult self reading newspapers, scrolling blogs, skimming Twitter.

Then I started dating someone new. She came back to my apartment and said “Where are all your books?” I had a shelf ... with not many books on it. Well, that woman is now my wife and she helped remind me how much I loved reading and how much better I feel—now as a husband, a dad, a friend, a writer—when I've intentionally spent time reading books versus letting my brain dissolve into the endless online information abyss. Today I read around 75 books a year and have a ​series of reading systems​ to keep this up.

This book club email is one of those systems! It's just a summary and review of every book I've read over the past month. I know I have to send it to you! So that keeps me reading. And I always love when you reply and share your reading list back with me.

For now: We still control our attention! So let's aim to keep turning off screens and picking up books. Let's delete social media and news media apps off our phone. Let's renew our library cards. And let's vision at the end of our lives having a giant bookshelf full of books we've read and grown from instead of a stack of old yellowed newspapers in the basement and some blurry long-forgotten scroll of soundbites and tweets.

It's harder than ever to read books these days! You help me keep the habit up and I hope I help you too. As I enter my ​10th year of writing this book club​ I want to say thank you for being here.

Please invite others to join us ​here​.

Now let's hit the books!

Neil

1. ​Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children​ by Angela J. Hanscom. Parenting is hot! Suddenly everyone has a take. Tim Ferriss released back-to-back superlong chats with viral influencers ​Dr. Becky Kennedy​ (‘​Good Inside​’ ​9/2022​) and ​Aaron Stupple​ (‘​The Sovereign Child​’). But I have a reminder from our grandmas: There are infinite ways to parent. Hands-on, hands-off, lots of rules, hardly any, structured and inside or, in the case of this book, unstructured and outside. You do you! No one way is perfect. I think of our job as learning as much as we can—doing the best we can. Brilliant and effervescent Ginny Yurich (of ​1000 Hours Outside​) recommended this to me and I took so much from it. Angela Hanscom is a pediatric occupational therapist who tells us that our kids are getting fragile, frail, and fidgety because they’re sitting and staring at screens while starving their bodies of unstructured outdoor play. On page 13 she shares a study comparing kid strength from 1998 to 2008—only 10 years!—and shows the # of sit ups 10-year-olds could do bombed 27.1%, arm strength plummeted 26%, and grip strength sank 7%. Why? Not enough time climbing trees, jumping off rocks, making up their own games with their own rules. She talks about how free play develops our eyesight, our skeletal systems, and loads more. One fun example: Spinning! Do you ever see kids just ... spinning in circles ... looking completely nuts? Sure, all the time. And what do adults say? “Stop! Sit down! You could get hurt!” But “spinning stimulates the vestibular sense which helps them become more coordinated, sure-footed, and less likely to trip or run into things.” Research shows spinning “activates hair cells on the inner ear which sends motor messages through the spinal cord which helps maintain muscle tone and body posture.” Yes, your ​vestibular sense​ lays the foundation for other senses and “spinning leads to alertness, attention, and a sense of calm in the classroom.” Way back in the Internet paleolithic I wrote an essay on ​1000 Awesome Things​ celebrating “​Old, dangerous playground equipment​.” Now it looks prophetic with books like this and ‘The Anxious Generation’ (​4/2024​) calling for a return to too-tall teeter-totters, monkey bars in the sky, and big spinners where everyone falls dizzily down the hill afterwards. The book is a little stiffly written—a little study after study after study—and, sure, I wish it had pictures or more of a freewheeling tone (like ‘Free Range Kids’ ​5/2023​) but it’s still really wonderful, and a much-needed reminder that many of our ails can be cured by ditching endless programs and just getting outside. How much? Well, Ginny says 1000 hours a year and she's made a bunch of ​handy trackers​ for those who want to systemize it. (You know I love the ​power of 1000​.) Highly recommended.

2. ​Small Things Like These ​by Claire Keegan. Did you know that in Ireland from 1765 to 1996 a series of state- and Catholic-run ‘​Magdalene Laundries​’ housed and locked up ‘fallen women,’ the definition of which originally meant sex workers but grew to include orphans, victims of rape or incest, any woman abandoned by her family, and any woman who didn’t conform to the rules of society? I ... did not. This 2022 Booker shortlisted book follows Keegan's 2010 stunner ‘Foster’ (​9/2023​) and takes a slow pan shot of a couple wintry months in New Ross, Ireland in 1985. We see the world through the eyes of a local upstanding businessman, Bill Furlong, as he wrestles with what he discovers up on the hill. Here’s the book's opening paragraph: “In October there were yellow trees. Then the clocks went back the hour and the long November winds came in and blew, and stripped the trees bare. In the town of New Ross, chimneys threw out smoke which fell away and drifted off in hairy, drawn-out strings before dispersing along the quays, and soon the River Barrow, dark as stout, swelled up with rain.” You’re right there. Keegan is “as good as Chekhov,” ​David Mitchell​ says, and I agree. The book is like a poem in a play. And at 13 point font, 1.5 spacing, and 119 pages, you can actually read the whole thing quickly and feel good about yourself. Great one to kick off the year! Highly recommended.

3. ​Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder​ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Back in like 2010 I was sitting on my swively chair in my Walmart HR department cubicle late on a Friday afternoon. Everyone was racing off for the weekend but I was still fairly recently divorced and in no rush to head downtown to an empty apartment with no plans. I wandered the halls and stepped into a dark training room. Motion-sensor neon flickered on illuminating a whiteboard, couple easels, and an old laminate bookshelf with a couple dozen books. ‘​The Tipping Point​,’ ‘​Good To Great​,’ ‘​How To Win Friends And Influence People​.’ And a book I’d never heard of but was immediately drawn to ... I decided to grab it for the weekend:

I say with all sincerity that book changed my life. It helped me realize how random everything is—much more random than we think!—and how ‘black swan events’ (disproportionately huge things with big impact) are really unpredictable. So to ‘win’ at whatever you want to win in, you have to make small bets. You have no idea what'll work! Nobody does. For me that meant ​saying yes​. Trying things! Expanding my ‘what I do’ mentality to include things like writing a ​kids book​, giving ​keynote speeches​, starting ​a podcast​ and, yes, ​writing email newsletters​. Just keep trying and then you’ll eventually see what takes off—internally and externally. Well, ‘Antifragile’ is the 2012 sequel to the 2007 ‘The Black Swan’ (​11/2016​) and it's the final book by hedge-fund-manager-turned-philospher-king Nassim Nicholas Taleb. You can flip past seemingly endless pages of Contents and Notes to the opening paragraph which comes on page 31: “You are in the post office about to send a gift, a package full of champagne glasses, to a cousin in central Siberia.” What do you label the box? Fragile, right? But now: what’s the opposite? No, it’s not “resilient” or “robust,” because that would be for items that “neither break nor improve.” As Taleb says: “Logically, the exact opposite of a ‘fragile’ parcel would be a package on which one has written ‘please mishandle’ or ‘please handle carelessly’ ... we give the appellation ‘antifragile’ to such a package; a neologism was necessary as there is no simple, noncompound word in the Oxford English Dictionary that expresses the point of reverse fragility.” The concept is both new and old. I mean: what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? But to enjoy, embrace, and enhance our lives with small pains—so we may improve—isn't always obvious. Taleb says fragile is the “New York Banking system” and antifragile is “Silicon Valley’s ‘Fail Fast’ and ‘Be Foolish’” adages. He says fragile is “Classroom” and antifragile is “Real life and library,” fragile is “post-traumatic stress” and antifragile is “post-traumatic growth,” fragile is “e-readers” and antifragile is “oral tradition,” fragile in finance is “short option” and antifragile is “long option.” This is the final of his four-book ‘Incerto’ set that also includes ‘Fooled By Randomness’ (2003) and a smaller book of aphorisms, with the entire series seeking to investigate “opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision making when we don’t understand the world, expressed in the form of a personal essay with autobiographical sections, stories, parables, and philosophical, historical, and scientific discussions in nonoverlapping volumes that can be accessed in any order.” He's a bit of a mouthful, right? But he’s so brilliant, and he presents the information like a tart old professor who likes to pause and wink a lot. From why you should eat vegan once a week (“Deprivation is a stressor”) to fascinating The Lindy Effect, this book is so wide-minded and feels like some kind of 14-layer dip for your brain. A good one to dip in and out of and keep applying back to your life. Highly recommended.

4. ​Day of the Triffids​ by John Wyndham. This is ​one of Nick Sweetman’s 3 most formative books​. And I love Nick Sweetman! He’s a magical graffiti artist who decorates the streets of Toronto with spray paint images of (mostly) wild animals doing wild animal things against the backdrop of our increasing concrete jungle:

I mean, look at the eye on that ​Hooded Merganser​. Look at that beak! How does he do it? It was an honor partnering 3 Books with Nick to create a 750-square foot mural of 16 local bird species at Toronto's ​Dupont subway station​. ​Here’s Nick’s Instagram post​ announcing the wall and the ​3 Books documentary​ we just dropped on the full moon that just passed. (Btw I finally figured out how to disable those annoying YouTube ads from ​my YouTube channel​ so you can ​watch the whole thing ad-free​. Since 2008 all my blog posts, newsletters, podcasts, and now YouTube videos are ad, sponsor, and commercial-free. If you want to support my stuff ​buy a book​!) Anyway, uh, where were we? ‘Day of the Triffids’! Yes, read ‘Day of the Triffids’! A 1951 post-apocalyptic slow-paced horror show that served as inspiration for films like ‘​28 Days Later​.’ The book opens with everyone on earth observing an incredible “celestial spectacle” as the earth flies through some comet debris. Well, almost everyone! Our narrator was getting surgery at the hospital that day and his “eyes, indeed my whole head, should be wreathed in bandages.” But then what? Everyone goes blind the next day! Whoops! And then these giant Venus-fly-trap-like plants start taking over the earth. If you liked ‘The Chrysalids’ (​2/2018​), this is slower, darker, deeper, meatier. And, if you’re like Nick Sweetman, who also recommended ‘The World Without Us’ by Alan Weisman (​7/2024​), you maybe … on some level … find the book inspiring. As Nick says, “200 years without humans every city on earth would be gone without a trace. That is exciting to me.”

5. ​The Monster At The End Of This Book​ written by Jon Stone, illustrated by Mike Smollin. A few years ago I asked on Twitter, “​What's one book you loved as a kid that's still sits on your bookshelf today?​” This comes to mind first for me! (‘​Sideways Stories From Wayside School​’ by ​Louis Sacher​ is a close second.) My tattered hardcover still has my sister’s clunky 10-year-old name handwritten inside and we’ve had to put packing tape on the inside spine to hold it together:

I still read this book to my kids all the time. It has incredible never-ending appeal as Grover keeps begging you, the reader, to stop flipping pages, because he’s terrified of the monster at the end of this book.

Is this the OG interactive picture book? It came out in 1971! (I can squint see I have the Little Golden Book’s 22nd printing from 1982.) Maybe you could argue there was ‘​Pat The Bunny​’ (1940) with its stuffed cotton or ‘​The Very Hungry Caterpillar​’ (1960) with its baby-finger-sized holes, but nothing really broke the fourth wall like this book and it came decades before ‘​Press Here​’ by Hervé Tullet or ‘​Tap The Magic Tree’​ by Christie Matheson. (I borrowed the concept myself with ‘​Awesome Is Everywhere​,’ my 2015 picture book where you ‘tap the earth’ to zoom all the way underwater and deep into the sand). I recommend not buying the (smaller) board book version of this and getting a big picture book instead where you can really fall into it. (There are good used copies on ​Abe​ or ​ThriftBooks​). There’s just such commitment to form here. The delightfully popping images, the escalating tension, the violent smashing of brick walls and ropes—it's an action movie for five-year-olds. Highly recommended.

6. ​Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling​ by John Taylor Gatto. A 1992 collection of essays and speech transcripts by 30-year public school teacher John Taylor Gatto who won the New York State Teacher of the Year award. Gatto is a fiery activist and I love him! It’s so refreshing hearing someone on the inside of the school system pick it all apart and put it back together again. Let’s start with the fact that he decries bells! Get rid of bells! “Indeed the lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Years of bells will condition all but the strongest to a world that can no longer offer important work to do.” He talks about how the system squashes intrinsic motivation and fills brainspace with extrinsic motivators, too. (I write about this in the “Do It For You” chapter of ‘​The Happiness Equation​.’) How does he put it? “By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestinated chain of command.” Fast forward from 1992 to today and now we've got views and likes and comments and shares. We have digitally altered our brains into valuing what we can see and measure over everything we can’t and don’t—like nature, time outside, eye contact, touch, and ​holding hands​. Things like ​awesome things​. Things that, indeed, help us become antifragile. As Zachary Slayback writes in the foreword: “The best teacher I had was one who signed passes so students could skip other classes to go to her classroom and work on whatever they wanted. The worst were those obsessed with meeting state-mandated standards.” What’s the takeaway, parents? Take your foot off the gas. Don’t worry about organized sports every night. Let your kids wander. Let them dream. Let them get bored. Let them hang around outside. Let them see and observe what's compulsory and then make space for them to do anything but.

7. ​The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus: A Roman Slave​ by Publius Syrus. Over 2000 years ago a Roman slave named Publius Syrus went from captured and shipped to successful playwright. Why don’t we know his plays? They were burned! Destroyed! Lost! Gone, forever, to the eternities. What remains are 1087 pithy aphorisms that survived millennia, many likely culled from the plays, and which today fill a 44-page pamphlet-sized book. (Yes, I am officially adding this to our “​Great Books Under 150 Pages​” and our “​Enlightened Bathroom Reader​” series.) Syrus’s messages don’t fit neatly into any category which is partly why they’re fun to read. Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic, Cynic? No. They’re just little bonks to the brain. From #1 “As men we are all equal in the presence of death” to #2 “The evil you do to others you may expect in return” to #4 “To dispute a drunkard is to debate an empty house” to #18 “Do not find your happiness in another’s sorrow” to #19 “An angry lover tells himself many lies” to #155 “A god can hardly disturb a man truly happy” to #216 “There is no need of spurs when the horse is running away” all the way up to #1087 “Man’s life is short; and therefore an honorable death is his immortality.” I learned about this book via ​Lindyman​ who wrote about this and other books of aphorisms in his August 2024 Lindy Newsletter “​Don’t Give Up On Reading Just Yet​.” Publius stands the test of time. Very Lindy! Chances are we may still be reading him in another 2000 years. Highly recommended.

8. ​A Pattern Language: Towns – Buildings – Construction​ by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein. Weird title, great book! Maybe this hefty 1189-page butter yellow 1977 Oxford University Press book should have been called “The Architect and Urban Planner’s Bible” or just “How To Build A City, From Scratch, With Instructions On Everything From Neighborhood Density To Window Sizes To Street Width To Park Size To Grave Site Location To Number of Bus Stops Annnnd How These And Everything Else Affect How We Live.” I skipped most of the construction bits but ate up the social and cultural stuff. Like on page 115 where the authors, who spent over a decade with a 6-person team putting this thing together, write about “Tall Buildings” in a section called “Finding Solace In The City”: “There is abundant evidence to show that high buildings make people crazy … High buildings have no genuine advantage, except in speculative gains for banks and land owners. They are not cheaper, they do not help create open space, they destroy the townscape, they destroy social life, they promote crime, they make life difficult for children, they are expensive to maintain, they wreck the open spaces near them, and they damage light and air and view. But quite apart from all this, empirical evidence shows that they can actually damage people’s minds and feelings.” They go on to suggest a four-story limit and show cities where this works—and why. And this isn’t some lightweight saying it! Christopher Alexander received the first-ever PhD in Architecture from Harvard and went on to teach Architecture for decades at University of California, Berkeley. He and his team never stop crashing cymbals either. On page 216 he writes about the city principle of “Old People Everywhere”: “… when elderly communities are too isolated or too large, they damage young and old alike. The young in other parts of town, have no chance of the benefit of older company, and the old people themselves are far too isolated … contemporary society shunts away old people; and the more shunted away they are, the deeper the rift between the old and the young … And the segregation of the old causes the same rift inside each individual life; as old people pass into old age communities their ties with their own past become unacknowledged, lost, and therefore broken. Their youth is no longer alive in their old age—the two become dissociated; their lives are cut in two.” I thought about this book a lot—even around seeming-innocuous things like whether to invite my mom over for dinner on a busy night. The answer? Do it! This book cites a 1945 Yale University Press book on ‘The Role of the Aged in Primitive Society’ which says “Some degree of prestige for the aged seems to have been practically universal in all known societies. … Frequently the very young and the very old have been left together at home while the able-bodied have gone forth to earn the family living. These oldsters, in their wisdom and experience, have protected and instructed the little ones, while the children, in turn, have acted as the ‘eyes, ears, hands, and feet’ of their feeble old friends.” This is a massive book I have spent hours with and still feel like I have only scratched the surface. Seismic! Definitive! Even the creator of ​SimCity​ says this was one of his inspirations ... and five decades later it’s still in print. An epic tome building and building well. Highly recommended.

9. There is no 9! Just our regular lootbag of links. First up, I have not been able to get a copy of Mel Robbins's new book ‘​The Let Them Theory​.’ Literally every bookstore in Canada is sold out. It sold 800,000 copies in the first three weeks (!) so I'm hoping to finally find one and review it for you soon. Here are some ​things I've learned from Mel​ and here she is ​on 3 Books​. I also talked in the intro about the challenge of reading these days and wanted to mention that if you need help try taking my friend ​@alexandbooks_​ new course called ‘​The Art of Reading​.’ I love Alex's ​reading newsletter​, too. Readers, unite! I already love walking and ​Dan Go has given me another reason​ to keep it up. A Peter Attia podcast on ​meaningful experiences > full savings account​. ​Nora McInerny​ has a ​new call-in podcast​. Who are you ​cheering for​ in the NFL conference championships? “​You can read Siddartha 100 times and still be blown away on the 101st​.” A reasonable ​Canadian currency discussion​. ​Adam Grant tells us​ our "attention spans increase with practice." And ​a graph​ I can't stop thinking about. Lastly, if you want me in your inbox every single day you can also get my ​daily awesome thing​—18 years running now! Thanks for reading all the way to to very end...

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - November 2024

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

I started writing this book club 8 years ago.

So it’s been ​96 straight issues​ till this one. Just getting started! I’d love to do 1000. I was born September 1979 so that means I’ll hit the final issue March 2091 at a spritely 111.

We’ll still be emailing, too, me and you. We won’t let it go. Everyone will be telling us to just blink it to each other’s storage, but those are the same people who told us we should “really get on TikTok.”

Anyway, I’m joking. But thanks. For the sanity, for the conversations, for the safe space, for the never-ending chatter about books. I love your endless suggestions and replies and love this secret hiding place we can duck away from everything for a while.

Neil

PS. Invite others to join us ​here​.

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1. ​We The Animals​ by Justin Torres. For the last few years a haunting spectre loomed at the front of bookstores. I am of course speaking of the “Trending On #BookTok” table with its seeming never-ending foisting of Colleen Hoover and James Clear. No offense to Colleen and James—love those guys—but after 5 years it just felt … boring. That’s why I was excited to walk into the holiday-bedazzled ​downtown Toronto flagship Indigo​ and see they’d collapsed the #BookTok table for some new ones:

The Signed Editions table! The Ann Patchett Picks table! The Yuval Noah Harari table! I walked up to the New York Times ‘​100 Best Books of the 20th Century​’ table and felt immediately smug for having read a few on display like ‘Cloud Atlas’ (​6/2019​) by ​David Mitchell​, ‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’ (​10/2023​) by Gabrielle Zevin, and ‘Lincoln In The Bardo’ (​4/2018​) by ​George Saunders​. Then I did that un-smug thing of looking for something new. A silhouette of three young boys Peter Panning across the sky caught my eye and I picked up this flimsy quarter-inch 2011 debut novel by Justin Torres (b. 1980) and flipped to the first paragraph where it fishhooked my eyes:

We wanted more. We knocked the butt ends of our forks against the table, tapped our spoons against our empty bowls; we were hungry. We wanted more volume, more riots. We turned up the knob on the TV until our ears ached with the shouts of angry men. We wanted more music on the radio; we wanted beats; we wanted rock. We wanted muscles on our skinny arms. We had bird bones, hollow and light, and we wanted more density, more weight. We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more.

Light, fire, energy, intrigue. The first of the nineteen short, unnumbered chapters sets a near-impossible high bar for pace and a certain sepia-tinged-electricity but the rest of the book keeps punching up and smacking it. ​Steve-Malkmussy-titled​ chapters like “We Wanted More,” “Wasn’t No One To Stop This,” and “Big-Dick Truck” confuse then reveal in little tales all carefully strung together. Take the 4-page “Big-Dick Truck” which shares the story of the family car breaking down and Paps finally heading to the city while the boys wait outside “snapping the yellow dandelion heads off their stems and streaking them down our arms, painting ourselves in gold, waiting for him to return.” Paps shows up in a brand new truck and thrills the neighborhood kids with its “bench seat,” “skinny, two-foot-long gearshift that came up from the floor,” and “massive side mirror jutted outward like elephant ears.” But then there is trouble:

Ma came out and stood on the stoop, looking tired and pissed. Her eyes were red and her mouth was set, puckering in on itself. She held her boots in one hand, then let them drop in front of her and sat down on the first step.

“Well, mami?” Paps asked.

“How many seats does it have?” she said, picking up a boot and jerking at the laces.

“It’s a truck,” Paps mumbled. “It don’t got seats, it got a bench.”

Ma smiled at the boot, a mean smile; she didn’t look up or look at anything besides that boot. “How many seat belts?”

The neighborhood kids started to climb down and sneak away, all the excitement receding with them like a tide.

“Why you gotta be like that?”

“Me?” Ma said, then she repeated the question, “Me? Me? Me?” Each me was louder and more frantic than the last. “How many fucking kids do you have? How many fucking kids, and a wife, and how much money do you make? How much do you earn, sitting on your ass all day, to pay for this truck? This fucking truck that doesn’t even have enough seat belts to protect your family.” She spat in the direction of the driveway. “This fucking big-dick truck.”

Damn. Again and again he pulls this off. And you gasp and laugh and shiver and wince and feel pressure in your chest and wetness in your eyes. You are right there with the boys in fistfights, empty fields, cold basements, and inside sleeping bags on dim polished office floors. Exquisite, haunting, enchanting, lyrical, tough, raw, pure. Highly recommended.

2. ​Bowling Alone​ by Robert Putnam. This is one of those books I have been hearing people talk about for years and which was sitting on some dusty shelf in my brain with a label like “The OG Book on Loneliness” or “That Dissolution-of-Community Book.” But I didn't really know much about it until now. And I have to say: it’s kind of what I thought but something much more statistical and inconclusive, too. The book reads like a lovable supernerd decided to spend a year of their life in the mid-90s chasing down a phone book’s worth of endless stats about anything that could, might, or might not affect what we think of as community, connection, and culture. And then he read it all and made graphs and maps and takeaways and added his own sort of uniquely proffered insights in a hand-stitched-together way. The conclusion comes early on page 27:

For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century a powerful tide bore Americans into ever deeper engagement in the life of their communities, but a few decades ago—silently, without warning—that tide reversed and we were overtaken by a treacherous rip current. Without at first noticing, we have been pulled apart from one another and from our communities over the last third of the century.

Statistics are fast and furious from there. I felt buried in statistics! Like “By 1965 disrespect for public life, so endemic in our history, seemed to be waning. Gallup pollsters discovered that the number of Americans who would like to see their children ‘go into politics as a life’s work’ had nearly doubled over little more than a decade” and “The proportion that agreed that ‘most people can be trusted,’ for example, rose from an already high 66 percent during and after World War II to a peak of 77 percent in 1964.” and “In the mid- to late 70s...the average American entertained friends at home about fourteen to fifteen times a year. By the late 1990s that figure had fallen to eight times per year, a decline of 45 percent…”. But the book was written in 2000 so I kept thinking “What about now! What about now!” And while most of the data is from the past few decades (70s, 80s, 90s, really) Putnam does manage to zoom up into a century long view where the whole thing is less of a decline and more of a U-curve. As in: We didn’t used to live like this, then we did, now we don’t again. So community and loneliness... cycles? And it’ll come back? Or it's gone forever? The far-past and far-future are dark and blurry! I did love the stats, though. I felt like a trivia hound with a stack of dog-eared Trivial Pursuit cards on a futon at the end of a party. Like on page 137: “… people who trust others are all-round good citizens, and those more engaged in community life are both more trusting and more trustworthy.” And “….people who trust their fellow citizens volunteer more often, contribute more to charity, participate more often in politics and community organizations, serve more readily on juries, give blood more frequently, comply more fully with their tax obligations, are more tolerant of minority views, and display many other forms of civic virtue.” The book is useful and important! Annnnnnnd also a bit outdated and unhelpful. To his credit this 20th anniversary edition includes a 2020 'Afterword' on page 415 where he asks “Has the Internet reversed the decline of social capital?” He gives a history of phones and social media, tells us he rejects techno-determinism (the idea that technology controls us, which, because of ​Kevin Kelly's​ ​'What Technology Wants'​, I somewhat buy), buries us in another pile of statistics, and then offers… not much. He does cite a research study showing having more IRL friends skyrockets your happiness while having more online friends … does not. But this is 2020 and the research is 2013 and the world feels unrecognizable between then and now. The moral and ethical questions facing us now hit much deeper. AI, bots, apps, online everything. The book is a fascinating and valuable piece of detailed human history on the rise of loneliness in the second half of the 20th century but I wish we had someone to tell us what's going on right now.

3. ​The Long Walk​ by Stephen King. I was in the Dallas airport. It was just after lunch on a Friday. I was speed-walking from security to Gate E3 where my flight was boarding. I had flown there last night, given a speech that morning, and had dress-shirted to sweat-shirted on the highway to catch my flight home. I felt like zombieing out to Netflix on the flight. No shame in that. But then I pictured myself Ubering from the airport to dinner with my family all glassy-eyed and headachy. I felt like … reading. Something! Anything! I race into the Hudson thinking I have 30 seconds to grab a book or I’m hanging with ​Demetri​. I see about 30 books on two low shelves and they are arranged in … bestseller list order? Fiction #1, Fiction #2, across the top, Non-Fiction #1, Non-Fiction #2 across the bottom. Ulgh. Meaty Pulitzer prize winners, Presidential memoirs, YA fantasies. No book guilt and no book shame in any of those but they were 700-page bricks. Like getting a Fred Flintstone rib-eye when you wanted a Slim Jim.

I have like a 2-hour flight home so I’m suddenly thinking maybe it’s better to just watch family videos on my camera roll or have a scotch and soda and a nap. All viable! But then I see it! At the end of the rack! Something smaller. STEPHEN KING on the cover. “45th anniversary edition!” screams a blurb. 45? That's an odd anniversary. I am 45! I pick up a book, check the copyright, and sure enough—1979. Just like me. Why are they reprinting this book I wonder? Is it a movie? No. Is it about something timely? I crack open page 1: “An old blue Ford pulled into the guarded parking lot that morning, looking like a small, tired dog after a hard run.” This is ‘The Road’ (​2/2017​) meets ‘The Hunger Games,’ except written before either of those. The gist: 100 sixteen-year-old boys apply to be selected to begin walking on a specific day of each year and any time anybody stops for longer than a couple pauses they are immediately shot and killed and dragged off the road. And the entire book is that walk with ​‘Stand By Me’ clubhouse-like teen conversation​ written when Stephen King was 30. The plot races and darkens but it’s always more terse than terrifying. “The crowd cheered monotonously. Garraty wondered how it would be, to lie in the biggest, dustiest library silence of all, dreaming endless, thoughtless dreams behind gummed-down eyelids, dressed forever in your Sunday suit.” The plot seems as morally bland as a canvas but King's writing pulls off a magic trick that allows you to endlessly, and perhaps accidentally, project your own morals onto it and then feel them bouncing back to you for interpretation. The book is told in a seductive first-person-y third-person where we follow Ray Garraty—pride of Maine, where the race starts!—the long, long way. There’s nothing grotesque in the book—nothing gruesome, nothing jumping out of the forest. It’s not scary but haunting, thrilling. Highly recommended.

4. ​ADHD IS Awesome: A Guide To (Mostly) Thriving With ADHD​ by Penn and Kim Holderness. This is a book about ADHD written by a person with ADHD (Penn) and designed for an ADHD brain. I loved it. It’s like a giant color expandable instruction manual full of tiny color drawings, bits of research, personal stories, boxed-in asides (from the loving and supporting partner to a person with ADHD, Kim). Distracting and messy and factual and philosophical and jumpy and funny and empathetic and illuminating and it … somehow … all just works. This is the new ADHD classic! Penn and Kim Holderness are perhaps most famous for ​winning The Amazing Race​ and creating viral videos like my favorite June 2020 “​Hamilton Mask-up Parody Medley​.” Did you like ‘​Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader​’ as a kid? This is like the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader of ADHD. Like a mashup parody, Penn doesn’t soar through 19 chapters with titles like “Charge Your Battery,” “Master Your Daily Routine,” and “Taking Care of Caretakers” pretending to be the who’s who and what’s what of ADHD. He doesn’t profess unique academic insights gleaned from years of study nor proffer clever acrostics featuring the “7 benefits of ADHD.” He’s just a curious wide-eyed, wide-minded ball of energy who’s taken a deep amount of time to understand his over-20-year-old diagnosis of ADHD. He has done this through interviews with leading researchers, sharing insights from his own readings and experiences at home, and clearly done a lot of self-examination. The result is an ADHD Almanac. A collection of all the stuff we know about ADHD that could help you and your loved ones. (Including, fun fact, that ADHD itself is horribly titled—that both Ds are wrong and it’s neither a deficit nor a disorder—so researchers including ​Edward Hallowell​, who wrote the 1994 ADHD book ‘Driven To Distraction’ as well as the foreword here, are trying to change it to VAST for ‘Variable Attention Stimulus Trait’). I have ADHD in my family (some official, some unofficial) and this book has been a wonderful read on many levels. In the Introduction there is a warm-hearted “Note from People Who Have ADHD to People Who Don’t Have ADHD” with points like “1. We love you—even if it may not always look that way to you. and 2. The easy things are sometimes the hardest things for us to do.” In chapter 1 Penn writes that “a typical person with ADHD will have challenges with listening, completing tasks, and keeping track of time (and possessions). They’ll be restless, always ‘on the go’, talkative, and impatient.” Sound like anyone you know? On page 42 in the chapter titled “Inside the ADHD Brain” Penn tells us that “At its core, the ADHD brain is wired to seek stimulation… While the typical understanding of ADHD suggests that people who have it are overstimulated, the ADHD brain is actually chronically understimulated.” He then quotes YouTuber Jessica McCabe (who runs the viral channel ​How To ADHD​) who says that ADHD brains are attracted to “1. Novelty, 2. Challenges, and 3. Things of personal interest.” The book bounces along and offers magazine-like asides and tangential columns. On page 61 Penn offers his “personal tweaks I’d suggest to make life more ADHD-friendly” and he includes suggestions like “restaurants don’t take reservations”, “schools have 20-minute class periods”, and “every product comes with a warranty that covers straight-up losing it”. On page 82 he shows that most ADHD benefits are not teachable (creativity, hyperfocus, intuition, determination) while its downsides are manageable (inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity). He openly shares his own experience with ADHD medication, why it didn’t work for him, while completely supporting your own path and showing there are many. Perhaps the best advice of all comes in Chapter 19’s “Listening: The Best Hard Habit” where Penn accurately writes about the pains of interruption and teaches mental games and 'escape room phrases' that ADHD brains can play to observe and improve their listening skills. ‘ADHD is Awesome’ is awesome. Highly recommended.

5. ​The BFG​ by Roald Dahl. I’m on a read-aloud roll with my just-turned-6 year old. He loved ‘Little House in the Big Woods’ (​4/2024​), mildly enjoyed ‘Little House on the Prairie’ (​8/2024​), and then loved ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ (​8/2024​). So what next? Leslie is currently reading ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ with him (her first time!) and I felt like it might be good to do another Roald Dahl. But which one? ‘James and the Giant Peach’? ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox?’ I think ‘Matilda’ (​3/2020​) and ‘The Twits’ (​7/2020​) seem too old. Then it hit me! ‘The BFG’! I don’t think I’ve read it since I was a kid and I’d forgotten how spooky the opening scene was with tiny Sophie waking up in the middle of the night and walking to the cold second-story window of her orphanage before spotting a TWENTY-FOOT TALL GIANT down the street, a giant which proceeds, in painful, terrifying chapter after chapter, to peek through her window and snatch her up. (“If you can think of anything more terrifying than that happening to you in the middle of the night, then lets hear about it,” Dahl jovially intones on page 17.) After being kidnapped Sophie discovers nine other giants who all run all over the earth to snatch and gobble down kids for dinner every night. And if they saw her she’d be eaten immediately! Her bones violently crunched! But, luckily, she partners with the Big, Friendly Giant to concoct a secret dream mixture which they then run over to Buckingham Palace and pour in into the Queen’s ear while she’s sleeping and then the Queen wakes up and orders all the scary giants captured and dropped into a big hole! Funny, suspenseful, full of fear and cheer. I’m adding it to my new ​Best Read-Aloud Books List​. Now: What do you suggest we read next? Just reply and let me know.

6. ​Revenge of the Librarians: Cartoons​ by Tom Gauld. If you love books you’ll love this book. A couple hundred pages of book-themed, writer-themed, reader-themed big rectangle-page-long cartoons that are like some literary blender brew of ‘​Herman​’ and ‘​Bizarro​.’ On page 21 he splits his single panel into five thin vertical frames titled “Waiting For Godot To Join The Zoom Meeting” which closes with them agreeing to go before the final caption “They Do Not Leave The Meeting.” He offers “Novels Edited and Republished For The Time-Pressed Modern Reader” featuring “One Hundred Minutes of Solitude” and “20 Leagues Under The Sea.” A single panel frame offers a silhouetted person in a bookstore asking a silhouetted pony-tailed bookseller “Can you recommend a big, serious novel that I can carry around and ignore while I’m looking at my smartphone?” And, of course, there’s his “Advice On Caring For Your Books That Also Works For Parenting” including “Take special care not to damage the spine,” “Do not let too many pile on top of one another,” and “Only lend them to reliable friends.” Published in 2022 it includes many pandemic related strips that made me shudder in memory but overall a wonderful slew of book-themed cartoons that I loved.

7. ​Stitches: A Memoir​ by David Small. I don’t think I have ever come across a graphic novel before with one of those little metallic stickers saying “National Book Award Finalist.” I tore through this fifteen-year-old 329-page masterpiece in a breathless 45 minutes. And then before the end of the month I’d picked it up and done it all over again. “I was six” and “Detroit” are the only four words found on the 17 panels spread over the first six pages. The frames zoom in and out, fast and emotionally jarring. It’s an autobiography told in a few trauma-laced stories. There are his mom’s “furious, silent withdrawals” and his dressing up as Alice from ‘Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland’ (​4/2019​) to sing on the school playgrounds before bullies find him as well as visits to his horrifying grandmother’s house (“You durn little fool!”). Endless emotional clashes that leave you lurching from shame to fear to joy to, well, back to shame again. But the thrilling ride is worth it. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… the man who never reads lives only one” reads a quote from Jogen in ‘A Dance with Dragons’ by George R. R. Martin. Reading this book, and reading it again, certainly feels like living another one. Thank you David Small for this exquisite and soulful deep share. Highly recommended.

8. ​The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance​ by W. Timothy Gallwey, with a foreword by Pete Carroll, then-head football coach at USC. I have heard this 1974 classic referred to as the original book on sports psychology. But it’s really just about psychology. Your inner voice. Your inner critic. Taming that inner demon. I first spotted it on the remainder table at ​BMV Books​ and then read it on a flight to Memphis back in 2017. It’s a great pick-it-up-again book. On page 1 Gallwey sets down his thesis—that everybody talks about playing sports without talking about the *inner* game—the one that “takes place in the mind of the player, and it is played against such obstacles as lapses in concentration, nervousness, self-doubt, and self-condemnation.” He shares that the “secret to winning any game is not trying too hard” and that “too much instruction is worse than none.” How do you do that? By practicing non-judgmental awareness—separating what happened from what you think about what happened. He goes on about this for a while but the examples and stories really bring it to life. Near the end, on page 120, he reminds us that: “Winning is overcoming obstacles to reach a goal, but the value of winning is only as great as the value of the goal reached. Reaching the goal itself may not be as valuable as the experience that can come in making a supreme effort to overcome the obstacles involved. The process can be more rewarding than the victory.” Indeed! I said 5000 words ago that I wanted to do 1000 of these monthly book clubs up to age 111. If I make it? Great! If I don't? Well, the process is more important than the victory. The book taps back into the way most people used to play sports and also serves as a gentle reminder that the person who has the most fun wins. Highly recommended.

9. There is no 9! Just our regular loot bag of links. Australia just ​banned social media for people under 16​. Librarians are ​burning out​. Colorectal cancer is ​on the rise​ so ask your doc about doing an at-home (non-invasive) ​FIT test to help with early detection​. Ugh, and potentially related, more terrible things about ​forever chemicals​. Over the pandemic cycling skyrocketed in Toronto and the city was covered in a fresh lattice of bike lanes. Now the province is trying to quash the City of Toronto's wishes & scrap them! I donate to ​CycleTO​ and ​shared bike lane thoughts on the ever-toxic Twitter​. (Btw: Is BlueSky any better? I just opened ​a BlueSky account​ to find out...). ​George Saunders​ tipped me off to this cool “​personalized book reading list with donation​” offer from literary mag ​n+1​. ​Jonathan Haidt​ was on CBS talking about ​how technology is changing society​. Speaking of, I thought ​Rich Roll did a great job interviewing Yuval Noah Harari​. I enjoyed ​this NYT profile on “Lindyman” Paul Skallas​ and he writes the eye-opening ​The Lindy Newsletter​, too. I was ​Michael Bungay Stanier's​ ​last-ever podcast guest on 2 Pages​—talking about ‘A Fraction of a Whole’ (​2/2023​) by ​Steve Toltz​. And, finally, the publisher has just done a fresh reprint of my shiny golden book ‘​The Book of (Holiday) Awesome​’—click the pic below to grab a copy.

photo by @​thebookbagblog

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Interested in more of my reviews? Read my monthly book clubs or visit my Goodreads page.

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - October 2024

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

“Books are in a very good place!”

That was the first thing James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, and ​Daunt Books​ said to me when ​we recently sat down​ (​Apple​/​Spotify​). He should know! James has been bookselling for 35 years and today is the largest bookseller in the world overseeing nearly 1000 bookstores. “Bookstores are inherently democratic,” he says and he told me authors like ​Sarah J. Maas​ and ​Rebecca Yaros​ are driving a passion for reading he "hasn’t seen since Harry Potter.”

You know how soothing it feels when that ​dull, incessant noise in the background suddenly stops​? I feel like that’s the offer with books these days. Quiet the noise! Step away from the screaming screens. And step into peace, tranquility, and imagination.

Neil

P.S. Know someone who wants to read more? They can join us ​here​!

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1. ​Breath: The New Science Of A Lost Art​ by James Nestor. This book is changing my sleep, my energy, my mood. I get up to go pee in the middle of the night. Sometimes twice. Sometimes three times. Have for years. Premature old man, I guess. But then I read this book. And now I’ve seemingly stopped. I learned in Chapter 3 that overnight mouth breathers—nearly half of us!—lose 40% more water than nose breathers. You know you’re one of us if you sometimes wake up with your mouth like sandpaper in the Sahara. I’d incorrectly assumed overnight dry-mouth wake-ups might contribute to less overnight peeing—like you’d want to keep the water in—but turns out the opposite is true. Nestor writes: “During the deepest, most restful stages of sleep, the pituitary gland, a pea-size ball at the base of the brain, secretes hormones that control the release of adrenaline, endorphins, growth hormone, and other substances, including vasopressin, which communicates with cells to store more water. This is how animals can sleep through the night without feeling thirsty or needing to relieve themselves.” Vass-oh-press-in? I kept reading and discovered that “90% of children have acquired some degree of deformity in their mouths and noses,” 45% of adults snore (not good!), and a whopping 25% of us even CHOKE OURSELVES AWAKE because of sleep apnea—which has a ridiculous undiagnosed case rate of 80%. What helps? Nose breathing. Keeps you hydrated. Prevents snoring. Gets that vasopressin flowing. And (maybe!) keeps you from getting up to go pee. We have so many breathing issues today. Partly it's the old “big evolving brain in a jam-packed skull” problem but we’ve also seemingly lost a lot of ancient human know-how and wisdom. The 2500-year old ​opening epigraph​ alone is a power punch. Then he goes on to share how Native American tribes foster nose breathing in babies by “carefully closing the baby’s lips with their fingers after each feeding. At night, they’d stand over sleeping infants and gently pinch mouths shut if they opened.” He quotes an 1800s book by a Missourian who goes to live with ​Pawnee​, ​Omaha​, ​Cheyenne​, and ​Blackfeet​ tribes and writes that “The Native Americans explained to Catlin that breath inhaled through the mouth sapped the body of strength, deformed the face, and caused stress and disease.” Btw, we’re only in Chapter 2 here. By the time you’re done you’ll be looking for your uvula in the mirror to assess your susceptibility for sleep apnea (“the Friedman tongue position scale”), maybe buying mouth tape to tape over your lips at night (Nester recommends ​3M Nexcare Durapore​—I used it last night and recommend, too!), looking for tougher foods to chew, or practicing some of the breathholding exercises mentioned later in the book or in a wonderfully detailed Appendix. I highlighted and dog-eared so much of this book and put some of my favorite pages ​here​. Highly recommended.

2. ​The Savage Detectives​ by Roberto Bolaño. A fascinating book by Chilean writer ​Roberto Bolaño​ (1953-2003) that offers endless mood and texture with an odd-angled semi-plot. I came to it in a weird way. A friend was visiting me a decade ago when he pulled this book out of his backpack, said he’d just bought it, tore through it, and wanted me to read it. Then he moved. I never read the book. I never gave it back. Soaked into the ​anti-library​! But then, in researching ​James Daunt​, I was fascinated to learn he organized his ​Daunt Books​ indie bookstore chain by … place. Place? Yeah, not by the genre, not by Dewey Decimal System, but by place. All novels, all history, all culture—there it is! Under Indonesia! Well, I have a trip to Mexico City coming so I looked up “novels taking place in Mexico City” and, wouldn’t you know it, this popped up. I cracked it open and read the first 139 pages—1 of 3 parts the book is split into and titled “Mexicans Lost In Mexico (1975)”—and found myself in a series of first-person diary entries from a 17-year-old literary poet wannabe that … maybe is Bolaño? It’s great. Earnest and eager and raunchy and rich. But then it ends with a dramatic runaway chase scene with our main character, two poets he looks up to, and a prostitute … racing away from her former pimp. And then you turn the page and you’re in Part 2 titled “The Savage Detectives (1976-1996)” and, if you’re me, you’re completely lost. We are now hearing from a cast of dozens of different voices, ‘Lincoln In The Bardo’-style (​4/2018​), as they tell a sideways-angled tale of … those two poets our protagonist was aspiring to be like/interested in in the first half. THIS GOES ON FOR 400 PAGES! Then suddenly, on Page 591, we’re thrust into Part 3 (“The Sonora Desert (1976)”) and we are suddenly…. back to the first scene! In the car! Racing from the pimp! Cue the wild ​Breaking Bad​-toned finale. Weird book. Wild book! I felt nostalgic, dizzy, confused, disgusted, engaged, lost … but I kept reading. It’s written in such casual language but so abstract in structure and form. Like some kind of weird uncle to ‘Infinite Jest.’ A helluva trip.

3. ​The Poet X​ by Elizabeth Acevédo. When I launched 3 Books six years ago I got a phone number—​1-833-READ-A-LOT​—which lets me collect voicemails from listeners. I play one at the end of every ​Chapter​. Nadia, an educator from the Mojave Desert, called at the end of ​Chapter 140 with Amy Einhorn​ to share her reflections on ​Chapter 105 with Nancy The Librarian​—in particular our discussion on getting into audiobooks. “Neil, I’d love to recommend ‘The Poet X’ by Elizabeth Acevédo,” she said. “It’s a book in verse, a novel in verse, and it’s just almost meant to be read out loud. And she reads it herself.” I picked up (i.e., ​downloaded​​ from Libro.FM​, the audiobook company which supports your local indie bookstore, which just fyi I have no formal affiliation with) this 2018 coming-of-age YA book about a Dominican teen girl in Harlem falling in love, losing and finding God, navigating relationships at home and school, and discovering her poetic voice. It really does have a slam-poetry type of flow with Acevédo’s beautiful voice running smooth: “Walking home from the train I can’t help but think Aman’s made a junkie out of me—begging for that hit, eyes wide with hunger, blood on fire, licking the flesh, waiting for the refresh of his mouth. Fiend, begging for an inhale, whatever the price, just so long as it’s real nice—real, real nice—blood on ice, ice, waiting for that warmth, that heat, that fire. He’s turned me into a fiend, waiting for his next word, hanging on his last breath, always waiting for the next next time.” Not every sentence sings like that but a lot do: “We watch YouTube highlights of the winter games, I help Aman fry eggs and sweet plantains.” It’s a short, somewhat paint-by-numbers plot that helped me fill a lot of buzzing airport time with melody.

4. ​National Audubon Society Pocket Guide: Familiar Mushrooms​. We went on a couple long family hikes last weekend. The trails were covered in so many different kinds of mushrooms. Those oyster-shaped ones on the sides of dead logs. Giant, dented-coconut shaped ones on the side of big trees. Bright red ones straight out of Mario World. I could see my kids considered them like I did: They’re probably poisonous! Don’t touch them! But the truth is, I know shit-all about mushrooms. So I grabbed this fantastic pocket-sized 190-page field guide from my grandparents-in-law’s bookshelf and flipped through it. Small enough to fit in your pocket and easy to quickly flip open and use the top-left silhouette legend to find the approximate shape of your mushroom in a few seconds. Then you fine-pick through the detailed color two-page spreads. Right side: Full color unmistakable photo of your mushroom. Left: Details like a short summary and then Identification (field marks), Edibility, Similar Species, Habitat, and Range. There are a lot of poisonous and “deadly poisonous” mushrooms in here! And a whole bunch that are delicious and could save you if/when you’re lost in the woods. Highly recommended.

5. ​Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How To Finally, Really Grow Up​ by James Hollis, Ph.D. Average lifespan right now in Japan is 84, Canada 83, England 81, US 77, China 77, India 72. Can we call it 80 roundabouts? That means the second half of your life begins while blowing out the candles on your 40th birthday. Cue mid-life crisis! Buy the convertible, get the lipo, start dating someone 20 years younger! Not so fast. Here comes poetically erudite Jungian analyst James Hollis to save you from that. Giant-minded with an in-the-clouds-and-on-the-street tone this is a masterful, inspiring, deeply soulful book I know I’ll be revisiting over and over. Hollis opens the book with a full page of questions and the headline “Your Life Is Addressing These Questions To You” with some examples being: “What gods, what forces, what family, what social environment, has framed your reality, perhaps supported, perhaps constricted it?” and “Why do you believe that you have to hide so much, from others, from yourself?” and “Why is the life you are living too small for the soul’s desire?” Biggies! His lengthy but worthwhile Intro quotes Nobel Prize nominee Andre Malraux: “The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of the earth and the galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness.” Chapter 1 opens quickly with the title: “Expensive Ghosts: How Did We Get To This Point?” where Hollis makes the argument that “In the end we will only be transformed when we can recognize and accept the fact that there is a will within each of us, quite outside the range of conscious control, a will which knows what is right for us, which is repeatedly reporting to us via our bodies, emotions, and dreams, and is incessantly encouraging our healing and wholeness.” Dude goes deep. We’re in Chapter 1 here. I can’t tell you how many times I hit a rich paragraph that stunned me into stopping. Once I typed up a whole paragraph, emailed it to Leslie, and now we have it stuck up on our kitchen wall. That one comes in Chapter 6 (“The Family During The Second Half Of Life”) where Hollis writes: “What would happen to our lives, our world, if the parent could unconditionally affirm the child, saying in so many words: ‘You are precious to us; you will always have our love and support; you are here to be who you are; try never to hurt another, but never stop trying to become yourself as fully as you can; when you fall and fail, you are still loved by us and welcomed to us, but you are also here to leave us, and to go onward toward your own destiny without having to worry about pleasing us.’ How history would change!” Magnificent, deep, soul-touching with a type of density that required (for me, anyway) many small bites. But if you can handle the occasional phrase like “psychodynamic stratagems” and quite a lot of Carl Jung quotes then I suggest picking this up. (Btw: This is one of Oliver Burkeman’s 3 most formative books. Oliver’s new book ‘​Meditations For Mortals​’ just dropped and is getting ​rave reviews​. My chat with Oliver will drop on the full moon! Join us on ​Spotify​, ​Apple​, or ​YT​.)

6. ​The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft​ by Robert S. Boynton. I’m a sucker for writers interviewing writers about writing. This 21-year-old book from NYU journalism professor Robert Boynton labels that fun, jumpy, immersive style of Tom Wolfe journalism “new journalism” and then calls the 19 writers interviewed here “new new journalists.” But no matter! It’s just a great batch of dense interviews with folks like Michael Lewis, ​Susan Orlean​, and Jon Krakauer. Where do they get their ideas? How do they make connections in interviews? What does an ideal writing day look like? The book’s a bit longwinded (pot, kettle, I know) but it’s perfect for dipping and slipping in and out.

7. ​Good Birders Don’t Wear White: 50 Tips from North America’s Top Birders​ edited by Lisa White. This was another book from this community and I had to go digging on ​Thriftbooks​ to find a copy but it was worth it. There is the title advice—“trading the white birding festival T-shirt for a camo jump suit and face paint is a little extreme, but selecting clothing in neutral colors that blend with the environment can reduce the impact of birding on birds and other wildlife”—but a lot more. I learned how to “Choose a Birding Tour Carefully,” “Go Birding At Night,” “Shush and Pish," and “Use A Storm to Your Advantage,” amongst others. The book is field-guide-small and the tone is light, fun, and easy to read. Everything from feeding birds to cleaning binoculars to even drawing birds (from David Sibley himself!) is covered. A nice gift for the birder in your life.

8. ​Alfie Gets In First​ by Shirley Hughes. This is our favorite of the wonderful series of picture books created by the incredible Shirley Hughes (1927-2002) of West Kirby, England. Her bibliography includes over 50 books that have sold over 10 million copies. I still remember when Leslie and I met a wonderful children’s librarian in Toronto named Joanne who thrust this book into our hands and, since then, all of our kids have loved reading ​Alfie’s tales​ when they’re around 3 or 4. In this story the toddler Alfie does indeed get into the house before his mom and little sister and then the door latches behind him which causes a flurry of neighborhood friends to come over to try to help him out. Gentle tension, vivid drawings, and the warmth of family and community come through—as they do in all the Alfie books. Perfect before bed. Highly recommended.

9. There is no 9! Just our regular lootbag of links. ​Tim Urban​ offers a wonderful dose of awe in his Free Press article “​Why I Brought My Toddler to Watch SpaceX’s Flying Skyscraper​.” Bryan Johnson helps us ​fix our posture​. Fascinating little graphic on ​how couples met​ from 1930 to 2024. Marc Andreessen says “​trust in every major incumbent organization is on its way to zero​.” ​Shane Parrish​ has re-released his wonderful collection of ​“Great Mental Models” books​. Do your kids ​imitate​ the way you walk? Eerie poetry from Gen Z: ​“It was the damn phone.”​ What a 15-foot hurricane storm surge ​looks like​. Elizabeth Kolbert reporting on ​melting glaciers​ in Greenland. And Eric Barker shares ​5 rituals to make you a more awesome parent​.

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Interested in more of my reviews? Read my monthly book clubs or visit my Goodreads page.

Click here to join the Book Club email list.

Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - September 2024

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

Hope you’ve had a wonderful September.

Here in Toronto orange and yellow leaves are covering the roads and the evenings are getting chillier.

I shared my ​annual birthday advice​ a couple weeks ago and the algorithms liked this one with over 700,000 people reading or sharing it online now. Other members of our community of optimists have started compiling their own like ​this list​ from Australian mum-of-three Ness Quayle. Here's an excerpt and a pic she sent me and you can click to read the whole thing:

I just got another great list from ​Sera Ertan​ for her 30th birthday. She includes advice like “Explore dating outside of your type,” “Sun and sea might be enough to cure your depression," and “Learn one new skill every year.” I'll post the whole thing at ​Neil.blog​. Do you have a list of things you’ve (almost) learned? Or want to write one? Feel free to share it back with me so we can keep inspiring each other.

Thank you for hanging out with me each month and if you know others who’d like to join us just send them ​here​.

Happy reading,

Neil

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1. ​Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts​ by Oliver Burkeman. From 2006 until 2020 Oliver Burkeman wrote one of my favorite newspaper columns—the wonderfully titled “​This Column Will Change Your Life​” in The Guardian. In a lot of ways: It did. Oliver created a wonderful real-time exploration of the self-help universe from the perspective of a particularly compassionate, tart, naval-gazey Brit. After the column finished Oliver wrote ​‘Four Thousand Weeks​,’ a truly masterful offering that kind of zoomed up and over the self-help canon—bang!—and which I threw in “​The Very Best Books I Read In 2021​.” The title of that book is a reminder of the average number of weeks in a human lifetime. (4000 weeks is 76.7 years and US lifespan is ​currently​ 77.5.) Oliver has a unique perspective and he shares it in the Intro to this follow-up which comes out in 11 days and can be ordered ​right here​: “It starts from the position that you’ll never feel fully confident about the future, or fully understand what makes other people tick — and that there will always be too much to do,” he writes. Why? Not because “you’re an ill-disciplined loser, or because you haven’t read the right bestseller revealing ‘the surprising science’ of productivity, leadership, parenting, or anything else. It’s because being a finite human just means never achieving the sort of control or security on which many of us feel our sanity depends … It just means you’ll always be vulnerable to unforeseen disasters or distressing emotions, and that you’ll never have more than partial influence over how your time unfolds, no matter what YouTubers in their early twenties with no kids might have to say about the ideal morning routine.” Snap! Part poet, part diss rapper, Oliver always keeps it real. I feel like this book was like a bowl of leftover cake and whipped cream I just found in the fridge. It’s not as long or as layered as the ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ meal that preceded it. But it hits the spot! At 162 pages versus 304 the book is broken into 28 short essays meant to be read once a day over four weeks. Oliver invites us to approach the book “as a return, on a roughly daily basis, to a metaphorical sanctuary in a quiet corner of your brain, where you can allow new thinking to take shape without needing to press pause on the rest of your life, but which remains there in the background as you go through the day.” I read 6 the first chunk, then none for three weeks, then picked it back up and suddenly had gobbled 8 more. So, you know, you do you and all. The four weeks have themes—‘Being Finite,’ ‘Taking Action,’ ‘Letting Go,’ and ‘Showing Up’—and each ‘day’ has a curiosity-sparking title before a 3-5 page writeup: “Against productivity debt: On the power of a ‘done’ list,” “Develop a taste for problems: On never reaching the trouble-free phase,” and “Don’t stand in generosity’s way: On the futility of ‘becoming a better person.’” He stirs eloquent thoughts, precise quotes, and, uh, surprise cacao nibs of philosophy into something delicious. For me the size, shape, and incisive wisdom of the book recalls ‘The Art of Living’ by Epictetus (​12/2016​). A work of mastery that comes with a side-benefit of reducing anxiety about everything. Highly recommended.

2. ​Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement​ by Jane McAlevey. What will jobs look like in the future? What roles will AI displace? What industries will emerge? What roles will remain for us outnumbered humans? Makes sense things are brewing in labor. You’ve probably heard about Chris Smalls and a group of Amazon workers on Staten Island forming ​the first Amazon Workers Union​ (which, two years later,​ the company is still fighting​). Or news that after many staunchly anti-union years, ​Starbucks may be willing​ to negotiate with representatives of its 400+ unionized stores. There’s a bill on California governor ​Gavin Newsom’s desk​ this month seeking to ban employer-led anti-union meetings at work. Yet despite the bubbling: There is a ​record low​ percentage of American workers in a union today. Why? Are unions becoming ineffective? Have gig roles and freelance jobs taken over? Are turnover rates too high to organize? Have laws tilted from pro-labor to pro-corporation? There were a lot of lines about unions at the Democratic National Convention: “As President, I will bring together labor and workers…” said Kamala Harris. “We need to pass the ​PRO Act​ so that workers can organize a union and gain the decent pay and benefits they deserve,” said Bernie Sanders. This fiery, spirited, slightly disorganized 2012 book by recently deceased union organizer and Berkeley policy fellow ​Jane McAlevey​ offers an insider’s from-the-ground view of the passion, resolve, and fight necessary to organize workers in a system largely oriented to disorganize them. The book opens with a gripping tale of Florida during the ​butterfly ballot​ ​Bush v. Gore​ election crisis then veers into dramatic fighting, and infighting, over the years. There is a militant pulse in the book and also messiness, ugly politics, and sadness. A good peek into an issue gaining momentum as disparities widen around the world.

3. ​The Quentin Blake Book​ by Jenny Uglow. One of ​our values​ on reading is that “Librarians are doctors of the mind.” I can’t tell you how many books Sarah Ramsey of Book City gave me that twisted my heart the right way at the right time. (I talk to her about this ​here​.) So I was delighted to see a massive “Staff Picks” wall at the down-the-ramp front entrance of the ​High Park branch of the Toronto Public Library​. It was like a wall of vitamins! My eyes were drawn to the pink sticky note saying “Rebeca’s Pick I loved learning about this artist whose work is known often by his partnership with Roald Dahl.” Quentin Blake! Yes! Right! Kevin the Bookseller threw that particular vitamin down my throat back in ​Chapter 44​ at the Indigo bookstore he runs at Mount Sinai hospital. Rebeca is right, though. Who else still has this image lodged somewhere in the back of their brain?

But now when you see it you learn on page 90 that “By contrast… The Twits, a darker, brutal story, asked for black and white for its prison-like world, and a hard nib to give the mood (and to show Mr Twit’s beard, ‘which had to look like a lavatory brush’). The expressions speak volumes, as the couple play their cruel practical jokes—witness Mrs Twist’s alarm as she is stretched beneath gas-filled balloons, and Mr Twit’s glee as he prepared to tie another one.” Incredible, right? This book is the stories behind the drawings behind the stories. And the Dahl stuff is just one chapter! The book expands and colors in the now-91-years of genius that is Quentin Blake. From his early ​Punch​ magazine covers to nude sketches and self-portraits to giant hospital walls and darker illustrations he did to support the migrant refugee crisis. His humanitarian work was completely unknown to me and it’s beautiful. A couple years ago I stumbled on a dog-chewed dark brown hardcover first edition of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ (​8/2024​) at ​The Monkey’s Paw​ (a must-visit bookstore if you’re in Toronto, which features the world’s first Biblio-Mat!) Incredible find, right? But when I flipped through it I realized I could never love it. It didn’t have Quentin Blake’s drawings. Seriously: What’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory without this:

This book is a succulent and engaging deep-dive into the life and work of an unstoppable artistic master. Highly recommended. (P.S. Quentin is 91 today and still drawing. If you want to experience delight I suggest you check out the ​gallery​ on his website. I wish I had a nursery to decorate with ​this one!​)

4. ​The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet​ by John Green. I love John Green but I admit I resisted this book for a couple years. “I want edgy-gushy- earnest YA! Not serious-sounding essays about … climate change?” But this is a great book. A fun book! A fast book! A book of reviews! John Green is good at reviewing things and he shares that one of his first jobs was writing endless 175-word reviews for ​Booklist​. He also points out the review has become the communication form of our time. “The medication I take to treat my obsessive-compulsive disorder has more than 1,100 ratings at Drugs.com, with an average score of 3.8. A scene in the movie adaptation of my book ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ was filmed on a bench in Amsterdam; that bench now has hundreds of Google reviews,” he writes in the Introduction. One day he told his brother he wanted to write a review of Canada Geese and the idea for this book (and the ​podcast series that preceded it​) struck: “The Anthropocene … REVIEWED,” Hank Green said. So what follows are a series of seemingly disjoint reviews of things like Halley’s Comet, Diet Dr Pepper, Sunsets, and, yes, Canada Geese, where John tells us how the bird used to be rare but is perfectly adapted to our increasingly steamrolled golf-course-covered planet. (“Thank you for paving paradise and putting up parking lots—honnnnnk, honk, honk, honk, honk.”) What emerges is a fascinating mind jumpily exploring secret histories while contemplating the status and fate of our species and planet in a fun and near-lighthearted way. In his review of ‘Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Stickers’ he takes us back into his childhood classroom, then wonderfully opines that “Humans, meanwhile, smell like the exhalations of the bacteria that colonize us, a fact we go to extraordinary lengths to conceal…”, then takes us into the 1960s-developed microencapsulation process the stickers use, borrowed from banking carbon paper, where scratching actually cracks open microcapsules of essential oils, and then he wonders how the nature of smells has changed over time. In his review of ‘The Internet’ he writes: “What does it say that I can’t imagine my life or my work without the internet? What does it mean to have my way of thinking, and my way of being, so profoundly shaped by machine logic? What does it mean that, having been part of the internet for so long, the internet is also part of me?” Of course every review ends in a rating. Canada Geese, you may understand, get 2 stars, the internet gets 3 stars, and scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers get a rare 3 and a ½. Part silly, part serious, as a rare combination of ‘thoughtful short form,’ we hereby officially add this to our ​Enlightened Bathroom Reading​ collection. Highly recommended.

5. ​Team Of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln​ by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Carrying around this book this month was like carrying around a six foot sub on a seven foot wooden plank. I used to drive around and deliver these things 20 years ago and it was so fun. Here I am! With this giant sandwich! Big, beautiful, tasty, delicious. Of course, like the big sandwich, you can only take a couple bites at a time. Even the audiobook is 41 hours and 32 minutes and it’s not the kind of thing you can listen to at 2x. So I bit off the meat and veggies hanging out the sides first—the 16 pages of Epigraph, Contents, Introductions, and Maps followed by the 40 pages of Epilogue, Acknowledgements, Abbreviations, and Index. (I skipped the 121 pages of Notes.) THEN I took a big bite from both sides: the first chapter ‘Four Men Waiting’ and the last chapter ‘The Final Weeks’ before slowly working my way into the middle—mostly by audio jump-around on ​Libro.FM​. There are no rules to reading! (​You have the right to skip, the right to dip...​) When the story gets going you've slid down a time-traveling slide to Springfield, Illinois 164 years ago with its “multiple saloons and restaurants, seven newspapers, three billiard halls, dozens of retail stores, three military armories, and two railroad depots.” You're a fly on multiple walls meeting 51-year-old Abe as he nervously awaits news on the Republican nomination for President. The writing is wonderfully detailed. You can just picture it when Goodwin tells us Lincoln was “a familiar figure to almost everyone in Springfield, as was his singular way of walking, which gave the impression that his long, gaunt frame needed oiling. He plodded forward in an awkward manner, hands hanging at his sides or folded behind his back … He lifted his whole foot at once rather than lifting from the toes and then thrust the whole foot down on the ground rather than landing on his heel.” You like detail? Here are 757 pages of detail. The high-level story is well known: about Lincoln’s growth through poverty (“moving from one dirt farm to another”) and the establishment and challenge of practicing deep and wide-ranging leadership skills (including, of course, bringing his “team of rivals” into his cabinet) all towards helping a fractured country on many brinks. The first-ever Republican president of the US and (arguably) ​the best​. A massive, monstrous plank of deliciousness that can be feasted on for a long, long time.

6. ​The Field​ by Dave Lapp. How do you revisit, explore, and process the uglier and more painful moments of childhood? This graphic novel manages the feat of bullseye-ing in on that particular gnawing stomach stress feeling of being socially excluded as a kid. Dave Lapp doesn’t fire any darts off the board, either. The opening six-page comic in this 540-page coming-of-age graphic memoir gave me a stomach flip: our narrator David and his troublemaking pal Edward draw dirty pictures in their first or second grade class and, at Ed’s insistence, hide them on the board. When the teacher finds them—“Who hid these dirty drawings on my vocabulary board?!”—Edward immediately outs David, who gets marched to the front of the class and has the drawings pinned to his shirt, along with a letter to his mom. “Dear Mrs. Lapp, David drew these dirty pictures and showed them to the whole class, Ms. Lewis.” He starts crying, he bows his head, the teacher provokes him a bit (“DO NOT TAKE IT OFF OR I WILL KNOW!”), and when he’s finally given permission to sit back on the carpet the final scene is Edward … shuffling away from him. What a punch! That’s the vibe here. Spare drawings, accurate pain, a lot of “no, no, no, don’t do thats!”, all ultimately adding up to a slightly harrowing reconnection with the sharper emotional side of growing up.

7,8,9, and 10. ​Catwings, Catwings Return, Wonderful Alexander, and Jane On Her Own​ by Ursula K. Le Guin. I first heard about Ursula K. Le Guin back in 2020 when ​David Mitchell​ (‘Cloud Atlas,’ ​6/2019​) picked ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’ (​8/2020​) as one of his 3 most formative books. That “young adult” book felt anything but to me—creepy, cryptic, eerie. There was a wet, dark, skeletal feeling in that book that felt haunting when I read it and feels haunting when I think about it now. (Incidentally I recommend this wonderful ​eight-year-old essay​ David wrote about the series.) So that backdrop is, I suppose, partly what makes the super-slim 4x40-page box set of ‘Catwings’ so surprising. This isn’t dark! It’s a story about a bunch of cats … with wings … who escape alleys, get attacked by owls, suffer rat trauma, find lost siblings, and get trapped by greedy owners with dollar signs in their eyes. Why do the cats have wings? “Mrs. Jane Tabby could not explain why all four of her children had wings. ‘I suppose their father was a fly-by-night,’ a neighbor said, and laughed unpleasantly, sneaking round the dumpster.” Those are the first two sentences of the first book. These are smoother, simpler, more straightforward stories than ‘Earthsea’ that are perfect read-a-louds with kids as young as four or five. There are a few suspenseful scenes but you’re safe in the tight embrace of an ink-flicking master and everything is gorgeously wrapped in detailed illustrations by S.D. Schindler. Looks like Ursula wrote these books throughout her sixties from the late 80s to the late 90s and they are (for good reason!) still in print today.

11. There is no 11! Just our regular look bag of links. I enjoyed cutting out and ticking off the books I’ve read and want to read in The New York Times ‘​100 Best Books of the 20th Century​.’ I am a bit of a list nut, I admit, and, btw, I’ve only read 12 of them! Thanks to Karen W for telling me about this activism ​in the world of Little Free Libraries​! I loved Ryan Holiday’s ​essay about swimming​. I want to jump in a pool right now. Listen to my now-ancient chat with Ryan at his house in Austin right ​here​. I was ​interviewed in Forbes​ last month about top happiness habits. ​Amy Einhorn​, superstar editor of ‘The Help,’ ‘Big Little Lies,’ ‘Let’s Pretend This Never Happened,’ ‘A Higher Loyalty,’ and, yes, ‘​The Book of Awesome​,’ joined me ​on 3 Books​. Adam Grant shared a ​new study​ on the danger of heavy screen use in young children. A ​nice collection​ of Kevin Kelly wisdom. I ​agree​ with Myrium Gurba. ​The real tax​ of US political season. Casey Neistat’s ​advice​ to people in their 20s. And have most major sports been ‘​figured out​’?

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Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - August 2024

Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Hey everyone,

Wow, it’s suddenly September tomorrow.

Who else is feeling a little prickly-anxious about the start of school and the resulting slow grind of new routines working their way into some kind of smooth flow?

I feel that way. I just did an ​interview with Forbes​ you can check out for a bit of a happiness habit refresh. And have a ​new article on CNBC​ about doing Rose Rose Thorn Bud at night. Our new journal based on the practice ‘​Two Minute Evenings​’ sold out the first day! Took a while but new copies are now back in stock on ​Chronicle​ or ​Amazon​.

This month I loved jumping ten millenniums in the future in the bubbling, rainbow-colored wowshow of ‘​Moonbound​’ by Robin Sloan. I finished a couple bedtime read-a-louds with my kids. And in the midst of US election overwhelm I was reminded about some of what’s at stake through the masterpiece ‘​Stasiland​,’ which is a wonderfully woven “kitchen table conversation” style of journalism from behind the Berlin Wall. Plus a lot more!

Let’s keep focused on reading amidst the endless beeps and boops.

And now let’s get to the books…

Neil

PS. If you know someone who wants to read more they can join us ​here​!

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1. ​The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing​ by Melissa Bank. I’ll tell you how I ended up reading this book and then tell you what I thought. 15 years ago my nascent seven-month-old blog ‘​1000 Awesome Things​’ was nominated for ‘Best Blog’ in the world from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. I was immediately approached by a bunch of literary agents including Erin Malone, who represented Christian Lander, a fellow Torontonian who wrote a blog I loved called ‘​Stuff White People Like​’ (featuring ​#9 “Making you feel bad for not going outside”​ and ​#85 “The Wire”​). I signed with Erin and she told me she wanted to auction my blog to publishers … next week. Suddenly I was in the foreign position of interviewing editors who were somehow clamoring to publish my book. I signed with Amy Einhorn, a woman I’d never heard of, who just started an eponymous imprint I’d never heard of, within Putnam Publishing, which I’d also never heard of. But I was magnetically attracted to her vision for the book, which was different than everybody else’s. I learned everything about editing from Amy in our passionate late-night diatribe-y emails to each other, our hot-potato-ing of 300-page Word docs back and forth with 100s of comments in red down the sides, and arguing—good arguing!—about every single element along the way. I’d sit in her New York office and she’d have a variety of ‘cases’ laid out on her desk. “What do you think of 5” by 7”?” she’d say. “Too precious? Too cute?” (We went with a 5.5" by 7.5" for the record.) Or she’d say, “Neil, ‘Blowing your nose in the shower’ is out. Too frat boy! It’s a hardcover. It’s a gift book. It’s for moms.” I absolutely loved working with her. By some accounts Amy Einhorn is ​the most successful editor in the world today​ with the highest percentage of books edited that hit the New York Times bestseller list. She has a knack for sniffing out voice, for knowing what will work and what won’t and, as you can imagine, I’ve been begging her to come on ​my podcast​ for six years to ask her about her secrets. She finally acquiesced and I fly down to New York City next week. (She’s now running Fiction at Crown.) Of course, I get the 3 formative books in advance and this one—‘The Girls’ Guide To Hunting And Fishing’—was tops on her list. ‘The Girls’ Guide To Hunting And Fishing’? Uh ... yeah. I will say up front if you asked me if I wanted to read a coming-of-age romantic and sexual awakening first-person narrative from a snappy, turbo-charged Jersey-girl-turned-New Yorker through the 80s and 90s I would have potentially said “Pass!” But I loved it. This is an absolutely stunning read with strong ‘​When Harry Met Sally​’ vibes throughout. Fast, funny, twisting, turning. The title of the book makes zero sense till you get to last chapter and they even took the bold publishing step of not even printing “A Novel” on the cover to help us out—just a tiny small caps FICTION in the lower left corner. After a mildly annoying ten page flips you hit the book’s first sentence where, without any context, you’re thrust into the mind’s eye of a teen girl looking out the front window of her house: “My brother’s first serious girlfriend was eight years older—twenty-eight to his twenty.” Melissa Bank writes with a magical Claire Keegan (‘Foster,’ ​9/2023​) brand of writing I’d call “vivid sparsity.” The story is told through seven short stories that leapfrog through Jane Rosenal’s life with a wild unpredictability that feels like real life. It starts with Jane as a teen trying to understand sex and love: “My theory was that if you had breasts, boys wanted to have sex with you, which wasn’t exactly a big compliment, since they wanted to have sex anyway. Whereas if you had a beautiful face, like Julia, boys fell in love with you, which seemed to happen almost against their will. Then the sex that you had would be about love.” (page 21) Trying to understand drugs: “There was a keg, but when someone asked if we’d like a beer, Linda said, ‘I wish we could.’ I didn’t find out what she’d meant until a joint was passed to her and she handed it right off to me, saying, ‘Remember the three Ds from detox: don’t, don’t, don’t.’ I passed the joint, as though exerting heroic self-control. She said, ‘You still get flashbacks?’ ‘I think I always will,’ I said.” (page 25). There are highs. There are lows. In her mid-30s: “But I just said, ‘Yeah.’ And ‘Yeah,’ again. Even to myself, I sounded like somebody who smoked cigarettes in front of the drug store all day.” (page 171) There is death, like after a funeral: “I walked through the meadow. I sat at the picnic table. I looked hard at everything, so I wouldn’t forget. Then I picked an apple from the tree for the ride home.” (page 199). And there are endless LOLs, too: “It occurs to me that I may not be the only butterfly whose wings flutter in the presence of his stamen. After she glides off, Robert tells me that she composes music for movies and has been nominated for an Oscar. I think of my only award, an honorable mention in the under-twelve contest to draw Mr. Bubble.” (page 235). The vignettes gave me the feeling of watching a high-school volleyball game in a cramped gym. Lot of bumps, some sets, and a variety of fastballs-off-the-back-wall, just-missed-its, and a few hard, deep spikes. This is an astounding life portrait told with speed, precision, zingers, and a rare three-dimensionalization. What a stunning voice! Thank you, Amy, yet again. Highly recommended.

2. ​Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ​by Roald Dahl. Illustrated by Quentin Blake. I hated ​Beavers​. I cried to my mom every Wednesday night on our walk home from the gym at Sunset Heights Public School. I was around six years old and would be wearing blue and brown hat and blue and brown vest after spending a couple hours getting pegged repeatedly in dodge ball and failing to properly stitch badges onto felt. Needless to say I never made it to Cubs. And Boy Scouts sounded like a nightmare! But I’ll never forget my last night in my last (and first!) year at Beavers. We were led from the gym to the library where we were sat down on the pebble-filled carpet amongst the three-foot-high shelves of crinkly wrapped picture books in front a TV / VCR rack. Someone pulled out the long orange extension cord while another cracked open the plastic video case of “​Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory​” (1971) starring Gene Wilder and (thankfully!) written by Roald Dahl. I fell in love with the movie and then picked up the book and read it so many times throughout my life. (It’s definitely one of my answers to the question: “​What’s one book you read as a kid that’s still on your shelf today?​”) A couple weeks ago I read it again with my five-year-old in a unique way. I read him the first three chapters (“Here Comes Charlie,” “Mr. Willy Wonka’s Factory,” and “Mr. Wonka and the Indian Prince”). They’re fast and easy—15 pages in 14-point font with 7 drawings from the inimitable Quentin Blake mixed in—and are a perfect little gateway into the book. My son got to meet Charlie (“How d’you do? And how d’you do? And how d’you do again? He is pleased to meet you.”), hear about the fabled factory, and get the bizarre sideways subplot (understandably struck from the film!) about Indian mogul “Prince Pondicherry” who has Mr. Wonka build a Taj Mahal-type joint out of chocolate but after taking a nap during a “very hot day with a boiling sun… woke up to find himself swimming around in a huge brown sticky lake…” So that got my 5-year-old into it. Then Leslie and I had to stuff the Odyssey for a three-hour-long drive so we downloaded the 2013 wonderfully one-man-acted by Douglas Hodge audiobook and noticed it was … 3 hours and 18 minutes. Perfect! How many audio books are that short? Dahl is such a wizard of economy. So we listened the whole way and it entranced us all. I was in the Sunset Heights library again—seeing the factory with a new perspective, new glint, new peek through the window. Then when we arrived at our rental place on a lake in smalltown Ontario with three chapters left. Which was perfect for me to read to him before bed. Btw: Since being tipped off by ​Latanya and Jerry​ on the ​Bronx Bound Books Bus​ I always recommend ​Libro.FM​ for audio books. (​Here’s the link to Charlie​.) I don’t have any affiliation with the company but I love that they have all the same audiobooks but give their profits to the indie bookstore of your choosing. Right now I’m supporting my friends at ​Mable’s Fables​, a wonderful children’s bookstore in Toronto. This is a story I can read again and again and again. Highly recommended.

3. ​Why Are People Into That? A Cultural Investigation of Kink​ by Tina Horn. “Kink-positive, for sure,” Sarah said. “That’s like my first or second thing.” She was behind the counter of her coffee shop in an otherwise-treacly patch of Little Italy. It was a couple years ago and we were talking about criteria we were looking for in a therapist. I hadn’t heard the phrase again until I saw this book sitting on the front table of the new ​Indigo Rideau Centre​ in Ottawa. I browsed the Table of Contents, could feel internal aversions and curiosities, and knew I should probably pick it up to learn more. There are nine chapters and all of them go 20-pages deep on the philosophy, history, personal history, and what-I-think-might-be-happening-heres of a specific fetish like ‘Feet,’ ‘Spanking,’ ‘Consensual Nonconsent,’ ‘Cash,’ ‘Orgies,’ and ‘Bimbofication,’ which I learned is “a fetish activity in which a person of any gender is transformed into a bubbly, insatiably-horny, empty-headed, smooth-brained, fun-loving, hyperfeminine creature.” She shares how in cartoons on the topic “breasts explode out of blouses, cappuccinos become frappucinos, white lab coats give way to cinched corsets, and brows once furrowed in thought are smoothed.” There is … a lot here. And I love how it all opens: with Tina flashing back 15 years to the 2000s to her hometown of Oakland when she runs smack into her high school boyfriend outside the movie theater—the guy she’d “first had orgasms with” when they weren’t at “swimming practice, watching Fight Club, or smoking cloves outside the nearest city’s midnight movie festivals”—and then proceeds to tell him that she’s now a professional dominatrix. To which he replies: “I always knew you’d *get into* that stuff.” Tina Horn is a ​#1 Apple Podcast host​ and ​Lambda Literary​ fellow who writes with a fearless and breezy-intellectual blogging tone that calls to mind ​Mark Manson​. She says, “This book grew out of the project that began with my podcast, inviting readers far and wide to join a sociocultural investigation in which kink is the artifact in question, the text being analyzed—a deep dive into all manner of erotic fantasies and activities, blending pop culture, history, and personal narrative.” In Chapter 1 on feet she wonderfully tilts the mirror onto how kinks and fetishes are viewed by our culture today. She talks about a ‘Sex and the City’ episode with Miranda having a relationship with a shoe salesman who, by the end of the episode, “bites his tie, breathes heavily, and seems to comically orgasm in his pants from merely placing shoes on her bare feet.” She also recounts a 2019 “smirking like he can barely contain himself” Jimmy Kimmel teasing Margaret Qually on his show about how her feet are featured by presumed-weirdo-fetishist ​Quentin Tarantino​ in ‘​Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood​.’ The book reads as a manifesto and call-to-arms seeking to rally people towards “a new code of sexual ethics based on imagination, curiosity, and communication. An ethic that abolishes the thought-policing (along with the long history of literal policing) of erotic ideas, fantasies, and tastes.” As Tina writes: “Every person reading this has, at some point in their lives, felt a longing for an embodied experience of pleasure or particular configuration of companionship that was roundly suppressed by their inner cop.” Explore the limits of your inner cop with this brave, challenging, insightful, researched-based, story-driven exploration.

4. ​All Fours​ by Miranda July. There was a funny scene in our house last month where two shipments arrived the same day, from the same place (​Indigo​!), with the same book. I heard there was a new Miranda July book and since reading her mind-bending ‘No One Belongs Here More Than You’ (​3/2022)​ I’d been a fan. (That was one of the 3 most formative books from ​Daniels​, filmmakers behind ‘​Everything, Everywhere All At Once.​’) I didn’t know who Miranda was or what else she wrote but that name—Miranda July!— was just attached to a delicious meal my brain had eaten. ​Leslie​ read it first and it was fun watching her emotional ups and downs with the book over the past couple weeks. Here comes her Leslie’s Pick now: “When I saw ‘All Fours’ by Miranda July recommended in ​The Cap​, a newsletter I subscribe to and appreciate for its thought-provoking and compassion-growing take on parenting teens, as a great summer read on motherhood and intimacy, I ordered it right away. The story follows a 45-year-old woman trying to find her next big work project, craving space away from her mundane life with her child and husband right at the same time that she aches for the beauty of it, struggling to hear her own desires for intimacy and pleasure, and then acting on her desires. It definitely captured all my attention while I read it in how brutally honest, candid, and racy it was. Some parts I found deeply resonant and poignant about what it’s like to be a mother and an almost middle-aged woman in today’s society, reminding me of the wonderful ‘Wild and Sleepless Nights’ (​1/2024​). Other parts were much more shocking and radical and peppered the book with surprising twists and at times laugh-out-loud absurdity. However, it makes sense to me that in the acknowledgments July explains that she conducted several conversations with women to inform the book and its theme of what it’s like to be a woman in perimenopause, because the common humanity, common bittersweetness, of being a 40-something-year-old woman rings through throughout.”

5. ​Goodbye, Columbus​ by Philip Roth. I mentioned Amy Einhorn in my first review this month and this is another of her formative books. The entire time I was reading this book—my third-ever Philip Roth after ‘The Human Stain’ (​6/2017​) and ‘American Pastoral’ (​8/2017​)—I kept thinking: “This was written in 1959? Seriously?” It is Roth’s first book and in a sparse 136 pages he tells a little small-but-feels-big romantic summer love affair between a Jersey college boy and the snobby Radcliffe girl from a posh family who he meets at the club’s swimming pool. (First sentence: “The first time I saw Brenda she asked me to hold her glasses.”) There is 1950s phone-call flirting, 1950s house-dates with siblings, and yes, as per the cover, some fuzzy-scene pool sex (“Then, in a moment, it was the sun who kissed us both, and we were out of the water, too pleased with each other to smile. Brenda shook the wetness of her hair onto my face and with the drops that touched me I felt she had made a promise to me about the summer, and, I hoped, beyond.”) I love the blurb about Philip Roth on the back cover from Saul Bellow: “Unlike those of us who come howling into the world, blind and bare, Mr. Roth appears with nails, hair, teeth, speaking coherently.” We see this all over the book like on page 19: “We came back to the chairs now and then and sang hesitant, clever, nervous, gentle dithyrambs about how we were beginning to feel towards one another. Actually we did not have the feelings we said we had until we spoke them—at least I didn’t; to phrase them was to invent them and own them. We whipped our strangeness and newness into a froth that resembled love, and we dared not play too long with it, talk too much of it, or it would flatten and fizzle away.” Not bad, right? Oh, anyone else need to look up ​dithyramb​? That would be: “a usually short poem in an inspired wild irregular strain.” I loved the book and it was also wonderful reading something with a first-person narrator named Neil! Even spelled the same way! Know any other Neil-books? I don’t! I’ll take it! PS to writers: If you feel like being intimated check out the first sentence of Roth’s biography from the inside flap: “In the 1990s Philip Roth won America’s four major literary awards in success: the National Book Critics Circle Award for ‘Patrimony’ (1991), the PEN/Faulkner Award for ‘Operation Shylock’ (1993), the National Book Award for ‘Sabbath’s Theater’ (1995), and the Pulitzer Price in fiction for ‘American Pastoral’ (1997).” Not a bad six years, Phil! Great, quick, powerful read. I’m also adding this to our list of ​Great Books Under 150 Pages​.

6. ​Moonbound​ by Robin Sloan. This is the book I spent the most time with this month and it felt like riding a rainbow-speckled rocketship. I had heard great things about Robin Sloan’s ‘​Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore​’ and subscribe to ​his wonderful email list​, which he publishes every 29-and-a-half days, and which I just ​reprinted​ a little excerpt from last month. Then I got a text from reader-extraordinaire ​Michael Bungay-Stanier​ (‘​The Coaching Habit​’) who said “Have you read Robin Sloan’s new book? Mate, it’s so good. He’d be a great guest for ​3 Books​.” The feeling of this book is like the front cover image above twisting into a kaleidoscope of images again and again and again. I fell into this book like almost nothing else and I simultaneously had no idea what was going on and couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. There are talking beavers. Talking swords! Strange video games. And ever-expanding worlds with wizards, who maybe aren’t really wizards, and oh—the entire book is narrated by a microscopic AI-type chronicler, who’s been in many different lives across the millenniums, but who now sits in our protagonist’s left shoulder. This book is—delightful. Mesmerizing. Far, far away. A kind of jacked up ‘Star Wars’ meets ‘Cloud Atlas’ featuring Willy Wonka and Mad Hatter types with occasional moments of poignancy and reflection that let you see, and see around, our endlessly twisting lives together. A big, loud, cymbal crash of a book. Highly recommended.

7. ​Little House on the Prairie​ by Laura Ingalls Wilder. For me this book went from great to slow to upsetting. I’d heard of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ for years but it wasn’t till ​Gretchen Rubin​ tipped me off to the prequel ‘Little House In the Big Woods’ (​4/2024​) that I cracked the series. That Big Woods has become a mandatory read-a-loud in our house for kids around age five. It’s the perfect visual tableau of a not-that-long-ago yesteryear that gently introduces conversations around things like guns, living off the land, getting attacked by cougars, and, of course, playing catch with pig bladders. My 5-year-old wanted to read the second of the seven book series next and I went hunting for a used copy that was illustrated by Garth Williams. (Note: If you’re buying ‘Little House in the Big Woods’ or ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ make sure you get the ones illustrated by Garth Williams. They really bring it to life!) This 1935 book opens strong: “A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.” It gave me some ​Aldo Leopold​-like experience of observing nature and I felt like was right there in front of the crisp fires, raging rivers, or getting scolded by ​Blue Jays​ for taking berries from the bush. But as the book goes on there is more tension with Indians and characters are introduced and views espoused that sound ghastly. I’m against censoring old books but geez—the views are so racist and ugly. Indians are depicted as characters who create trouble, walk into your home, and steal whatever they want. Characters swing by their little house on the prairie and offer wisdom like “Land knows, they’d never do anything with this country themselves. All they do is roam around over it like wild animals. Treaties or no treaties, the land belongs to folks that’ll farm it. That’s only common sense and justice.” (page 211) When Laura asks Pa what’s happening he explains: “When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on. The government is going to move these Indians farther west, anytime now. That’s why we’re here, Laura. White people are going to settle all this country, and we get the best land because we get here first and take our pick. Now do you understand?” (page 237) No, don’t understand. In fact I was so horrified I stopped reading my son the book and we moved on to ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ What books do you recommend—for me, or my kids—that better illuminate the American indigenous experience? Definitely don’t suggest this one.

8. ​Stasiland: Stories From Behind The Berlin Wall ​by Anna Funder. A fascinating book I would never have read if it wasn’t suggested to me by Oliver Burkeman (author of ‘Four Thousand Weeks’ (​8/2021​) and the great newsletter ​The Imperfectionist​). After World War II Germany was broken up by the ​Berlin Declaration​ and four years later, in 1949, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was formed, better known as East Germany. The Orwellian communist country existed for forty years until the fall of the Berlin Wall. And who ran the GDR? The Stasi, the “internal army by which the government kept control” and whose job was to “know everything about everyone, using any means it chose. It knew who your visitors were, it knew whom you telephoned, and it knew if your wife slept around.” Sound a bit like Google? But this wasn’t electronic surveillance and tracking everyone’s phone. It was 90,000 people officially working for the secret police along with 170,000 (!) unofficial full-time collaborators. Somebody worked for the Stasi at every pub, factory, and hall you walked into. What did they do? Many things. Wild things! They had jars and jars of thousands of people’s underwear, as one example. They collected ‘smell samples’ of people (different than the underwear collections) and used them to implicate them in crimes. Anna interviews a woman who tried to climb the Berlin wall on New Year’s Eve at age 16 and gets thrown in a horrifying prison for a year and a half. And she even interviews ex-members of the Stasi themselves. A vivid and frightening tale of the devastating potential of totalitarianism. I put this book up there with the wonderful ‘Nothing To Envy’ by Barbara Demick which casts a glowing spotlight onto North Korea today.

9. There is no nine! Just our regular loot bag of links. I mentioned it at the top but I have new pieces up on Forbes—​Part 1!​ ​Part 2!​—and ​CNBC​. And my new journal ‘​Two Minute Evenings​’ is back in stock on ​Chronicle​, ​Amazon.com​, and ​Amazon.ca​. If you grabbed a copy, leave a review! Maria Popova blew me away with her 40th birthday post on The Marginalian: ‘​An Almanac of Birds: Divinations for Uncertain Days​.’ (She ​even created amazing cards​ of them... I got a pack and love them!) I love ​Lenore Skenazy​ and her ​Let Grow Movement​ and Leslie and I loved her new piece on ​Jonathan Haidt​’s After Babel Substack called ‘​How Phones Are Making Parents The Anxious Generation​.’ Read it! Share it! I found ​this Twitter string​ interesting from a product manager who used to work on Google Maps responding to someone suggesting “Google Maps needs a feature for the nicest way not the fastest way.” An ancient ​Microsoft X-Box ad​ that still sits in my brain. Dan Go gives us ​11 great microworkouts​ on those days you’re too busy to get a full workout in. (And check out his great ​newsletter​ if you don’t get it!). I really enjoyed ​this conversation between Scott Galloway and Rich Roll​. And, finally, I like this fun helping-you-find-books site ​Shepherd​ and just pasted ​a few of my favorites​ on there, too. Did you make it all the way down here? This book club is 4459 words so I say kudos! Thanks for a great chat about books! And remember to email anytime to let me know what you've loved reading lately...

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