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Hey everyone,
Updates, updates, I’ve got updates.
First off, every January I like to remind you guys I have four mailing lists. Four! Why? I have no idea. They grew like untamed hedges. The annual reminder is so you can adjust your Neil Dosage accordingly. (I can be a bit much.) Here are the four lists; feel free to adjust.
And now, without further ado, here are this month’s books,
Neil
1. The Practice: Shipping Creative Workby Seth Godin. I cold-emailed Seth six years ago while struggling with the cover of The Happiness Equation. He replied (he replied!) a couple hours later, with a bunch of cover designs he’d personally whipped up in Photoshop. The man is a Gift Giving Machine. Whether it’s through his popular altMBA, podcasting workshop, or daily emails, so many receive counsel, guidance, and wisdom from Seth. (Here’s a big dollop of wisdom he gave me.) I have long made it a Life Rule to read any new Seth Godin book. The Practice is a wonderful contribution to his massive catalog. Read it when you need a little nudge, big nudge, or giant shove to do it. What it? Your it. That’s the deal: You choose your it and this book lights the path. It’s impossible to read The Practice and not shift your work into a higher gear. (PS. If you haven’t read any Seth Godin books, I suggest starting with Linchpin. And, I think one of his most underrated books is What To Do When It’s Your Turn.)
2. The Mountains of Mumbaiby Labanya Ghosh and Pallavi Jain. Do you feel like jumping on a plane and taking your kids to Mumbai? Or just want to go yourself? Can you already smell the frying paneer? Well, this picture book is a wonderful way to visit. Doma is a young girl new to the city and misses the mountains of her home in Ladakh. Her friend Veda takes her on a thrilling tour of Mumbai’s busy markets, crowded streets, and scenic rooftops. Busy, vivid, colorful illustrations throughout. (The book trailer shows some inside images.) Winner of the Neev Book Awards which aims to recognize outstanding Indian children’s literature. Thank you to Book Club reader Rasil Ahuja for sharing the festival with me. Are you connected to any other kids book festivals around the world? I love learning about new ones. Just reply and let me know.
3. How Venture Capitalists are Deforming Capitalismby Charles Duhigg. Do you have that skin-scratchy feeling the system is rigged and you can’t do anything about it? So do I, so do a lot of us. I love pieces squeaking open the giant democratic capitalism hood to help us understand why one rusted-out piece of metal is gumming up the system. (Roger Martin’s Why More Is Not Better is a great look at the entire engine.) Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author of The Power of Habit. In a recent issue of The New Yorker he laid the smack down on the venture capitalist industry. Insightful, alarming, highly recommended. Full piece here.
4. Farewell, Ghostsby Nadia Terranova. (Translated from Italian from Ann Goldstein.) I saw this book propped up on display at Type Bookstores (open for curbside pickup, Torontonians!) and bought it because I liked the premise and felt like hanging out in Sicily. Take me to Sicily! The premise: “Ida was thirteen when her adored father rose out of bed in their home in Messina, Sicily, and simply disappeared for good. Now, twenty-three years later, Ida is married, living with her husband in Rome, when her mother calls her home, and a mundane visit becomes a reckoning.” Pretty good, right? I guess the issue for me is that the reckoning is really of the mental variety. An inner reckoning. Not so much plot based. Dad doesn’t suddenly show up covered in seaweed with a tale of being trapped in a chest at the bottom of the Mediterranean or anything. I want to give that caveat up front in case you’re itchy for action like I was. Still, I did get to hang out in Sicily and the warm salty air magically comes through the pages. Worth reading for that alone. (Here are some pics of Messina, Sicily to warm you up.)
5. Solutions and Other Problemsby Allie Brosch. Have you been up the CN Tower? It was the tallest building in the world for 32 years until Dubai built that dang Burj Khalifa a decade back. Well, I was 1465 feet up in the CN Tower’s SkyPod with Sarah Andersen of Sarah’s Scribbles back in Chapter 8. That’s where Sarah and I talked about the formative superpowers of Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch. (Coming in at #980!) No, not even loveable egghead Bill Gates could resist the braiding of crude Microsoft Paint drawings with deep observations of life’s rawest-edged emotions such as suicide ideation and deep depression. Makes sense that Allie’s fans were worried when she followed up her massive debut by … disappearing from the Internet for seven years. But now, finally, phewfully, we get the sequel. Thankfully Allie is alive and well but she has been through huge devastation including the death of her younger sister, a life-threatening medical condition, and the loss of her marriage. Allie knits that darkness into the pages of this memoir between absurd coming of age stories like this one. It is heavy and at times nihilistic. (I refuse to add #perfectfor2020 or some such phrase because I just don’t see it that way.) I confess I didn’t love this book as much as the original which seemed to hang together a bit better. But the gems in here really do sparkle. I hope you check it out.
6. Pastoraliaby George Saunders.Guys, I have big news. I’m in love! I don’t mean to gush but … I haven’t felt this way in a long time. Soooooooo. His name is George. No, I have no idea how old he is. No, we’ve never met. Wait, what are you trying to say? I’m telling you the fireworks are real, baby! I heard about George for years but the sparks really started flying when I read his Man Booker-prize winning novel Lincoln In the Bardo back in 2017 and it squeezed my heart. I can still feel the electricity from that book when I think about it now. I got to know George better by combing through a number of old interviews including this gem one from 2004 in The Believer where he says “I believe in efficiency, action, clarity, velocity.” Those seven short words sum up the power of the off-kilter, brain-pinching short stories (and one novella!) in Pastoralia. Suffering from Pandemic Listlessness? This book is your smelling salts. A fast-paced series of incredible stories (most seemingly based in some kind of Shelbyville contra-planet) just begging to be read faster and faster and faster and faster. I’m telling you that you must read George Saunders. You must! Just please don’t ask him to prom before me. (PS. George also has a brand new book which I am about 100 pages into and just loving. I'll share a full review here when I’m done.)
7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnby Mark Twain. When I wrote the Values of 3 Books I made sure to put “No book shame, no book guilt!” right up front. Why? Because I have experienced book shame and I have experienced book guilt. I don’t like when someone says “Oh, have you read so and so?” and then when you say “No” they’re like “What!? You haven’t read so and so!? How have you not read so and so!? I can't believe you haven't read so and so!” I hate that. The reason nobody has read anything in the grand scheme of things is because a million new books are published a year so anytime we pick up a book we are really choosing a needle out of an exponentially expanding haystack that reaches up to the moon. Don’t fault yourself if you’ve never read some big classic everyone says you have to read. Forget them! Read whatever you want. And, yes, this is exactly what I kept telling myself as I travelled down the Mississippi River essentially as thirteen year old Huckleberry Finn two hundred years ago in the Antebellum (aka slavery-based) Southern United States. Should I have read this book earlier? No! No shoulding. I am just glad I read it today because it is magnificent. Yes, the time period feels beyond grotesque in many ways but the sheer vividness of this rousing coming-of-age adventure featuring endless popping characters sits on a mantel all its own. Ernest Hemingway said "All modern literature stems from this one book." Me and Ernie highly recommend it.
8. Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better And How They Can Change the Worldby Jane McGonigal. This book changed my view of video games. I admit I was stuck thinking of gamers as slack-jawed teens sitting on stained couches in dark basements amongst piles of Ho Ho wrappers and Slurpee cups. Play more video games? No! Get outside! Run around! That’s what I’m preaching. Well, this book gave me a splash of cold water and nudged my parenting philosophy with my young children from “No video games!” to “Let me help you pick a good video game and play it with you!” Jane says some markers of healthy video game use include constantly picking new games (to invite challenge and the learned resilience involved in figuring it out), explaining how to play it to somebody else afterwards (to provoke learning and teaching and understanding), and, finally, inviting a discussion on what the game can help us do better in real life (to avoid replacing reality with games – but rather enhancing it). While I won’t abandon my beliefs that we all suffer from NDD I have felt my arguments against video games wilt in the face of this well-researched tour de force. Jane foresees games helping us feel thrilled to start our days, increasing career satisfaction, helping the elderly feel socially connected, and tackling global-scale problems like climate change and poverty. (Her TED Talk is a great overview.) She teaches us what a game is – they all have goals, rules, feedback system, and voluntary participation – and then shares how they can lead to more satisfying lives. I loved this book. (Note: Jane is a great follow on Twitter and in advance of the 10 year anniversary of this book she shared 10 things she got right and 10 things she got wrong.)
9. Facebook is a Doomsday Machineby Adrienne LaFrance. Yes, yes it is. If we met at one of my speeches then you’ve already heard my rants on cell phone and social media addiction. (If you haven’t, here’s one I did on Canadia Teevee.) Well, this long form article by the Executive Editor of The Atlantic takes my position and doubles down on it and then doubles down on it again. Read the full piece here.
