Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.
Hey everyone,
How’s your reading life?
I was thinking I've been slugging in mine -- dipping, sipping, going a finger deep into handfuls of books which makes me feel like I’m nowhere in anything. But then 3 Booker Jen Penn of Sandwich, Illinois kindly mailed me a copy of The Rights Of A Reader(summary poster here) by Daniel Pennac which lists “The right to skip" and "The right to dip in" on the back cover. I loved those and have since modified it to a new Value for us called "It's okay to sip, it's okay to dip." Goes well with “No book shame, no book guilt” and “Quit more to read more", I think.
So that's my message this month: Be easy on yourself. Jump around. Skip chapters. Embrace tsundoku. Let piles pile. And just get your head out of the way to keep enjoying what you love ... however you love it.
Here are my book recommendations this month,
Neil
1. Letters from a Stoicby Seneca. I know I've harped to you before about On The Shortness Of Life by Seneca and still keep a copy of the Penguin Classics version in my suitcase to help calm my mind when late-night time-zoney travel makes me anxious. (If you're also someone who feels anxious when arriving at a hotels at 3am brain-time I also recommend a lacrosse ball for wall backrubs and some eucalyptus oil for your pillow -- more sleep ideas here.) But if you want to go deeper than that essay into one of the greatest minds of all time I highly recommend grabbing this book. The fact that it’s in print and the dude lived two thousand years ago should give some indication to the quality. (Something tells me The Book of Awesome won't be talked about in the year 4000.) To give a little aperitif, here are three quotes I just pulled out from the first couple pages: 1) “Nothing, to my way of thinking, is a better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.”, 2) “It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more.” and 3) “Similarly, people who never relax and people who are invariably in a relaxed state merit your disapproval – the former as much as the latter. For a delight in bustling about is not industry – it is only the restless energy of a hunted mind. And the state of mind that looks on all activity as tiresome is not true repose, but a spineless inertia … A balanced combination of the two attitudes is what we want; the active man should be able to take things easily, while the man who is inclined towards repose should be capable of action. Ask nature: she will tell you that she made both day and night.” Not bad, right? I can't recommend Letters From A Stoic enough. (2000 years ago = out of copyright, so if you'd prefer it in digital cut-and-pastey form, here you go.)
2. Sideways Stories From Wayside Schoolby Louis Sacher. When Louis Sacher was a Berkeley student in the late 70s he came across an eight-year-old girl handing out flyers. He had never seen an eight-year-old handing out flyers before -- most bake sales are shoddily advertised as we know -- so he grabbed one out of curiosity. It was a local elementary school asking for college students to help at the school in exchange for college credits. He thought “No homework? No studying? I’m in.” And good thing he did. Because the students at that school inspired him to write this book. A gonzo tale of a school accidentally built sideways with each chapter dedicated to one student’s completely absurd view of the world. The book didn’t get popular until the late 80s (he worked as a lawyer for a decade till then) and that popularity timed just perfectly with me being a lonely nerdy at Sunset Heights Public School in Oshawa, Canada. (I looked like this at the time.) My librarian took pity on me and shoved this book into my hand and to this day I credit it with singlehandedly opening me up to the world of books. It's the book I’ve bought more for kids than any other. I know my own books and offshoots like this email or my podcast probably wouldn't exist without it. I feel like I met my childhood idol when I just got to sit down with Louis Sacher. Here’s a link to our conversation.
3. Mindset: The New Psychology of Successby Carol S. Dweck. “The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others.” Want to develop one? Read this book. It'll help nudge you down the path from fixed to growth as it did for me. I’ve been revisiting books I love a lot lately – the right to sip, the right to dip! -- and have decided to set a new challenge for myself. I will flip back through a book I love, pick out my favorite pages, and post them as a series on Instagram and Facebook. A way to see more deeply inside the books I love which I can’t really do over email. (I’m guessing you don’t want a dozen photos attached to every note I send.) I admit my brain goes pretty dark when I’m on social media – I even went on the news saying cell phone addiction is the biggest issue of our time – but in my mind this is one way to focus on something positive on there without getting sucked into algorithms convincing me I’m a loser at everything. I am publicly committing here to make sure I do it. Here’s the one I recently posted for Mindset.
4. Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness To Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thriveby Kristin Neff, PhD. Yes, the word ‘women’ is in the sub-title but I feel this book could apply to anyone. Let’s take a big step back, though. Kristin Neff is the world’s foremost authority on self-compassion. This is her second book after Self-Compassion which came out years ago and has turned into a modern classic. Kristin was first to define and really empirically research self-compassion from her home base as a professor at the University of Texas in Austin and her work has been cited by other studies over 30,000 times. (!) She divides self-compassion into two buckets. “Tender self-compassion harnesses the energy of nurturing to alleviate suffering, while fierce self-compassion harnesses the energy of action to alleviate suffering.” My wife Leslie is a huge fan of her work and if the subject sounds intriguing you can go deeper on Kristin’s website here. Leslie and I also just sat down with Kristin and she’ll be our guest in Chapter 80 of 3 Books which drops on the new moon. As always: for the release date ... look up to the sky.
5. How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talkby Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish. Speaking of Leslie, here comes her monthly pick: “This timeless classic has my Mom’s name inscribed in the front. I remember seeing it on her bedside table when I was growing up. It was her parenting bible and is now mine. It is accessible (with cartoons drawn throughout), compassionate (I know my ultimate goal as a parent is to communicate to my children one interaction at a time that they can come to me forever and ever with any emotion, problem, question and I will be there for them), clear (chalk full of scripts and strategies to implement now) and best of all, the teachings REALLY work!” – Leslie
7. Inquire Withinby IN-Q. Have you ever been to a poetry slam? If so, you know how electric and intoxicating they can be. IN-Q is a National Poetry Slam champion and I’ve been diving deep into his work lately. If you get my bi-weekly Neil.blog emails you’ll have just seen his wonderful “Do You Believe In Superheroes.” That’s one of about a hundred wonderful poems in this book covering themes of love, loss, forgiveness, transformation, and belief. Some of my favorite poems include "Dear White Americans", "Citizens United" and "Look Closer." Highly recommended.
8. A Christmas Carolby Charles Dickens. How did you learn the story of A Christmas Carol? Mickey Mouse on Disney? Alvin and the Chipmunks? I picked it up from a dozen cartoons as a kid and honestly, I wish I’d just read the original. It's so much better. There’s a reason this 178-year-old (and only 89 page!) story is so heavily mimicked, parodied, and referenced. It is gut-punchy, slapstick, and will leave you in tears. One of my favorite ever first sentences, too: “Marley was dead: to begin with.” Here is a link to the full text on Project Gutenberg but I highly recommend picking it up in book form with the original drawings if you can. (PS. This is one of George Saunders’ 3 most formative books.)
9. Dreamersby Yuyi Morales. 3 Booker Karen Weissert sent me this wonderful video last year featuring a woman I'd never heard of before named Yuyi Morales reading a thank-you letter to Nancy, her old librarian in San Francisco. Turns out Nancy helped welcome Yuyi and her two-year-old son Kelly into the world of books when she became stranded in the US and didn't know anyone or speak the language. I was captivated by Yuyi, I showed it to my kids, and I bought some of her books. Most recently, I just sat down with her on 3 Books. Well, Karen, it took almost a year but we pulled it off. Thank you. I am so beyond words grateful to this incredible book-loving community and our regular literary lovefests. If you're reading this, we're friends, and I love and appreciate you.
