podcast

Chapter 87: Jason Shiga on perilous puzzles and precarious paths

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I grew up reading the Choose Your Own Adventure series but it had been years — decades even! — since I’d read a game book. Then I stumbled upon the fascinating book Meanwhile by Jason Shiga and was completely sucked back into this incredible genre.

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When you open Meanwhile you are a young boy on his way to an ice-cream shop. If you get vanilla? You go home. The end! But if you get chocolate? You plunge into thousands of endlessly splintering storylines. You meet a mad scientist. You jump in a time travel machine. The fate of the world is suddenly at stake!

I have no idea how someone could imagine a book this complex and yet so elegant to experience. I was sucked in. So I reach out to Jason Shiga and was grateful that he agreed to come on 3 Books.

Jason is a Japanese-American cartoonist who incorporates puzzles, mysteries and unconventional — very unconventional — narrative techniques into his work. He grew up in California and studied Pure Mathematics at the University of Berkeley.

Jason has been the ‘Maze Specialist’ for McSweeney’s Quarterly (founded by Dave Eggers, our guest in Chapter 81!), written for Nickelodeon, SpongeBob SquarePants, and much more. He’s also won a number of awards including the Eisner and the Ignatz and has written a number of additional books, including Book Hunter and Demon.

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What are we going to talk about on this show? Well there is a lot to learn including: what is a Japanese chicken commune? How does children’s literature address taboos we have around death? How can a love of puzzles inform creativity? What are moral dilemmas and what can we learn from them? What is the ‘classic trolley problem’? What is the relationship between books and video games? What is the state of the game book industry? How do we think about playing with a book? And, of course, what are Jason Shiga’s three most formative books?

Let’s turn the page into Chapter 87 now …

What You'll Learn:

  • Why is death taboo in children’s literature?

  • What is pure mathematics?

  • How can a love of puzzles and brain teasers inform creative work?

  • What is elegance of form?

  • What is an interactive form of literature?

  • What can we learn from moral dilemmas and the state of humanity today?

  • Why are moral choices so good for game books?

  • What’s the classic trolley problem?

  • How can books and video games co-exist?

  • What is the state of the game book industry today?

  • How can we encourage our kids to get into game books?

  • How does one play with a book?

Notable quotes from Jason shiga:

“For me, the greatest graphics processor of all time is a child's imagination.” Jason Shiga #3bookspodcast

“When you read a book, when you read a comic, you're kind of activating your mind and your sense of empathy.” Jason Shiga #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 86: My two-year-old son on whimsical wonderings and wandering Waldos

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Do you ever feel book guilt?

Do you ever feel book shame?

Do you ever feel bad when you quit a book?

Do you ever feel like the books you read aren’t ‘hard’ enough?

These are common feelings that I know I’ve had. I say we need to get rid of all the book shame and book guilt we learn as we grow up because there really is no right or wrong way to read. We need to escape the book exhaustion that can come with endless Shakespeare, mandatory classics, and piles of textbooks.

We need to tell kids that they can read whatever they want to read.

Picture books! Comic books! Young Adult!

Whatever.

Just follow your joy and keep the books coming.

I partly started 3 Books as a way to keep stoking the flames for that pure love of reading books.

For most of my adult life, I lost my love of reading. Loved books as a child! And yet somehow by my late 20s I had almost completely stopped reading books. What was it? I’m not sure if it was too many dry textbooks, the endless addiction of social media feed, or the false belief I just didn’t have time to read anymore.

How many times have you heard that?

Chapter 86 of 3 Books is a little different. It’s a mental intermezzo between deep dives.

It’s a way to hopefully remind us of the pure joy that comes from reading books. Of spreading books out on the carpet and playing with them and doing somersaults over them. This chapter is about tapping back into that childhood love of reading.

We are going to hang out on my bedroom floor with my two year old son …

Join me as we flip the page into Chapter 86 …

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:

  • Why are chapter books scary?

  • What can books with flaps teach us about our cities?

  • Why do so many people go to the bathroom in train stations?

  • How does Waldo get around so much?

  • How can sharks jump onto boats?

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Chapter 85: Jane McGonigal on slaying stress with superhero strengths

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Happy Sturgeon Moon, everybody! And happy Blue Moon, too! Jane McGonigal joins us on Chapter 85 of 3 Books to help us celebrate.

Let’s start off with a question.

What would you do if you jumped out of a desk chair and slammed your head directly into an open cupboard door which gave you a massive concussion that left you bedridden for months? Oh, and you were told “No reading, no writing, no video games, no work, no email, no running, no alcohol, and no caffeine.”

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Well, most of us would probably just lie there.

I mean, what else could you do?

Well, if you’re Jane McGonigal that’s not what you do. No! If you’re Jane McGonigal, what you do is design a game, in your concussion-riddled state, to help you get better. You create an avatar. You give yourself goals. You select projects. And you slowly help yourself heal! You call the game Jane the Concussion Slayer, after your favorite TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and then you release it out into the world.

Today that game has helped over a million people tackle challenges like concussions, depression, anxiety, and chronic pain. It’s been renamed Super Better and been evaluated by clinical trials, randomized control studies, and all kinds of scientific white papers as the top game in the world treating depression, anxiety and pain.

Is it any wonder Jane was the first person to study computer and video games in her PhD at Berkeley? Or that she’s a TED superstar with two talks racking up over 15 million views about how gaming can make a better world and the game that can give you 10 extra years of life? Or that she’s the New York Times bestselling author of Reality is Broken and (yes) Superbetter? Or the Director of Games Research & Development at the Institute for the Future? No, I did not make any of that up. And I could go on!

Jane McGonigal is a humanistic designer of alternate realities and her life goal is to see a game developer win the Nobel Peace Prize. I love her work and the incredible force for good it is having on the world.

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Let’s grab a seat with Jane and talk: how we live with greater flow, how we harness our children’s ‘soul force’, why we maybe shouldn’t be limiting screen time, how to choose games for kids, what questions you should ask your kids about the games they play, the best card game out there, exploring the boundaries of our psychic selves, and, of course, Jane McGonigal’s 3 most formative books.

Let’s turn the page into Chapter 85 now …

What You'll Learn:

  • How can we bend the rules of reality?

  • What is the power of a twin relationship?

  • What is a soul force?

  • How should we think about nature and nurture as we parent?

  • Are our identities more malleable today?

  • What is the difference between social media and gaming?

  • What is flow?

  • Why do game designers learn about flow?

  • How can flow be a resource for humanity?

  • How do we find our own flow?

  • How can we shift away from bullshit jobs?

  • Why should we shorten the workday week?

  • How can games help treat PTSD and depression?

  • How can we better manage screen time for our kids?

  • How should we curate games for our kids?

  • How can games help our kids learn confidence?

  • Why should kids teach their parents how to play video games?

  • What are the  key questions you should be asking your kids about the video games they play?

  • What is a predictor of video game addiction?

  • How does TV benefit kids?

  • Why should you watch TV with your kids?

  • Why should you know the theme songs of your kids’ favorite TV shows?

  • How do we teach aliens what it means to be human?

  • What does studying an audience tell us about art?

  • How do we experience more out of life?

Notable quotes from Jane mcgonigal:

“What I try to do with my kids is I try to see them and reflect back to them what I see.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“Parenting can help you be a better person because you don’t want to pass on your learned anxieties” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“The soul force is also the love force. It is the sheer power of love that you feel as a parent to make every change you wish you could have made.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“Online gamers are essentially like psychonauts. The same type of experimentation we saw around psychedelic drugs in the sixties, we are seeing with online gamers kind of exploring the boundaries of their psychic selves through the avatars.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“Technology is allowing us to explore our psychic selves and who we want to be and the power of our minds.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“Social media and gaming are so different. One brings out the best in us. One brings out the worst in us.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“The performance of your real self on social media is, in many ways, toxic and disfiguring of your authentic self vs when you play a game, you might be playing an alternate persona, it's an avatar, a character, but you are being an authentic self.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“When I research who people are when they play their favorite games, it's not an escape or a reconfiguration of their authentic selves. It's really nurturing and allowing to flourish things that are really signature strengths.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“Self-help is so important, but it's not enough. We have to heal society and heal each other, not just ourselves.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“We need universal basic income so that people can spend more time doing the things that bring them flow that are not bringing them a paycheck.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“There's abundance in things you aren't paid to do.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“The things that bring us true well being and psychological flourishing, that allow us to connect with others and help them flourish too, are these activities that are not expensive, we don't get paid for, but we get nourished by them.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“Family screen time to me is not something I need to restrict, if we're doing something that's challenging and learning and creating and collaborating.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“If you can talk about what it takes to be good at the game in language that then bridges back or springboards back to reality, then you're more likely to see those skills as part of who you are and use them when you face a real challenge or stress.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“Kids are naturally better at video games than we are, and this is a rare role reversal where they get to be the teacher to the parent. It's so good for your relationship.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“Games are skills and training and strengths that are part of who we are and we can bring that to our whole lives.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

“If you can't sing the theme song, then you're not involved enough.” Jane McGonigal #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 84: Lori Gottlieb on therapists thoughtfully thrashing thinking theories

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Do you have a therapist?

Do you meet up with someone on a regular basis to open up, talk about yourself, and get into the weeds of your emotions? Maybe the ones you can articulate, the ones you can’t articulate, the ones you’re angry about having, the ones you’re confused about having.

I started seeing a therapist about 10 years ago.

After the loss of my marriage and my best friend, it was suggested by my parents that I would benefit from seeing a therapist.

I’m embarrassed to admit I said no. “I don’t need a therapist! I don’t have problems! That’s for people with problems! That’s not me!”

Maybe it was the years, decades, generations of stigma and taboos around that word? Therapy. Growing up I never heard about anyone going to therapy except in the context of some desperate, last second attempt to salvage something like a failing marriage at the eleventh hour.

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Maybe that’s why I’m talking about it today! I’m very lucky to have a therapist. And proud of it too, I’d say. My wife Leslie is, too. We talk openly about going to therapy with our children. So often, so easily, so quickly, people say, ‘I’ve got to go to workout, I’ve got to go to the gym, I’ve got to run on the treadmill.’ We’re so open about sharing physical self care. But we aren’t nearly as open about mental self care. And that conversation only progresses globally if we keep having conversations like the one we’re about to have today…

So welcome, welcome, welcome. Great to have you here. Thank you for reading all the way down here! Are you new? Are you a 3 Books virgin? If so, you picked a wonderful chapter to begin with. Chapter 84 with Lori Gottlieb. If you like it, we’d love to have you join our community. 3 Books is by and for book lovers, writers, makers, sellers and librarians. The show is a 100% a labor of love and a piece of art with no ads, no sponsors, no promotions, and no interruptions. We’ve got deep values like no book guilt, no book shame, the right to sip, the right to dip. We’re not about reading as a chore, or as a job, or as homework. We’re all about discovering or rediscovering the pure joy of books or deepening the love you already have.

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Today I am very excited to share with you a conversation with the one and only Lori Gottlieb.

Do you know Lori Gottlieb?

She’s a psychotherapist and author of the New York Times bestseller, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone which has sold well over a million copies. It’s even being adapted as a television series. She writes the extremely popular weekly column Dear Therapist in The Atlantic. She contributes regularly to The New York Times, has a very popular TED Talk, shared one of the best stories at The Moth ever, and is a member of the Advisory Council for Bring Change To Mind. Finally, she also hosts her own wonderful podcast called Dear Therapists.

As a therapist who writes about therapy, Lori kicks open the door to conversations we need to have.

We are going to talk about finding a therapist, making adult friends, what you should ask instead of ‘how are you?’, how heterosexual women often react to men crying, processing grief, the key ingredient to vulnerability, tennis partners, defining emotions, the voices in our head, the root cause of trauma, why insight is the booby prize of therapy, and, of course, about the wonderful Lori Gottlieb’s three most formative books.

Let’s turn the page into Chapter 84 now …

What You'll Learn:

  • What is the difference between content and process in therapy?

  • How do people move through their struggles?

  • What makes us human at our core?

  • How can we find ourselves in the stories of others?

  • How much should we share about ourselves on social media?

  • What is the importance of authenticity for a writer?

  • How do therapists use their own humanity to help others?

  • How should we navigate vulnerability in writing?

  • How can authors write about their own children without betraying their stories which are their own to tell?

  • What is true vulnerability?

  • What are the misconceptions surrounding therapy?

  • How do you test drive your therapist?

  • How do we discover our dark side and how can it help us grow as a human being?

  • What is the beauty of mentor mentee relationships?

  • Why are adult friendships hard to come by, specifically for men?

  • Why is it harder for men to be vulnerable?

  • Why do we apologize when we cry?

  • What is the danger of labeling feelings?

  • How can we use our feelings without judgement to make better decisions?

  • What is the danger of numbing our feelings?

  • Why should we not talk our kids out of their feelings?

  • How should we deal with loss and why are the commonly listed stages of grief not necessarily helpful?

  • How do we grieve better?

Notable quotes from Lori gottlieb:

"The internet is the most effective short term painkiller out there." Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“I think the word happiness is misleading because I think happiness is a byproduct of living your life in a way that is meaningful or fulfilling which is what we all want for ourselves. Happiness as a goal is a recipe for disaster.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“I get to see people as they really are and not people with a mask on, or people in the performative aspects of their lives which I think most people have to some degree professionally, at least or sometimes socially.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“I think that my most significant credential is that I am a card carrying member of the human race.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“I use my humanity to help people in the therapy room.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“Vulnerability is really showing up in a way where you are revealing the truth of who you are to somebody in real life, face to face, eye to eye, where the stakes are high.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“I think social media does have a positive function which is it normalizes struggles.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“I really want to encourage people to use vulnerability in a way to connect with other people in their real lives.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“The relationship you have with your therapist serves as a microcosm for all of the stuff that is going on out there and it helps you to learn something about your patterns, your blind spots and about what’s keeping you stuck.”  Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“Insight is the booby prize of therapy.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“When men become fully human, or share their full humanity, people sometimes become very uncomfortable with that.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“Feelings are just feelings, they’re like a compass and tell you what you need.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“If you don’t pay attention to your feelings, if you feel like some feelings are bad and I don’t want to feel them, it’s like walking around with a glitchy GPS, you have no idea what direction to go in because you are not using your feelings in the positive way they are meant to be used which is to tell you where to go.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“Because we judge ourselves we tend to numb out our feelings” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“Numbness isn’t the absence of feelings, numbness is a state of being overwhelmed by too many feelings.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“The person we talk to the most in the course of our lives is our self.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“I want to make sure that when I talk to myself I am playing the radio station that is kind and true and helpful and not the radio station that is the bully radio station.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“Self compassion actually keeps you more accountable. It actually helps you to make greater change and to grow in a deeper way and longer lasting way.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“Grief is grief and loss is loss.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

“Trauma comes from unprocessed loss and grief.” Lori Gottlieb #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 83: Douglas Rushkoff on divisive duality and designer deaths

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“Our technologies, markets and cultural institutions, once forces for human connection and expression, now isolate and repress us. It is time to remake society together, not as individual players, but as the team we actually are: Team Human.”

That little paragraph is printed right on the cover of the latest book by Douglas Rushkoff.

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Do you know Douglas Rushkoff?

He’s a vivid, big-thinking author behind books like Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed, Screenagers, Playing the Future, Media Virus, and many others.

Seth Godin calls him acerbic. I’ll call him provocative. Douglas is not afraid of anything! His writing is confident and he’s got the research and logic ready behind every point.

No wonder he’s been named one of the world’s most influential thought leaders. Douglas hosts the popular Team Human podcast, writes for The Guardian, and is the documentarian behind Generation Like and Merchants of Cool. He’s also responsible for coining many popular phrases including “viral media” and “social currency.”

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Douglas Rushkoff is a big thinker! A different thinker. And we love getting different thinkers on this show.

From Chapter 4 with Sarah Ramsey, my favorite bookseller, to Chapter 36 with Elder Cox and Elder Corona, two teenage Mormon missionaries, to Chapter 61 with Temple Grandin, one of the world’s first autism activists, we’re having a blast bouncing around brain spaces.

We are going to talk about Bitcoin, reality tunnels, what the internet really is, the benefits of slack, rebuilding societal trust, the source code for magic, Timothy Leary and designer deaths, facts versus reality, mycelium and trees, Bardo orgies, the purpose of play, and, of course, the incredible Douglas Rushkoff’s three (or maybe four!) most formative books.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 83 now …

What You'll Learn:

  • What is a media theorist?

  • How is Team Human doing?

  • What is the true environmental cost of Bitcoin?

  • Why is slack so important?

  • How can we rebuild trust where it is lost?

  • How do we free ourselves from societal pressures?

  • Is there such a thing as an original thought?

  • How does intergenerational living benefit society?

  • Why should we never retire?

  • What is Chapel Perilous?

  • What is a reality tunnel?

  • How do you surf reality?

  • How does tradition keep us sane?

  • How should we think about death?

  • What is the difference between death and dying?

  • What is the Tibetan bardo? 

  • What kind of games should we strive to play in life?

  • What is the purpose of play?

  • What was the original vision for the internet?

  • What is the true meaning of the Sabbath in today’s world?

  • Why is Torah magical?

Notable quotes from douglas rushkoff:

“Declaring oneself human first is a gauntlet to so many different communities.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“Being human is a team sport.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“Bitcoin itself has turned into a speculative pyramid scheme. It’s a technology that seems hell bent on burning the planet.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“Bitcoin uses 5% of the planet’s energy right now. More than many nations.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“If we want to develop, we’re going to have to learn to forgive people of today for not being developed tomorrow.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“We’re going to have to grant each other slack otherwise every step of progress is an excuse to out and cancel somebody who hadn’t made that step yesterday.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“Once you have difference, you have preference.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“We are learning to only trust facts. And what we are not able to do is trust one another.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“The mechanisms for building trust are very biological and social in nature.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“The less organically we are connected, the less trust we can have for one another.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“We are all living in our own reality tunnels. Yes there is an external reality but we also interpret that reality through the way we see things.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“To be alive is to be able to sustain paradox over time.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“There is nothing more intimate than bearing witness to death.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“Dying and death are two different things.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“The whole purpose of play is not to win which ends the play. The purpose of play is partnership and collaboration to keep the play going.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“They turned the internet into an advanced form of television. Surveillance and manipulation for advertisers.” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

“Take one day a week, outside capitalism, outside surveillance media and experience just yourself in this world” Douglas Rushkoff #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 82: Quentin Tarantino on preferring penny paperbacks and perfecting the process

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What was your first Tarantino experience?

I was thirteen years old in an unfinished basement watching Reservoir Dogs on VHS and can still remember how shook my friends and I were when we saw it.

Was that your first Tarantino experience? Or was it Pulp Fiction? Jackie Brown? Kill Bill? Inglourious Basterds? Django Unchained? The Hateful Eight? Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?

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Well, the Tarantino Experience continues with his brand new book Once Upon A Time In Hollywood which is the propulsive, addictive, roller-coastering movie novelization of his award-winning film. I absolutely loved it.

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Today we’re going to talk about: Quentin Tarantino’s favorite writer, how we thicken our skin in a thin-skinned world, how we can live confidently in a clickbait world, how one goes about writing a movie novelization, what an unlikely spinoff to Inglourious Basterds might look like, why we should avoid self censorship, what are Quentin’s thoughts on meme Quentin Quarantino, his three most formative books, and much, much, more …

I’m going to be in your left ear (from a furnace room at my family’s lake house rental!), Quentin’s going to be in your right ear (from his writing studio in Hollywood Hills!) and you will be sitting right between us.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 82 now …

What You'll Learn:

  • What’s the difference between releasing a movie and releasing a book?

  • What should we make of today’s ad-driven culture?

  • How do we build thick skin today?

  • Why is failure so important in the creation of art?

  • What do critics offer artists?

  • How do you decide what to do when you can do anything you want?

  • Why is the artistic path such a guide post?

  • Who was the first rock and roll idol?

  • What is the balance between progressivism and artistic freedom?

  • What principles should be followed when turning a movie into a book?

  • What are the artistic and relationship implications of having confidence?

  • Why is self-censorship limiting?

Notable quotes from Quentin Tarantino:

"Half the reason to get on an airplane is to take three books with you." Quentin Tarantino #3bookspodcast

“If you really put yourself out there, you can come up with great rewards. Or you can fall on your face, but that's when you're trying something.” Quentin Tarantino #3bookspodcast

“Without criticism it is all just advertising. It is all just flashy public relations.” Quentin Tarantino #3bookspodcast

“I've always believed that if you're writing a dialogue for characters and everything you know, you've got to tell the truth. And if people don't like it, or it's ugly, well sometimes you're not supposed to like it. Sometimes it's supposed to be ugly.” Quentin Tarantino #3bookspodcast

“I'm a human being like anybody else and my ego can get in the way, but that's usually when I'm making a bad decision and that's when I’m not being pure.” Quentin Tarantino #3bookspodcast

“Anybody who tattoos my characters, or a scene from my movie on their person for all time, they have a license other people don't have.” Quentin Tarantino #3bookspodcast

“When it comes to the printed page, just do not censor yourself. If you've got a story to tell, tell that story. Don't bend it to society. Don't bend it to the public.” Quentin Tarantino #3bookspodcast

“You can write a book about a perfect son of a bitch as long as the son of a bitch is interesting.” Quentin Tarantino #3bookspodcast

Connect with quentin:

  • (Watch his movies! He’s not on social media)

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Chapter 81: Dave Eggers on surreptitious spying in the snares of surveillance

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I discovered Dave Eggers in the late 90s when the Internet was all belts and pinions and the only two comedy websites that I remember reading were The Onion and McSweeney’s.

The Onion’s site was the notorious outcropping of a campus comedy newspaper from Wisconsin and McSweeney’s was founded by a publishing dynamo Whiz Kid named Dave Eggers who’d worked at places like Wired and Might Magazine, which he’d cofounded out in San Francisco.

In 2000 Dave’s ‘anti-memoir’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius came out and, no big deal, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. I loved the book and the seemingly endless creative fireworks Dave was capable of producing.

What happened in the twenty years since?

Well today Dave Eggers is one of the most celebrated writers in the world — he’s written bestsellers like The Circle, A Hologram For The King, Zeitoun and won or been nominated for endless awards including the TED Prize, The Salon Book Award, Time’s 100 Most Influential People, The National Book Critics Circle Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, and the list goes on.

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Dave is also co-founder of 826 National which is a non-profit dedicated to tutoring and helping students age 6 - 18 with writing. (The organization helps over 100,000 students a year.) Oh, and Dave’s written screenplays like Away We Go, together with his wife Vendela Vida, and The Wild Things, the Spike Jonze-directed adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

Is that it? No! He’s also a painter. His art has been exhibited at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit, The Nevada Museum of Art, The Biennial of the Americas and many other art galleries around the world. More recently, his training as an artist was put to use in a fabulously quirky book called Ungrateful Mammals.

His latest book The Museum of Rain is about to release. I read it and loved it and was so excited to talk to him about it.

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He called in from a landline for our chat because he is known for being off the grid. No wifi and no smartphone!

I was nervous and, to help the interview along, I completely mismanaged my time, so the whole thing may or may not dissolve into complete disarray by the end. But we somehow still managed to discuss: spying, life without smart phones, the ethics of Alexa, how to get boys to read, cheering for the underdog, the problem with Rotten Tomatoes, the joys of old old laptops, the tradeoff between convenience and surveillance, making art in an algorithmic society, and of course the incredible Dave Eggers’ three most formative books…

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 81 now …

What You'll Learn:

  • What are the trade-offs between surveillance and convenience?

  • Why do we give away our privacy so easily?

  • How do we figure out which companies to trust?

  • How can we help kids find their way to books on their terms?

  • How do we carve out mental space for ourselves?

  • How do we make art and ignore the algorithm? 

  • How do we consume art?

  • What is particular about the podcast art form?

  • How does great art shine in today’s shallow world?

  • What is the problem with Rotten Tomatoes?

  • And much, much, more

Notable quotes from dave eggers:

“I got everything I sort of wanted from technology in the nineties.” Dave Eggers #3bookspodcast

“I just object to having to maintain a constant relationship with a company that you're supposed to just buy something from. I like it when you buy something and you own it and it's yours but these things where you are on a constant tether I find really inhumane and very oppressive." Dave Eggers #3bookspodcast

"People are willing to sacrifice privacy to look up the weather instead of looking out the window. I can't figure out the trade off between convenience and surveillance.” Dave Eggers #3bookspodcast

“We don't necessarily realize how quickly we have evolved and how quickly we have suspended our idea of right to privacy for our right to know.” Dave Eggers #3bookspodcast

“Don't worry if your boy is not reading chapter books, the same way that some other kids are because, you know, boys are just 90% energy. They have a hard time sitting still. They're wanting to sort of explore the world in different ways, usually physically and learning a lot with experiential stuff, touching, running.” Dave Eggers #3bookspodcast

“You’ve got to meet readers, whoever they are, where they are.” Dave Eggers #3bookspodcast

“Great work will get passed around hand to hand.” Dave Eggers #3bookspodcast

“I think everybody has that writer that sort of speaks in the voice that is in your head.” Dave Eggers #3bookspodcast

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Dear listeners, I was notified after this chapter was recorded that The Museum of Rain’s audio book would be published by McSweeney’s and not Scribd. I wasn’t told why and I didn’t ask. Suffice to say, if you are looking for the audio or hardcover copy of The Museum of Rain, head over to McSweeney’s…- Neil

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Chapter 80: Kristin Neff on allowing, accepting, and applying anger artfully

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Are you ready for a brain workout?

Are you ready for a mind expanding conversation with the incredible Dr. Kristin Neff?

Kristin received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in moral development and followed it up with a post doc at the University of Denver studying self concept development and now she’s working as an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

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During Kristin’s last year of graduate school she became interested in Buddhism and has been practicing meditation in the Insight Meditation tradition ever since. While doing her post-doctoral work, she decided to conduct research on self-compassion – a central construct in Buddhist psychology and one that had not yet been examined empirically.

Kristin is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, creating a scale to measure the construct almost 20 years ago. She is the author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, and the brand new book Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive.

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Together with Dr. Chris Germer she developed a training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. They co-authored The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook as well as Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals. She is also co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Mindful Self-Compassion.

In addition to her books and training program, Kristin has written over fifty academic journal articles and chapters on the topic of Self-Compassion over the past twenty years. And this is not egghead up in the ivory tower stuff. Her work has been cited over 35,000 times!

I also recommend you check out self-compassion.org to find a ton of other work like resources, instruments, practices, and of course guided meditations.

My wife Leslie joined me in the basement for this conversation because it’s through her that I first discovered Kristin’s work.

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We sit down and discuss how you can embrace your tender and fierce sides, regrets, how to wield anger as a tool, the phrase “is this being used in the sense of harm or preventing harm?”, owning singledom, the difference between spinsters and bachelors, gender norms, and of course Dr. Kristin Neff’s 3 most formative books.

Join me as we flip the page into Chapter 80 …

What You'll Learn:

  • How can meditation help us navigate mistakes?

  • What is tender versus fierce self compassion and how do they alleviate suffering?

  • What do #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and self-compassion have in common?

  • How we can channel our anger constructively?

  • Why is female anger perceived differently than male anger?

  • Who is the Goddess Kali?

  • How can anger and love co-exist?

  • How can we teach our kids to be angry in a constructive way?

  • How can we separate ego and anger?

  • What are the benefits of anger?

  • How are women socialized to view their worth through relationships?

  • Why are social systems still so sexist?

  • What does Buddhism teach us about love?

  • Why is there no male word for spinster?

  • What should men do to embrace their tender side?

  • How is self-compassion contagious?

  • How do we embrace our imperfections?

  • How should we build self esteem?

  • What are the three critical components of self-compassion?

  • What is a self-compassion break?

Notable quotes from Dr. Kristin neff:

“Unfortunately, I think for a lot of reasons, we are much more comfortable giving compassion to others than we are to ourselves.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Sometimes we need to get angry when that anger is harnessed to alleviate suffering.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Women are so socialized not to get angry. Men, it’s fine to get angry. People respect you. They think you're powerful. They’re convinced by you. Women, they think you're crazy. They think you're mean. They don't like you. They aren't convinced by you." Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Anger wasn't a problem. It was my superpower.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

The energy of anger is a force of love. This desire to fight injustice, for instance. If you aren't angry at what's going on in the world, you are asleep!” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

"Anger without love is hate. But love without anger is hollow and sugarcoated.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“I'm not going to live my life trying to have other people like me; I’m going to like myself." Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Anger is a face of love.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Men are socialized to be fierce and not tender. Women are socialized to be tender and not fierce. It harms both.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Self-compassion is contagious if we model it out loud.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Strength comes from accepting your imperfection just as much as it comes from success.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

It's not okay in our society to be average, which is logically impossible because by definition, most of us are average.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

“Self-esteem is a fair-weather friend. Self-compassion is a constant friend.” Dr. Kristin Neff #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 79: Yuyi Morales on Mexican massacres and the magic of Márquez

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“The Ys sounds like Js,” Yuyi Morales tells me when I ask for the correct way to pronounce her name. It’s embarrassing to ask but my detective work online resulted in a half dozen different options.

Yuyi is a Mexican-American children’s book author and illustrator. She was born in Mexico and raised amongst giant grandmothers, mossy house walls, and rampaging feral gardens, fostering a strong bond with magical stories that ran in her family as a child.

Today she is known for her incredible children’s books which combine powerful spare language and sumptuous complex imagery.

She has written books like, Dreamers, Niño Wrestles the World, Just a Minute, Viva Frida, Little Night, Just In Case and her brand new book coming out in September called, Bright Star (I suggest you pre-order it!). It tells the story of a fawn making her way through a border landscape, teeming with flora and fauna native to the region. A gentle empowering voice encourages her to face her fears when she comes across an obstacle in the form of an insurmountable barrier.

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A lot of her work has these themes running through it — immigration, pilgrimage, journeying, discovery. It’s no wonder she is one of the most decorated children’s books author in the world. At last count she’s won twenty-nine awards including the Pura Belpré Medal, the Americas Award for Children and Young Adult Literature, the California Book Award, the Tomas Riviera Award and the Caldecott Honor. For those of you who know the children’s books world well, the Caldecott is the top prize! She is the first Latina to ever be a Caldecott recipient.

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Let’s strap in to talk about the burdens of colonialism, Mexican artistry, introducing books to book deprived communities, magic realism, community feminism, teen prostitution, dirty cops, living in books, making the world a better place, and, of course, the wonderful Yuyi Morales’s three most formative books.

Let’s head down to Veracruz, Mexico. Feel that sun on your face, picture yourself on a beach, grab a drink, lay out a towel, and stare into the sea and the surf with me.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 79 …

What You'll Learn:

  • What is Xalapa like?

  • What is the state of Mexico today?

  • What are the burdens of colonialism?

  • What is community feminism? 

  • How much are books in Mexico?

  • What is magic realism?

  • What motivated the student uprisings of 1968 in Mexico City?

  • What was La Noche de Tlatelolco?

  • Why do Mexican students feel criminalized?

  • What must we change in our culture to allow children to thrive?

  • Why must we change our paternalistic views on immigration?

  • What can we learn from children?

  • How can we organize books by our emotional state?

  • What is storytelling?

Notable quotes from yuyi morales:

“We still carry an identity that has to do with the superiority of certain people and the inferiority of others.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“I’m living an idyllic life. I live in books. I am all day thinking of stories.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“Having a book is not something that usually happens in our lives, especially not for children because children's books in Mexico are really expensive compared to what a family might earn working.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“As any child I was full of wisdom and knowledge.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“That thing that I thought I wasn’t, that book showed me I was wrong, that book showed me that in fact I love books.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“I really want to be part of something that allows us to break and unlearn all this culture of servitude where children have to respect elders and have to be part of these dynamics and where they just are vulnerable, vulnerable, vulnerable until we kill their spirit and then we make them be more like us.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“I really want to see what children have to teach us. I really want to see what's the world that they are going to build.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“One of the things that is very important to me is about how we create our own story, but it's also about how we respect people as we are already, as we are right now.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“I want so much to separate from this view that sees immigrants as people who need help and charity because that is not the real picture, because that's just a little very narrow way of seeing immigrants.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“We cannot keep seeing  immigrants or children or teenagers as people who need to be repaired. They are not deficient.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“We don't need children to change and become something better. They are already the perfection that we can aspire to.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

“What I know now is that we are all brimming with stories and we need to pull those stories out, even if they don't get published. Publishing is just one thing that can happen. But for the stories and for books to exist, we only need that we create them, that we tell them.” Yuyi Morales #3bookspodcast

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Chapter 78: Louis Sacher on sideways stories from Salinger to Steinbeck

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I was a tiny and skinny kid with thick glasses at my public school in the suburbs of Toronto in the early 80s. I was pretty lonely and definitely hadn’t found my way. One day my librarian Ms. Ferrell handed me a book called Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar.

The book single-handedly turned me into a reader.

I had never read a book that was funny, absurd, choppy that just kept me flipping, flipping, flipping. I loved the book. I fell into the book. I read it again and again and again and still have multiple copies on my bookshelf today. (A small count towards the nine million copies sold.) In 2010 when The Book of Awesome came out I wrote in the Acknowledgements: “To Louis Sachar, for writing Sideways Stories from Wayside School and teaching a nerdy kid to to fall in love with reading.”

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Louis Sacher was born in East Meadow, New York in 1954 and moved to California when he was 9. He liked school but was not much of a reader until he fell into the works of J.D.Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut. He started studying at Ohio University but left to go move back with his mom after his father sadly passed away in his first semester. Later on he enrolled at Berkeley majoring in Economics.

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One day, on campus, he caught sight of a young girl passing out flyers. The flyers read: “Help - Teachers Aides Wanted at Hillside Elementary - Earn 3 course credits.” It struck him as a sweet deal. No homework, no term papers, no tests. He signed up.

He soon found himself both in the classroom and on the school playground, known to the kids as “Louis the Yard Teacher”. He loved it. And it ended up changing his life.

His time at the local public school inspired him to write Sideway Stories from Wayside School. He even named the kids in the book after real kids he taught. It published in 1978 though did not make a loud splash. No fanfare. So Louis went on to Law School and practiced law for 10 years — all the while writing children’s books on the side.

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His writing finally took off in 1989. He quit law to write full time and is now one of the best known children’s authors in the world. (Although I’m a Sideways junkie he’s probably sold even more copies of Holes which won him both the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and the Newbery Medal and — no biggie — was made into a giant blockbuster film, too.)

I was delighted to sit down with a childhood idol. He called us up from the suburbs of Austin, Texas and we talked about absurdity, wooing readers, drinking urine, literary heroes, celebrity culture, writing structure, The Shawshank Redemption, wrestling with doubt, and how to live a quiet life.

Let’s flip the page into Chapter 78 now…

What You'll Learn:

  • What kind of reader do writers think about as they write?

  • Are writers still heroes today?

  • What made the 1960s such a special time of upheaval?

  • How do we live a quiet life in today’s world?

  • How can writers maintain humility?

  • How does one separate commercial success from what you do next? 

  • How do authors use their craft to skip time smartly in their work?

  • How do you make a good movie from a book?

  • How do some authors cultivate friendship with their readers?

Notable quotes from Louis sachar:

“When I first started writing children's books, I remember thinking that my goal was to bring the same love to reading that I get out of the authors I love.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

“I’m not trying to write something super successful, I am just trying to return to my roots and do what I do as a writer and hopefully it will reach a lot of people.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

“I still have doubts when I'm writing. I still struggle with each book. And, you know, I'm still trying to get that reader to turn the page.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

“One of the hardest things as an author is getting to the good parts of the story.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

“The reader doesn't want to read the boring stuff any more than I want to write it.” Louis Sachar #3bookspodcast

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