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Hey everyone,
Happy hot July! Before the recos, a little plug for those of you in Canada I’ll be on Your Morning tomorrow talking about taking two-minutes for self-care each morning. (You didn’t know tomorrow is International Self-Care Day? Good reason to skip work and head to the beach.)
Now onto the books…
Neil
1. The Buddha in the Atticby Julie Otsuka. Completely gripping, poetically written, powerfully provocative novel. I found myself stranded in the Minneapolis airport when I stumbled into a great indie bookstore and found this captivating historical fiction about Japanese “picture brides” shipped to Western California under false pretenses in the early twentieth century to live lives of servitude, neglect, and (very occasionally) beauty. I knew nothing about the background but the book was an eye-and-mind-opener and written in a really unique collective voice. This is one of those “you’ll be hooked in two pages” books. Slapped with all kinds of fancy awards on the back like “Pen/Faulkner Winner for Fiction” and “National Book Award Finalist”, if you’re into that.
2.The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performanceby W. Timothy Gallwey. This book is not about tennis! It’s a fascinating, plainspoken, beautifully vivid portrait of the inner “head game” we are always playing with ourselves. (If you play tennis that’s just a bonus.) Teaches you how to recognize, label, and strip away the inner voices. I would compare to books by Steven Pressfield or Seth Godin. Can’t confirm but have heard this labeled as the original sports psychology book… was written a few decades ago but still reads nice and fresh. (Small bonus for NFL fans: Contains a short foreword written by Pete Carroll before he was coach of the Seahawks.)
3.Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work That Lastsby Ryan Holiday. As the world flattens, content flourishes, and power slips from traditional squeeze points like big media, business, and government, you know who we’re believing in again? Individuals. That means you and me. But how do we earn and keep that trust? We create genuine, quality work that stands the test of time. Perennial Seller is a powerful prescription for doing just that plus finding the long-term fans you need for work you’re making that matters.
4. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years of Pilgrimageby Haruki Murakami. I visited Japan for two weeks fifteen years ago and this book took me back into those memories. My second Murakami novel after Norwegian Wood and it was similarly dreamy, evocative, and emotionally lurching. When Tsukuru Tazaki moves to Tokyo after high school his four closest friends from the suburbs suddenly blacklist him for life without explanation a trauma hangs over his life … until a new flame asks him to face his old demons. Told in a Pulp Fiction-esque sliderule style of timeline – constantly jumping between memories and moments as Tsukuru comes of age.
5. Hitch-22: A Memoirby Christopher Hitchens. Staring at a Van Gogh painting in a museum one day I heard a guy behind me say, “Wow…the confidence!” Confidence? I see a guy sleeping, I see a bale of hay, but where’s the confidence? “What do you mean?” I asked him. “Just look at those strokes. Thick, giant, forceful. He wasn’t dabbing, he wasn’t trying. It looks like the paint flew out of him and splatted on the page. There’s so much confidence.” It was a point I remembered. It’s fun to see a master flick his wrist and effortlessly show you total control of his craft. I thought of that a lot as I read this memoir from Christopher Hitchens. The writing is just so beautiful that every paragraph is a seemingly perfect combination of wisdom and humor. A textured and layered guy in many ways and the book doubles as a nice primer on 20th century political history.
6. I’ve Been To The Mountaintopby Martin Luther King Jr. After I checked into my hotel in Memphis a few weeks ago, I found a framed copy of this speech on my bed with a nice note from my host. (As I was there to speak I found this particularly intimidating.) I had never read the speech before but learned it was the last one he ever gave, while in Memphis, just the day before his assassination. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of the end of his life. His final speech is well worth the read.
7. Pyongyang: A Journey in North Koreaby Guy Delisle. Brilliant, dark, autobiographical tale of French cartoonist Guy Delisle’s transfer to North Korea for a few months for work. (Apparently that’s where animation outsourcing goes for some French cartoons… who knew?) A slow and eerie graphic novel with no explosions, wrongful arrests, or big courtroom dramas. Just a moody window into a different world with the barrenness and strangeness slowly telling the whole story. I loved it.
8. The Abominable Snowman: Choose Your Own Adventure #1by R. A. Montgomery.I’m working on a few projects and have gotten really into exploring different narrative styles. I picked up the first Choose Your Own Adventure and it was fun reading in the second person again. You open the book. You turn the first page. You’re in a cave. You see a bear. Do you poke it or run away? So much more involved and fast paced and a nice slice of nostalgia. Sidenote: I’ve only read one “grown up book” in second person and it was the fantastic How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. (Let me know if you know of others.)
9.How To Write A Sentence And How to Read One by Stanley Fish. I jumped into this book gung ho. It opens with a story about how writers need to love sentences the way painters need to love paint. I loved the more granular view of writing than I’m used to… but my problem with this book is that it kind of ends there. It gets stuck in the weeds. It reminded me of grammar class. And who likes grammar class? He does give examples of great sentences which make for a fun little quote book but I finished it wanting more and only had a few notes jotted on the inside cover. I am still searching for a book on writing that really speaks to me but for now I’d recommend Bird By Birdby Anne Lammott over this one.
10.The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When To Quit and When To Stickby Seth Godin. After I left Walmart last year I felt discombobulated. Ten years at one place will do that. I felt like that sticky tape on the back of a new credit card after you peel it off. All I knew was how to stick to a credit card. Now I’m a tightly wound ball of tape with no clear purpose. What now? Well, using far better metaphors, Seth Godin would call this a dip. And this little book (74-pages little) is a powerful pump-you-up manifesto for navigating what to quit and when while granting those hazy periods the importance they deserve. A metaphorical summary a friend shared of this book: The longer you hold your breath underwater the more interesting place you come up.
11.HumansBeingBros. To close this month, here’s a little heartwarming subreddit when you need a high five in the middle of a long day. A good reminder we’re all in this together.
