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Hey everyone,
Another pack of fresh book recommendations for you. Missed last month? Here you go. Know other book lovers who might like this? Here you go.
To the pages!
Neil
1. How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speakingby Dale Carnegie. (L/I/A) I’ll come right out and say that if you speak publicly in any way you need to grab this 96-year-old classic. Warren Buffet was in the middle of his Masters at Columbia when he spotted an ad in the paper for the Carnegie Public Speaking course. He paid the hundred bucks and to this day calls it the best investment he’s ever made. Pretty big claim from a guy who own $100B of Apple? “I don’t have my diploma from the University of Nebraska hanging on my office wall and I don’t have my diploma from Columbia up there either – but I do have my Dale Carnegie graduation certificate proudly displayed,” he says. It’s easy to see why. Carnegie's thoughts on public speaking are priceless. He wrote his first three books ever on the topic and delivers great messages with folksy charm. On Page 54 Carnegie teaches you how to end with an appeal for action, on Page 76 he teaches you how to write your speech down as a series of pictures to memorize, on Page 90 he explains the importance of writing out a pre-speech ritual, on Page 119 he talks about the benefits of standing versus sitting. I take so many elements from this book when I craft a speech and as live events return with a bang – thank goodness! we’re social apes! – I find myself revisiting this classic to see what I can improve. There's always a lot. Highly recommended.
2. My Side Of The Mountainby Jean Craighead George. (L/I/A) Jean Craighead George grew up in the 1920s and 1930s in a family of naturalists who spent a lot of time in the bush. Her first pet was a turkey vulture! Hope it didn't puke on her mom's front rug. (Anyone else kind of love that the primary defence of turkey vultures is, no joke, vomiting?) Jean's dad taught her how to make fires and fish hooks and find edible plants and even climb trees to study baby owls. Owlets, I should say. (Distracting sidenote! Here are 123 owlet GIFs!) Her brothers even ended up becoming two of North America’s first falconers but, thankfully for us here in the next century, Jean carved her own path and become a writer. She wrote over a hundred books! Alie Ward, host of top science-pod Ologies, tipped me off to this 1959 classic and I found myself entranced by it. It’s a bit clinical but you really will feel like a 12-year-old boy who has run away from home to live alone in the forest. He climbs a tree to snatch a Peregrine Falcon chick and trains it to hunt. He traps, gets attacked, and then befriends a weasel that he calls The Baron. He makes deerskin clothing and preserves grains and tubers. It goes on and on and on. But it's written for kids! So it's super complicated but... for kids! A great way to learn. I like this New York Times book review from Sunday, September 13, 1959 which calls it “a delightful flight from civilization, written with real feeling for the woods.” If you want a delightful flight from civilization, if you want to slice your carving knife through our sometimes-suffocating techno-wrap, well then I have just the book for you. Run away to the woods with this one.
3. The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, 1837-1861by Henry David Thoreau. (L/I/A) In that review I just mentioned they call Jean Craighead George a “Third Avenue Thoreau” which is a nice little moniker for her rugged individualism. It was Austin Kleon, a man who draws on doodling to design and dream, who asked me to pick up Thoreau’s journals. A wonderful phone book to leave beside your bed for anxiety-releasing late-night mental walks beside a master of observation. You can literally flip to any page for a tiny little nature microdose. I'll do it right now. Two actual real-time flips? Here we go. Fliiiiiiip. March 28, 1851: "My Aunt Maria asked me to read the life of Dr. Chalmers, which however I did not promise to do. Yesterday, Sunday, she was heard ... shouting to my Aunt Jane, who is deaf, 'Think of it! He stood half an hour to-day to hear the frogs croak, and he wouldn't read the life of Chalmers." Fliiiiip. October 10, 1855: "You now see in sprout-lands young scarlet oaks of every degree of brightness from green to dark scarlet. It is a beautifully formed leaf, with its broad, free, open sinuses, --- worthy to be copied in sculpture." This book scrubs mental plaque with every page.
4.Good Insideby Dr. Becky Kennedy. (L/I/A) And now it's time for this month's Leslie's Pick -- a book recommended by my wife Leslie: "The underlying thesis of Dr. Becky Kennedy’s parenting philosophy is that we are all -- all parents, all kids -- good inside! In this new book, Dr. Becky describes 10 parenting principles in a way that is engaging, easy-to-read, logical, empathetic, and to-the-point. I find myself turning my light back on to keep reading! Two of my favourite ideas from the book are the principles two things are true and know your job. Two things are true is a reminder that both your perspective and your child’s perspective are true; it means that you can be a fun parent and also a sturdy parent, that you can take care of your child and also your self, and that you can have firm boundaries and be very loving, and on and on. Know your job is the idea that systems work better when we all know our jobs. She describes that it is a parent’s job to empathize, validate, and set boundaries and that it is a child’s job to feel the whole range of emotions. If we use our “good” to support their “good” then they will grow into adults able to regulate their emotions and thrive as adults. Definitely a new favourite!”
5.Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionairesby Douglas Rushkoff. (L/I/A) What was the last book you read cover-to-cover in one sitting? This is mine. A loud whirring engine powers this book and to me it demonstrates why Douglas Rushkoff might be the world’s leading practitioner of the rant -- as an art form. I listed his Team Human in my Best Books of 2021 and he was kind enough to join me on 3 Books to talk divisive duality and designer deaths. Now he’s back with a blazing manifesto that opens in a luxe desert hotel where he’s giving a lecture to a roomful of billionaires. He shares how they veer the conversation towards one of security, protection, and bunker-management. Douglas takes this anecdote and peels it open to talk about trends towards distrust, alienation, surveillance, wealth inequality, and more. If you walk a lot of urban streets or talk to a lot of strangers you know, you can feel, that all is not well. Rising anxiety, depression, loneliness, addiction, and suicide are just some of what ails us these days. Douglas emerges a Robin Hood-type with his arrow aimed straight into the heart of Big Tech. (Is there a heart in the center of Big Tech?) The man is sharp. Killer sharp. Reading his book feels like watching twirling gymnastics over a fire pit. He braids blistering screeds with scientific studies and takeaways from books like The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. A couple out of context quotes? How about this one: "Studies show the more power a person has the less ‘motor resonance’ or mirroring they do of others.” Or this: "… better for the algorithms streaming us the picture of the world we want to see, uncorrupted by imagery of what’s really happening out there. And if it does come through, just swipe left and the algorithms will know never to interrupt your dream state with such real news again.” If you enjoyed How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell you’ll love this one. Highly recommended.
6. The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)by Katie Mack. (L/I/A) Were you one of those kids who felt just stunned when you first started to comprehend the size and vastness of the universe? I feel like the “Where are we? What are we doing here? What does it all mean?” questions hit a lot of us when we’re eight, nine, ten years old. Everyone responds differently, of course. If you’re 8-year-old Alvy Singer in Annie Hall you might respond like he does in this hilarious 56-second clip. Or, you know, maybe you just sort of shove it away. Bury it! Maybe ascribe to a belief system that calms or sets things down in a digestible order. Maybe you turn a bit nihilistic … or fatalistic … or optimistic? Or … maybe you just point your curiosity at these questions your whole life. Katie Mack did the last one. Growing up in California in the late 80s and early 90s she read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and then pursued an undergrad in Physics from CalTech followed by a PhD in astrophysics from Princeton … before starting even more fascinating work doing things like -- no big deal! -- building a dark matter detector. And then, yes, writing a truly mind-bending book about how the universe will eventually … end. Because there is a finish line. I warn you: There is a steep learning curve in this book and, if you’re like me, you’ll need to flip back pages a lot to digest it. A lot may fly over your head. It did mine. But Katie goes to great pains to make this accessible and I think she did a better job than Stephen Hawking did. Every chapter pushed my mind farther and farther out. Much like ... the universe? The universe is lucky to have an engaging, generous, and funny teacher like Katie Mack. Btw: My 3 Books conversation with Katie drops on the new moon tomorrow at 5:54 pm. I'd love you to sit down with us to talk big puzzles, time, living on Mars, the possibility of alien life, and, as always, formative books. Join us on Apple or Spotify. And, if you're up for helping me spread the messages and books from Katie and other amazing guests, please consider leaving a review. It really helps.
7. The Collected Essex Countyby Jeff Lemire. (L/I/A)This is one of the most emotionally rich, textured, and satisfying graphic novels I’ve ever read and I put it up on the high mantle with books like Maus by Art Spiegelman or Berlin by Jason Lutes. On the surface it’s a simple story of a young boy sent to live with his mom’s brother at his small-town farm after she dies of cancer but it starts with that seedling and goes deeper and deeper into, well, almost everything. His relationship with his father, how we handle feelings of regret and loss, the history of generational trauma in a small town, and all kinds of twisting family stories that weave together across generations. This is a truly masterful storytelling feat. If you like sweeping family sagas like East of Eden or Anna Karenina or, well, any of these, then you’ll love this book. I found myself crying at two in the morning several times while reading it and, weeks later, I keep thinking about it. A masterpiece. Highly recommended.
8. I Am The Subwayby Kim Hyo-eun. Translated by Deborah Smith. (L/I/A)That was a pretty heavy list of books! Let's close off with a wonderful palette cleanser. The Seoul subway is often considered the longest in the world and carries over 7 million people a day. As you can tell from the cover above the book features the most incredible artwork and is told from the POV of ... the subway. A hypnotic ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum echoes through the book. Hugely bestselling book in Korea and newly translated into English. They stamp an Age 3-7 on it but, as always, perfect for all ages. No book shame, no book guilt.
9. You're at the end! Here are a few loot bag treats: The CBC asked me to publicly thank someone on the air and they found and we surprised my sixth grade teacher. I am often asked how to encourage young readers and one surefire way is to hand them some Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books. Deep New Yorker piece there and my interview with 90-year-old CYOA creator Edward Packard right here. We should be seeing the world through the eyes of children more often. And a nice piece citing great research to remind us, once again, that experiencing awe cultivates happiness and lowers stress. "You don’t need to visit the Grand Canyon or witness the birth of your child to experience awe. The awe-inspiring is all around you.... 'You can have your mind blown in mundane, minuscule ways...' Turns out we've been onto something this whole time!
