Also, as we get closer to Christmas, if you’d like give a signed copy of one of my books, just reply with your name, address, and which book, and I’ll drop a signed bookplate in the mail for you. Totally free. Anywhere in the world. I always enjoy signing and sending them.
Thanks and happy reading,
Neil
1. Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hookedby Adam Alter. Take my phone! Lock it up! Keep it away from me! Do you do this? I do. Most evenings. Most weekends. Not because I’m some enlightened being who likes living in the forest with my kids. I do it because I’m addicted to my phone and having someone hide it from me is my only defense. One of the endless fascinating studies Adam Alter includes in this book shows that people have difficulty showing empathy and forming friendships when a random cell phone not owned by either person is lying on the table between them. The test group, who were able to form friendships and connection, had a pad of paper and a pen between them. The hits keep coming in this important and timely book which doubles as a history of addiction and video games, too. Highly recommended!
2.Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children’s Literature as an Adultby Bruce Handy. I’ve been reading a lot of kids books lately. Burning through huge stacks on repeat with my three and one year old. I can recite Goodnight Moonfrom memory. So this decidedly adult look at kids books came at a great moment. Bruce Handy is a Vanity Fair writer with a flair for wordplay and dancing sentences. Sometimes he’s a bit hoity-toity but he’s able to take us on a journey behind the pages, themes, and people underlying all the biggest children’s classics from Peter Rabbitto The Cat In The Hat. They all seemingly have their own jarring Rosebud-in-Citizen-Kane type storylines too such as Margaret Wise Brown’s death at age 42 from doing a can-can in a hospital.
3.This Is How You Lose Herby Junot Díaz. Do you remember when movies like Pulp Fiction and Trafficand 21 Grams first started coming out? There was this big rush on scrapbooked storylines with endless minor characters and sub-sub-sub plotlines threaded together. This was terrible for me because I was one of those people who struggled to remember characters from The Wizard of Oz. “Who’s that guy made out of tin again?” I was always lost. Well, this book feels like one of those movies. And I got completely lost in it. Yet the chapters that connected with me did so deeply. It’s a mostly first person coming-of-age story of a vulgar, streetwise, 20-something Dominican guy set on the tableau of a dysfunctional family, dying brother, and lots of back and forths to the States. Whew! It’s a mouthful. Snappy writing that keeps you hooked. Sample from Page 1: “See, many months ago, when Magda was still my girl, when I didn’t have to be careful about almost anything, I cheated on her with this chick who had tons of eighties freestyle hair. Didn’t tell Magda about it, either. You know how it is. A smell bone like that, better off buried in the backyard of your life. Magda only found out because homegirl wrote her a letter.”
4. Reworkby Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. Strong opinions, super short chapters, extremely visceral prose. My kind of book! (Reminds me a bit of Steal Like An Artist in that sense, which I shared a couple months back.) The book is a collection of the 100-plus new era business principles the authors used to build a giant online company with less than a dozen employees spread around the world. The black cover and propaganda style of the book’s design hints at the subversive and counterintuitive nature of the advice. Samples include: ASAP is poison, Underdo the competition, Meetings are toxic, Fire the workaholics, and Planning is guessing. I liked it because it didn’t feel the need, like so many books, to rely on endless research studies, and instead was just really clear short logical essays reminiscent of Derek Sivers or Paul Graham. Fits into that non-existent “Wisdom” category between Business and Self-Help.
5. The Moth Presents… All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing The Unknown. Our Englightened Toilet Reading series is getting better and better. Do you listen to The Moth podcast? It’s perfect for long late-night car rides. Picture your closest friends going around the red-and-white checkered tablecloth sharing their best true stories over late night chicken wings. That’s The Moth. There’s one from the woman who became David Bowie’s hair stylist. From an African child soldier asked to go to a paintball birthday party with his new classmates in New York. From an Indian guy standing at his white prom date’s door and being told by her parents they don’t want him in their family photos. And a few from celebs like Louis CK and Tig Nataro. The stories are gripping, insightful, addictive, and most of them end without any smarm or Full House-stylegroup laughs … but rather with an honest emotional candid of what life felt like, for that person, at that time. Hard not to laugh or cry along with them.
6. How Did That Get In My Lunchbox: The Story of Foodby Chris Butterworth. I feel like the nature of awe is so much better represented in kid’s books today than when I grew up with books like You Are Stardust helping give children existential crises at younger and younger ages. This book takes a child’s lunch and works backwards up the supply chain to show how every ingredient got there. I loved everything about the book except the fact they did a big toestep around any mention of meat. I have a sequel idea, though. It’s called: “What’s really in that Summer Sausage?”
