Neil's Monthly Book Club is my oldest and most popular email newsletter. Click here to subscribe.
Hey everyone,
Happy new year!
Hope you had some downtime (and reading time) over the holidays. Here’s what I read and enjoyed this month.
Neil
1. The Little Princeby Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. When I was a kid my older cousin handed me this book and said “Read it now and when you’re older it’ll mean something completely different.” Well, I finally reread this book. There’s a reason it’s sold 80 million copies. Really profound commentary on the busyness of society, what love really means, and the value of friendship. Two insane facts I didn’t know: The book is a parable about a downed pilot lost in a desert stumbling upon a little Prince … and the author really did down his plane in a desert and wander around dehydrated and hallucinating until he was rescued. And then, a year after he wrote this book, he was piloting another plane that completely vanished! The wreckage was found fifty years later in the Mediterranean Sea. So he wrote a parable about a plane crash that became one of the bestselling books of all time… between two horrific plane crashes of his own.
2.Pretentiousness: Why It Mattersby Dan Fox. Title sounds like a turnoff. But that’s the point. An incredibly well-written essay on the history, purpose, and joy of the creative process. Pretentiousness – the testing and adding your art and ideas to the world – is where everything good comes from. My view of the word itself and what it means completely shifted. Book is only 100 pages but not “light” at all. Veers to the academic side. Chock full of nuggets. Voted one of the New York Times Notable Books of 2016, too.
3.Barney’s Versionby Mordecai Richler. I loved The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz when I was younger. That was the only other Mordecai Richler book I’d read until this… and this blows the roof off that one. It took me a couple tries to get in because the first person narration is so acidic and scorching. Very funny but almost too dark for me. But page by page Barney grows on you and this fictional “righting of wrongs” memoir reveals all kinds of hidden storylines, quiet love, and almost unbelievably beautiful writing as he shares his life story in three sections dedicated to his three wives. This is the only novel I can recall that just killed it across both Canada and US awards circuits (Giller / NYT Notable) and it’s easy to see why. A masterwork. Sad he wrote no novels a decade before this and no novels afterwards until his death so this gem stands on a lonely island. I’ll treasure it on my shelf always.
4. The Reason I Jumpby Naoki Higashida and translated by David Mitchell. According to the introduction, this is the only book ever written about autism … by someone with autism. Japanese teenager Naoki Higashida wrote this book with a Japanese alphabet pad and an assistant, one character at a time, and you can feel that slow tenderness and passion as he answers question after question. Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly? Why don’t you make eye contact while talking? What’s the reason you jump? I said before I’ve loved David Mitchell since Cloud Atlas, so I originally found this book while searching for bibliographical scraps. I was in for a major surprise. In the introduction David Mitchell shares how his son has severe autism and he, like many, struggled to identify, relate, and support his child… until he read this book. He then worked with his wife to translate it at the request of friends and the book found a giant Western audience after Jon Stewart trumpeted it on The Daily Show and it hit The New York Times bestseller list. Completely expanded my perception of being human with an entirely new worldview. Must, must, must-read.
5. Hyperbole and a Halfby Allie Brosch. There are just too many books out there so I’m always looking for curated lists. That’s why I do this email. That’s why I love Ryan Holiday’s Monthly Email List. And that’s why I scanned Bill Gates’s GatesNotes and found this gem in the vein of David Sedaris or Jenny Lawson’s autobiographical hilarity. This feels like an evolution on those books with edge comedy scattered across Microsoft Paint-style cartoons. Despite the visual format the content is pretty meaty and even heavy. Emotionally I could only read one or two stories at a time. Amazing introspection on the human condition especially on topics such as mental illness, anxiety, and maybe the best essay I’ve ever read on depression. Unique and unexpected. PS Don’t judge this one by the cover!
6. Home Gameby Michael Lewis. I miss my family when I’m traveling. High up in some cold airplane I often find myself scrolling through home videos on my cell phone. Well, this book felt like I was home while traveling. An insightful take at being a modern father with its evolving mix of expectations and responsibilities. There is so much truth in this book that it’s hard not to feel both occasionally inferior and superior. (He has a great mini-essay on those feelings, too.) It’s divided into one section for each of his three kids with a final Epilogue detailing his vasectomy. Uh, yeah. I haven’t read a ton of Michael Lewis but I’m guessing that last chapter may be the funniest thing he’s written.
7. Boo Hoo Birdby Jeremy Tankard. Looks like your average ho-hum children’s picture book (and I thought it was) but has one of the most subtle messages about empathy hidden inside. When Bird gets bonked on the head playing catch all his animal friends take turns trying to help – offering a cookie, slapping on a Band-Aid, trying to play Hide-And-Seek. But nothing works until all the other animals start crying too. And then Bird finally feels better. There are no closing thoughts or morals hitting you with a hammer here. Just a nice message weaved in.
8. Love Is A Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. Funny, sad, beautiful memoir about a guy who gets married young and becomes a widow soon after. (Not a spoiler as it’s revealed on the first page!) The story of indie music, mix tapes, and rock concerts is weaved through the book and it’ll appeal to anyone who’s ever been in a relationship where music was a big part of the story. Written by a contributing editor to Rolling Stone so it’s in that same light, jumpy, and funny style of writing.
9. The Fermi Paradoxby Tim Urban. I love going to the blog Wait But Why when my mind needs a complete zoom out. Tim Urban has a great writing style that completely reduces whatever you’re worrying about to interplanetary dust or maybe just shifts it to some giant fear you didn't know you had. Have you ever wondered why we’ve never seen or heard from aliens? Then this is for you.
10.Civil Disobedience and Other Essaysby Henry David Thoreau. You know those cardboard boxes of free books people leave in front of their house? I usually peek in expecting a pile of yellowed Harlequins but once in a while spot a gem like this thin volume of essays by Henry David Thoreau. The title essay is great but my favorite is Walking (link goes to full text) and it’s a fiery piece on the philosophical, meditative, and creative benefits of… walking. Leslie and I picked our house based on what we could walk to and I try and do most of my meetings walking. So this essay hit home. (Sidenote: Nassim Taleb also has a great essay on urban walking at the back of The Black Swan expanded paperback edition.) As Thoreau says: “We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.”
11.Sad Animal Factsby Brooke Barker. Fun little bathroom book with weird animal facts combined with hilarious straight-faced line drawings and quips. Like “Koi fish can live 200 years” with a drawing of a Koi fish saying “72,500 more days of exploring this decorative pond.”
