Chapter 18: David Sedaris on holding happiness hostage and healing holes in our hearts
Release Date: 12/30/2024
Chapter 29: Michael Harris on queer questions and the quest for quiet
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Loneliness rates have doubled since the 1980s and Vivek Murthy, former US Surgeon General, says loneliness will be the next major epidemic. So if loneliness is being alone and sad … then what’s being alone and happy? Solitude. A few years ago, I picked up an incredible book called '' by Michael Harris, bestselling author and winner of the Governor General's Award for his writing. It completely blew me away. Why? Because in our era of endless machine-gun blasts at our brains, I feel strongly that the ability to be alone, and to be alone well, is a muscle that is quickly atrophying. ...
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Chapter 148: Ginny Yurich obviates obsolete offspring with 1000 hours outside
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Ginny Yurich () drove 5 hours up the road from Michigan to Toronto to hang out with Leslie and me. We went for a walk outside (of course!) and recorded this podcast—our second outdoors podcast in a row after ! Why outside? I'm glad you asked! Ginny Yurich is the homeschooling mother of 5 (!) who has spirited a movement called . I like 1000 as you know! was my first blog, is ... this entire podcast. So when 3 Bookers globally kept telling me to interview Ginny I looked her up and saw she was a fan of 1000 and I knew ... this was going to be good. And it was even better than I thought! ...
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Chapter 28: Mark Manson on constant cursing and clearing clutter
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Have you heard of a book called ''? I’m guessing you have since it’s sold, uh, 16 million copies since it came out in 2016. There hadn't been a non-fiction book that big and disruptive in a long, long time… Mark’s meteoric success is the product of a giant mind which has mastered the art of taking the biggest, densest books on the planet and then simmering them down into simple, profanity-laced models and stories that hit you like a ton of bricks. The world is so loud! So busy. So full. Everything is screaming at us to buy this, buy that, do this, do that. You know what we need in...
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Chapter 147: Nickisha the Dog Walker on dangerous drivers and dog doo diligence
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Let's go for a walk! I've sometimes imagined 3 Books as a long walk with a friend. So today—let's take one! Nickisha moved to Toronto from Jamaica when she was 16 to reunite with her mom and after working as a travel agent she broke out on her own to run a successful business full of fresh air, exercise, community, and lots of love. I sometimes see Nickisha with five, six, or seven dogs around her—giving them the highlight of their day! Tongues wagging. Skip in their step. Motoring around town clocking 100km on foot each week! One of our traditions on 3 Books is doing...
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Chapter 26: Angie Thomas on righting racist wrongs and remembering radicals
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
No one does it like Angie. Racial tensions, police shootings, citizen uprisings. Does this sound like the setting of a YA novel? How about three of them? Her debut '' her sophomore release ',' and her third '' were all on The New York Times bestseller list, and her fantasy middle school-level book '' was *also* an instant New York Times bestseller! In this classic chapter of 3 Books, we sat down together at the busiest hotel in downtown Toronto on the tail end of Angie’s 15-city book tour to discuss how we find the truth for ourselves, when do we bring up harsh realities to kids, and...
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Chapter 146: Emily Nagoski on exuberant erotic exploration
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Is porn good sex education? Why does body autonomy matter for kids? Does talking about sex kill the mood? Emily Nagoski has the answers! Emily is a sex educator and activist whose mission is to teach us how to live with confidence and joy inside our bodies. She does this as the New York Times bestselling author of 'Come As You Are,' 'Burnout,' and 'Come Together,' as well as through her 3 popular TED Talks including—with over 3 million views—"How couples can sustain a strong sexual connection for a lifetime." Emily began working as a sex educator 30 years ago at the University of...
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Chapter 25: James Frey on drunk, defiant differentiation
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
What do you know about James Frey? Or what do you think you know about James Frey? I’m guessing it’s not nothing. Everyone has an opinion! When I first spotted '' on my wife’s bookshelf when we were moving in together I was like “Oh? Really? That book? The Oprah guy?” And she was like “Have you read it?” And I was like “No, no idea what it’s even about. Just that it’s not real or whatever.” She looked at me with disappointed eyes. Understandably so! I hadn’t bothered to go below the surface. To read about it on my own. I had just soaked in some distant fumes off...
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Chapter 145: Lindyman leverages long-lasting lessons on living a limitless life
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Don't use mouthwash. Why? It's not Lindy. At least that's what Paul Skallas, a Chicago-born technology lawyer who goes by Lindyman online, says. I was fascinated to read a New York Times profile of him titled "The Lindy Way of Living," and knew I wanted to have him on 3 Books. In the 2012 book 'Antifragile,' the statistician and scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined "the Lindy Effect." He wrote, "For the perishable, every additional day in life translates to a shorter additional life expectancy, kind of like me and you and the cheese and our fridge, or the milk and...
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Chapter 22: Tim Urban on shivering in shorts and shifting from sheep to chef
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
We live in interesting times. And they're getting interestinger! I keep my eyes open for big thinkers to help guide and inform me as I keep trying to make sense of the world. My friend Tim Urban is one of those people: Tim has a giant mind willing to engage with our fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. The big questions! Tim's blog still scores millions of readers per month with big-name fans like , Bari Weiss, Sam Harris, Bryan Johnson, and (yes) Elon Musk. Why? Because Tim has an incredible way of smallifying...
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Chapter 144: Nick Sweetman on breaking boundaries with brilliant birds
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
is one of Toronto's most prominent graffiti artists. Last February I was walking down Lansdowne Avenue in Toronto with my friend , who was our guest back in , and as we strolled under a giant bridge I saw a giant ... well, it looked like a photo! But it wasn't a photo. It was a massive spray-painted image of a , and at the very bottom corner was a signature that said "Nick Sweetman." Looks like a photo, right? Look at that eye! That bill! But I discovered there's this Toronto mural artist named Nick Sweetman and turns out I've seen the guy's stuff all over the place. He paints , , , and ...
info_outlineWho else loves David Sedaris?
I discovered him in 1997 when an old mentor/editor at Golden Words, my college humor papers, suggested I pick up his book 'Naked' to become a better writer myself.
I found the essays sardonic, witty, uncannily observational, and laugh-out-loud funny. I couldn't believe how gently and elegantly he wrote about topics ranging from his obsessive compulsive tics to dropping out of school to (in the namesake essay) visiting a nudist colony.
Like millions of people around the world I became obsessed with David Sedaris. I’ve read all of his books—'Me Talk Pretty One Day' (2000) being close to my heart and 'Calypso' (2018) being a recent fave.
I even went to see him speak at Massey Hall in Toronto which is where I learned—first-hand!—that he waits hours and hours after every talk to happily chat and sign books from anybody willing to wait for him. (In my case my phone died about two hours before I had a chance to say hi. Years ago we had a sixty-second conversation about pie and he wrote 'Neil, I am so happy you are alive' in my book.)
In this classic chapter of 3 Books—the all-time #1 most popular conversation ever on the podcast—I squeeze into the back of David's limo from the Four Seasons hotel in Toronto en route to the CBC building and then up to his bookstore event at the Indigo at Yorkdale.
What was supposed to be a tight 20 minute chat evolved into a beautiful hour and a half conversation covering topics like the secret to getting old, artistic integrity after commercial success, why artists have a hole in their hearts, and, of course, the incredible David Sedaris's 3 most formative books.
On this New Year's Eve let's flip the book back to Chapter 18...