Neil Pasricha's Monthly Book Club - October 2019

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Hey everyone,

Hope you’re having a great October.

I’m going on book tour for You Are Awesome in less than two weeks and hope to see some of you in Toronto, New York, Vancouver, Chicago, or Calgary. (All ticket and event details are here.)

And now ... to the books!

Neil

–

1. The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. I remember reading an old interview with famed editor Amy Einhorn (The Help, Big Little Lies, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, The Book of Awesome) where she was asked how she found her books and she said something like “I just look for voice.” What? That’s it? Just voice? Yes, just voice. Not genre, trends, platform size, celebrity. Just voice. How rare! How refreshing! And likely a huge part of her success. Well, I kept thinking about that when I finally read The Catcher in the Rye because (frankly) I thought the plot was boring. Holden Caufield gets kicked out of high school and bums around New York for a few days. The end! Yet the voice was so magnetic that I felt myself drawn to the book as it sat on my bedside table. I kept walking over to it and reading a few more pages. Then I’d walk away and walk back again. Then I’d walk away and walk back again. I couldn’t stop hanging out with this guy. He felt like an old friend. He trusted me. I trusted him. I felt a deep connection. This book is 75 years old! But listen how fresh it still sounds from the opening sentence: “If you really want to hear about, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” A true study in reader seduction. Go back and read it if you haven’t!

2. Ask Me About Polyamory by Tikva Wolf. I had no idea what the phrase “I’m poly” meant until maybe a year ago. Since then I’ve heard a dozen or so people share that they’re poly including 3 Books guest Juniper Fitzgerald (How Mamas Love Their Babies) and Jeremie Saunders (Sickboy, Turn Me On). What is poly? According to Wikipedia polyamory is ‘characterized by or involved in the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all people involved.’ This book broadens and deepens that definition, though. It is a collection of comics that serve as an incredibly accessible, warm, funny, enlightening, and welcoming introduction to a huge variety of polyamory, queer, and genderqueer issues. I loved it. (PS. Here’s the online home of Tikva’s comics.)

3. Stories That Stick by Kindra Hall. I met Kindra Hall when we were accidentally wedged together in the back of a car on the way to the Los Angeles airport. We had both just finished speaking for the YMCA and were frantically pushing buttons on our cell phones (ugh) before racing to catch flights. At some point in the middle of the drive we managed to actually turn to each other and say hello. And the conversation took off because Kindra is (you guessed it) an incredible storyteller. You can’t stop listening to her! That’s kind of her thing. She gave me an early copy of her new book and I opened it and couldn’t stop listening to it, either. Just came out last month and debuted on a bunch of bestseller lists. I’m not surprised because her stories keep you flipping and the book forces a nice, healthy mental chiropractic adjustment of what you’re telling the world … and how. What is your Value Story? (Why do people need what you provide?) What is your Founder Story? (Why should people invest in you?) What is your Purpose Story? (How do you inspire employees?) Although it is purportedly a ‘business book’ and for those who really need to nail their elevator speech or pitch I think the book applies much more broadly. I took a lot away from it.

4. David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium edited by Jeffrey Jenkins. I was listening to an episode of Dax Sheppard where he introduced David Sedaris as ‘a national treasure.’ Tall praise! But he’s right. Because how many people could publish a big, heavy, full-color, 250-page coffee table book of their diaries and sell it? Not many people who aren’t national treasures. Since 1977 David Sedaris has kept roughly four diaries a year. He told me last year that ‘I write on Christmas, I write on my birthday.’ So on top of his New Yorker essays and books are over 150 (so far) diaries that he arranges in a tall bookshelf with a big skull on it. (There’s a picture of the shelf in here.) The diaries are full of glued in bits and pieces that he found or came across, head-trippy collages that he painstakingly arranged, and endless wry and pithy observations about the world. Jeffrey Jenkins clearly went to great lengths to mimic those diaries in this book. There are little cardboard popouts. There’s a plastic envelope in the back with random ephemera. And there is a great intro from Sedaris himself. Perfect for Sedaris completists.

5. Terrible, Thanks For Asking by Nora McInerny. How often do you meet someone and then wonder how you didn’t know them before? That happened with me and Nora McInerny earlier this year. Nora’s life was upended a few years ago when in the span of a few weeks she had a miscarriage, lost her dad to cancer, and then lost her husband to a brain tumor. Over the years she has channeled the insights from those experiences into a remarkable body of work and art that is equal parts poignant and truly and deeply hilarious. If you don’t know her, catch up! Step 1: Watch her TED Talk “We don’t ‘move on’ from grief. We move forward with it.” Step 2: Subscribe to her podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking. Step 3: Check out her books. (I’m on Step 3 right now). I love what Nora McInerny is putting out into the world. In this age of rising loneliness, separation, and disconnection, we need people like her working to emotionally connect us with their full and true hearts.

6. This Is Water by David Foster Wallace. I found a big stack of these small and tiny hardcovers in the remainder bin of my local used bookstore so after my eyes did that Looney Tunes popout thing I bought a big pile. Sure, I had watched the video of this commencement speech before (which Time somewhat puffily calls “The Last Lecture for intellectuals.”), I had read the text online multiple times, but now I own it and it lives with me in my house and feels different. An incredible speech about living an intentional life and about constantly trying to see the water you’re swimming in and navigating forward from a place of empathy, humility, and compassion. (PS. For David Foster Wallace nerds only: While digging around on the Internet I came across this hilarious and incredible 2005 course syllabus from a class he taught at Pomona College...)

7. Ernest Hemingway on Writing by Larry W. Phillips. This is the best book on writing I have ever read. Yes, I said it. I honestly liked it better than the (much more popular) Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott or On Writing by Stephen King. Those books are (very) good. This book is (very) great. Ernest Hemingway thought it was bad luck to talk about writing. So he didn’t! Or he thought he didn’t. But twenty-five years after he died journalist Larry W. Phillips combed through Hemingway’s personal letters to friends, editors, fellow writers, and critics, as well as interviews he conducted over his career, and pulled out the many wise and remarkable thoughts Hemingway shared on writing over his life. He then sort of shaped and sculpted them together by theme (“Working Habits”, “The Writer’s Life”, “Characters”, etc) to produce this slender 140-page volume of endless gold nuggets. I circled so many quotes and made so many notes in the margins that I just ended up leaving it on my bedside table when I was done in the hopes that it will slowly merge into my subconscious. A gem for anyone that writes and wants to write better. Highly recommended.

8. Don’t Touch my Hair! by Sharee Miller. How do you teach children about boundaries? Read them this book. A wonderful story about a girl named Aria who has big, bouncy, curly hair that everybody wants to touch. After she has a big scream one day (“Don’t touch my hair!”) she learns that people need to ask permission to touch her hair and that she can feel confident saying yes or saying no.

As always, thank you so much for reading. Reply any time with your own thoughts and suggestions. I get my best book recommendations from the readers of this list...

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