My New Book! 'Canada is Awesome' | Full Audiobook
Release Date: 06/21/2025
The Best Of 2025: Neil Pasricha mines memorable, mind-shifting moments and messages
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Happy Solstice, everyone! In the northern hemisphere today we have the least amount of daylight of any day of the year. Below the equator it has the most! And as we do every December solstice it's time for our annual "Best Of" episode of 3 Books. 3 Books is our award-winning 22-year-long conversation to uncover and discuss the 1000 most formative books in the world ... 3 books at a time. This year we recorded shows in Nairobi, Ottawa, Del Mar, and even a few on the street ... journeying to collect stories and lessons that can help us all live richer lives of meaning and intention. ...
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Chapter 37: Malcolm Gladwell on strangers, spies, and silencing the system
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Who we are is a function of where we are. Do you agree with that? Who you are depends on where you are. We’re different people in different places, right? You’re different in the board room than you are on vacation. You’re different with your parents than you are with your kids. I’m different hanging out with Malcolm Gladwell in his West Village apartment than I am sitting in my basement as I type up a little note about it. That theme is one that we get to open up in this chapter of 3 Books with the one and only . I flew down to New York and joined Malcolm at his place where we...
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My Book 'Canada is Awesome' | Full Audiobook
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
This podcast is me reading a little book I put out earlier this year: CANADA IS AWESOME It's an audio book about all the weird, wonderful, beautiful things that make Canada ... Canada. Did you ever notice Canadians speak in the collective? “What do you think of the weather we’re having?” “Shall we grab a Timmy's before the meeting?” “Think we have a shot at the playoffs?” We, we, we. We use the word we so much. Why do we feel like such a collective? I don’t think it’s complicated. I think it’s because we are one. We all toss around half of everything we make into a big...
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Chapter 155: Bulle the Bookseller broadens borders and births bibliophiles
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
We're back to Africa! Last month we kicked off a little Kenyan series on and today I’m thrilled to share another chapter recorded in the heart of pulsing downtown Nairobi in the country's top bookstore. I landed after an overnight flight and immediately filled my belly with fresh samosas, pakoras, curried goat tripe, and fresh tamarind juice ... for breakfast! ... and then, after seeing the city I hopped into a car with Perlexy, who works with our guest in Chapter 104 and current Kenyan Presidential nominee , and drove downtown... We parked the car and met up with Boniface and his son...
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Chapter 36: Two teenage Mormon missionaries on missing mom to make miracles
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
So one day I’m out taking one of my magical when suddenly two guys are like “Hi! How are you?!” And I look up kind of stunned because I’m walking around downtown Toronto where no one really pops out of the woodwork to shout a “Hi! How are you?!” at you … What do I see? Two young men smiling back at me. Like, big smiles! Gigantic smiles. Dressed up, too. It takes me a minute to piece it together but turns out they’re Mormon Missionaries living away from home for two years with the sole purpose of teaching people about their church. They asked me what I’d heard about...
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Chapter 154: Peter Kimani on conquering the curse of choreographed colonialism
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
We're heading to Africa! Over the years we have taken the 3 Books podcast on the road many times ... from recording in in Key West to to the in St. Louis to in New York we've gone where the stories take us. And for the first time we are going to the 55-country and 1.5 billion person continent of Africa. I am so excited to share the first of three chapters of 3 Books recorded in Nairobi, Kenya. I landed there and went whizzing down busy streets with colourful stalls, wandering goats, people pulling carts full of eggs, women carrying baskets on their heads, endless whizzing bodas...
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Chapter 35: Jen Agg on fussy feminism and ferocious fastidiousness
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
"Whatever Jen Agg says is worth listening to," said Anthony Bourdain. I fully agree! If you live in Toronto you probably know Jen Agg. If you don't, let me tell you she runs the best restaurants in town! Come visit and try them! Her most recent stunner is a two-story converted auto-body shop turned Toronto Life #1 ranked restaurant called "" and it is a feast for the senses. Jen describes the place as "part Narnia, part fancy British pub, and part '80s cocaine dream" which gives you a sample of her incredible way with words on top of dishes on top of lighting on top of music on top of...
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Chapter: 153: Carl Honoré imparts illuminating insights into intentional idleness
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
The pace of living is accelerating. I often feel like things are happening too quickly to process ... the reels are going too fast, the scrolls have too many colors, the information feed feels like a flood. I just can't process it all! Do you feel the same way? If so you need this conversation as much as I did. Carl Honoré is the godfather of the "slow movement" — a Canadian born, UK-based author, journalist, and whose first book, the 2004 long-running bestseller '', sparked a global conversation about time, speed, and how we live. What's happened since 2004? Life has gotten even...
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Chapter 27: Robin the Bartender on fiddling with frankincense and fighting for freedom
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
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Chapter 152: Robin Sloan weaves wonder and weirdness into the warbly world of words
3 Books With Neil Pasricha
Last year I picked up a book called ‘’ by Robin Sloan and it blew me away. Reading it was like riding some rainbow-speckled rocket ship where I experienced the bizarre combination of having no idea what was going on while not being able to wait for what happened next. The book was full of talking beavers. Talking swords! Strange video games. And ever-expanding worlds with wizards, who maybe aren’t really wizards, and oh—it's narrated by a microscopic AI-type chronicler, who’s been in many different lives across millennia and who now sits inside our protagonist’s left shoulder. ...
info_outlineBIG NEWS!
I just finished writing CANADA IS AWESOME: A Little Book About A Big Country.
This podcast is me reading the whole book!
The book is about all the weird, wonderful, beautiful things that make Canada ... Canada.
Did you ever notice Canadians speak in the collective?
“What do you think of the weather we’re having?”
“Shall we grab a Tims before the meeting?”
“Think we have a shot at the playoffs?”
We, we, we.
We use the word we so much.
Why do we feel like such a collective?
I don’t think it’s complicated.
I think it’s because we are one.
We all toss around half of everything we make into a big glass jar and use it to pay for everyone’s health care, education, and services.
Sure, the system’s never perfect, but if you shatter your ankle in an icy Canadian Tire parking lot, need a dozen years of free school for five kids in Kamloops, or want to drive on freshly snowplowed roads from Comox to Cornwall to Cape Spear, well ... we got you.
We got you.
We got everyone.
So today I'm releasing the audio version of my first new book in three years.
For free!
With no ads!
It's a gift.
The Canadian way.
I'm sharing the audiobook for free on the 3 Books podcast feed and on YouTube and then on Canada Day (July 1st) I'll be publishing the full text and a beautifully formatted PDF for free download on my blog (www.neil.blog) and also selling paper books—both black and white paperbacks and full-color hardcovers—at cost, starting July 1st.
It's a different type of book than I've done before—a 78-page, bright red, self-published love letter to my home country. And it was designed by a Canadian in Ottawa (Steve St. Pierre), audio and video edited by a Canadian in Toronto (Dave Boire), and even the t-shirt I'm wearing in the YouTube video was designed and manufactured by a Canadian in Toronto (Daniel Torjman).
If you're Canadian I hope you feel pride in who we are. If you're not Canadian, I hope this helps you see Canada a little clearer. Maybe it will inspire you to visit ... or to move here!
Flip this on for your long road trip and let's let ourselves get inspired by what's possible when grit, determination, and kindness come together across culture and language. Let's reflect on shared goals of spending time with loved ones, hitting best-in-world education rates, and, of course, kicking back by the lake with a Moosehead and a bowl of ketchup chips.
This is a piece of writing close to my heart and something I have been working on for over a decade.
It began as a 1000 word blog post on '1000 Awesome Things' (2012), turned into a 5000 word Audible Original audiobook (2017), and now, today, in 2025, has become a 10,000 word physical book and audiobook that I offer here as my gift to you—and to us.
I hope you like it.
Neil