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Hey everyone,
I started this email list back in 2016 and it’s helped me read so much more. (Here is a-one and a-two articles on how!)
This list helped me fall back in love with reading and with readers. That love bloomed into my podcast 3 Books. Thank you to those who’ve checked it out.
1. Unlearnby Humble The Poet. Kanwer Singh aka Humble The Poet is a master of taking simple truths and thumping you across the side of the head with them. He is a former elementary school teacher who grew up online and his regular musings on Facebook or Instagram tend to go super viral. This book is his best advice. A simple, quick, and fun read. (Btw, if you’re a podcast lover, Humble’s been on some huge ones: Aubrey Marcus, Jay Shetty, Lewis Howes...)
2. A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe. Who’s your favorite dead person? I think it’s worth thinking about. Tom Wolfe is quickly climbing up my list. (Watch out, Seneca and John Lennon!) Last year I read The Bonfire of The Vanities after Paulette Bourgeois picked it for 3 Books … and it blew me away. Even made my Best of 2018 list. And now I just finished A Man In Full and it’s another masterpiece. A fast-paced yet exquisitely told story of Charlie Croker, a down-home country cracker from Georgia, as he tries to stave off an epic downfall. Settings pop, dialogue sizzles, and the depths Wolfe gets into his characters’ minds is almost unsettling. I can’t recommend it enough.
3. The Machine Stops by Oliver Sacks. I believe that cell phone addiction is quickly becoming an epidemic. This is not a book but an important New Yorker article from the famed neurologist about cell phones and how they are hurting us. A dystopian must read.
4. Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hopeby Mark Manson. How would you follow up a six-million-plus copy bestseller like The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck? Would you give the world a sequel? The Even Subtler Art? The Subtle Art For Teens? The Subtle Art For The Golfer’s Soul? Well, if you’re Mark Manson, you take your time, you stay super tight on integrity, and you follow your heart where it leads you. I think of his brand new book (out in a few days) as Mark taking us up, up, up into a gigantic macro-everything view of things. He has such a gift for reading bigger books than I can lift and then distilling all the giant complexity from them into simple (and profanity-laced) prose. Everything is F*cked offers a slew of Mark’s epic distillations on topics as diverse as religion, politics, and our unhealthy relationships with money, entertainment, and the internet. I won’t lie. There were times the book made my head hurt! It was challenging (for me anyway) and I sometimes wanted him to come back down to street level. But I think it’s a great guide for those feeling generally itchy about the world today and an encouragement to keep moving. Mark Manson will be a writer to follow for decades. (Btw, Mark is also my next guest on 3 Books. It will be released on May 4 at 6:45 PM EST which is the exact minute of the next new moon.)
5. Hello, Friends! by Jerry Howarth. Jerry Howarth was the voice of the Toronto Blue Jays for 37 years. He kept me company for thousands of hours on late night drives and weekend afternoons. He retired last year and this is his memoir of his time at the mic in Toronto. You know how baseball announcers time their anecdotes to perfectly fit between pitches? Well, this book reads like a thousand of those anecdotes one after another. Perfect for Toronto sports fans. (PS. Here’s my friend Drew Dudley’s fantastic piece on Leadership Lessons he learned from Jerry Howarth. I found the story about how he received a letter from a First Nations fan after the 1992 World Series fascinating as it cause Jerry to avoid saying the Cleveland and Atlanta team names decades before others stopped saying them...)
6. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Caroll. I read this book as a child… and stopped. I didn’t like it. I read this book as a teen… and stopped. I didn’t like it. I read this book a few weeks ago… and couldn’t stop. I loved it. Proof that a book has to catch you at the right time. I think my whole life I thought this was a children’s book and that was the problem. It’s not! It’s deliciously adult. The twisted references and crazy absurdism is such a fascinating reflection of the world. And did you know Lewis Caroll was an Oxford-education mathematician? Just read this section on Wikipedia about the style, themes, and allusions in this book. So many hidden math references that flew over my head the first couple times. I don't say many books are a must read ... but this is a must read.
7. The Uncanny X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont and John Byrne. If you’re not a comic book nerd, do you ever do what I do and occasionally stroll into the comics section of the bookstore before getting immediately overwhelmed at the giant floor to ceiling bookshelves full of indexed, spine-out, catalogued series that you have no idea how to possibly navigate? If so, start here! That’s what I did. My friend Mike who runs a local bookstore recommended it as an entry point. The Dark Phoenix saga was published in a series of 10 comic books between January and October, 1980 and is a gripping story of friendship and power.
8. Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!) by George Lois. Pompous, egotistical, and full of gold nuggets. George Lois is one of the original Mad Men and he invented a ton of famous ad campaigns over decades in the business. This is his blunt, no-nonsense list of complete life and business lessons. Mandatory reading for anyone in marketing, sales, or advertising.
9. P Is For Pteradactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever by Lushlife aka Raj Halder. A is for Aisle. E is for Ewe. T is for Tsunami. And below each beautifully illustrated drawing is a tricky, head-scratching sentence. Like for the letter T it says: “The charging tsunami washed away all of Tchaikovsky’s tchotchkes.” A picture book for older kids and younger kids who get that the English teacher has been pulling a fast one on them. And word nerds of all ages. (Raj is also coming on 3 Books later this year!)
