3 Books With Neil Pasricha

Let’s flash back to Budapest Hungary in 1944 where a little baby boy named Gabor lay crying in his crib. He wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. His mother called the doctor who said, “All my Jewish babies are crying”.   Nazis had taken over the country and killed Gabor’s grandparents in Auschwitz. Gabor’s dad was put into forced labor and his aunt was missing. Today we understand that Gabor was experiencing trauma through his mother’s stress.   His father thankfully returned after the war and when he was 12 years old, the family moved to Canada. Gabor went to the University of British Columbia before becoming a high school english teacher through the 60s and early 70s and then returned to university to become a doctor in 1977. Gabor spent over 20 years practicing family and palliative care medicine in the downtown Eastside of Vancouver -- a neighbourhood with one of the world's highest concentrations of drug addiction.   Today Gabor is the bestselling author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Close Encounters with A

Five years ago I was invited down to Brooklyn to speak at an event called The Shine Movement. It was an intriguing soul-refueling combination of meditation, drumming, giving, and a few words by me. The event attracted a fascinating subculture of people and I felt slightly entranced meeting the man and mind behind it all: Light Watkins.   Light Watkins is someone I consider a master of spirit and mind. He grew up in Montgomery, Alabama (with siblings Candy, Trey, and Dusty!) in the 70s and 80s, traveled the world as a fashion model, and then worked as one of the most prominent yoga instructors in LA (including teaching future princesses). Deepak Chopra calls his meditation insights "simple and profound." Today Light has taught meditation to thousands of people from all walks of life in retreats and workshops around the world. He is the author of three bestselling books: The Inner Gym, Bliss More, and Knowing Where to Look. And each morning since 2016, Light has been sending out a daily dose of inspiration emai

Oh hey.    It’s the person who just dropped their phone on the bus right when the driver hit the gas and now the phone’s sliding across the sandy floor all the way to the back… Neil. Neil Pasricha. And now it is finally time for our much-anticipated 3 Books chapter with the one and only ... Alie Ward.   Alie is the Sacramento-raised youngest of 3 girls who grew up in the 80s listening to DadWard deliver the morning news from the local radio station. She spent her childhood playing with bugs and just being told by her parents, “Come back by sundown and don’t get tetanus.”   Alie fell in love with science and studied science and film in college. An unlikely but prophetic mix. She went on to win an Emmy for being CBS’s correspondent for Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation with Mo Rocco and was a host for Did I Mention Invention? on CW. She’s a consulting producer for the Barack and Michelle Obama-produced Netflix show Ada Twist Scientist and appears in the Netflix science series Brainchild and the science channel’s H

I want to make you dizzy.   I want to make you look up into the sky and comprehend, maybe for the first time, the darkness that lies beyond the evanescent wisp of the atmosphere, the endless depths of the cosmos, a desolation by degrees   These two lines begin an incredible poem called “Disorientation”... by Katie Mack.   Did you feel dizzy reading it? I did. I do!   What is the universe? Where did it come from? What was here before it? How long has it lasted? How long will it last? How could it ... end?   Do you remember being a little kid and it maybe suddenly hitting you that there was this overwhelming gigantic thing we were a part of that was almost too vast to even comprehend? I feel like a lot of us have that feeling. Sort of reminds me of this super-short clip from Annie Hall where 8-year old Alvy Singer is taken to the doctor by his mother because the vastness of the cosmos has suddenly hit him.   Why isn't he doing his homework? "What's the point?" he concludes.   That's one reaction. But if you're

Happy Equinox!   Today the sun is directly above the equator so no matter where you are the day and the night are around equal length.   Two equinoxes and two solstices give us four pause points between our regular scheduled lunar programming to drop a little bookmark in the midst of our epic journey about formative books.   Today I want share the two-minute morning practice I use to begin my day.   So: A number of years ago I was going through a tough time and found that I needed a way to ground myself and center myself, as well as my thoughts, in the morning. I was waking up without focus, with a lot of anxiety, and wasn’t in a very positive mindset. So I started this practice and then made a YouTube video about it -- which is this entire bookmark. That little practice and video turned into a number of national TV spots and a cover story in Harvard Business Review and a number of other videos that the algorithms loved more than mine and now it's turned into a journal that has sold a few hundred thousand

Buckle up!   Today we are flying down to hot, hot Austin, Texas where we’re going to grab three chairs on the grackle-filled patio of Mi Madre’s restaurant and order ourselves some enchiladas and #0 breakfast tacos before having lunch with the wise and wonderful Austin Kleon.   Austin in Austin — a treat! Austin Kleon is “a writer who draws” and the author of a number of my favorite books including Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work, and Keep Going. His books are kalaidoscopic collage-patchwork delights, focus on themes of creativity, are massive bestsellers and have sold over a million copies.   Austin has a wonderful well of wisdom at AustinKleon.com which is home to his new great Substack community and his endlessly arresting Friday Newsletter. (One of the few newsletters I open and read religiously every week!)   We are going to talk about: writer and reader energies, the Japanese word tsundoku, violence in America, dumb questions, the power of doodling, nature as a metaphor, car problems, Austin Kleon’

Kevin Kelly is a man of many titles.   Krista Tippett calls him a ‘philosopher technologist’, Tim Ferriss calls him ‘the world’s most interesting man’, and Stephen J. Dubner says simply, “If I was the Queen, I would want Kevin Kelly on my Privy Council.”   Kevin Kelly is the first person — ever! — to be hired online. When? 1983. For what job? A fascinating one! We’re going to talk about it. He dropped out of college after a year to spend ten years backpacking around Asia. (His photos have just been released in a wonderful paperweight-dwarfing book called Vanishing Asia.) In the same breath he might drop stories of spending time with the Amish just as easily as chatting with Google’s founders in the late 90s. His online home, kk.org, is a fountain of deeply insightful and wise blog posts, such as, 1000 True Fans and his annual bits of birthday advice (which are coming out as a book next year!)   Kevin also edited The Whole Earth Catalog, founded The Hacker’s Conference, and is Co-chair of the Board of the Long

What is your erotic potential? And how might you ... increase it? Online erotica? Mindful masturbation? Solo nude mirror practices? The answer is all of the above and much, much more.   To help guide us through the erotic bramblebush (erotic bramblebush? erotic bramblebush!) we are very lucky to sit down with the wise and wonderful Rebecca S. Kay.   Rebecca is a Sex Educator with over ten years of experience. She's been a sexual advisor at Planned Parenthood, the Sexual Education Centre at the University of Toronto and the Brandon Centre in London, England. She has studied Surrogate Partner Therapy with UK based ICASA and is currently obtaining her certification in Somatic Sex Education and Sexological Bodywork through the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education.   Rebecca's mission is to break down sexual stigma and build up people's relationships with their bodies, sexualities, and each other. She is guided by the belief that pleasure is an essential element of this work and that nurturing inti

Mohsin Hamid is one of the greatest writers of this generation.   He was born in 1971 in Lahore, Pakistan before moving to California at age 3 while his dad did a doctorate at Stanford. At age 9, in 1980, he moved back to Pakistan and remained there until he was 18 when he came back to the US to go to Princeton. He graduated summa cum laude and studied under novelists Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates. Mohsin's first novel, Moth Smoke (2000), told the story of an ex-banker and heroin addict in contemporary Lahore. His second, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), told the tale of a Pakistani man’s abandonment of his high-flying life in New York. (This was my first Mohsin Hamid book and I can't recommend it enough.) His third novel, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013), is my favorite -- it's a fascinating exploration of urbanization and global economic transformation ... wrapped in the guise of a self-help book ... written in the second person. An incredible feat. His fourth novel, Exit West (2017)

Happy full moon!   Hard to believe we are halfway through our fifth year of this epic pilgrimage.   Are you up for going to the Bronx to hang out on a book bus? What!? Well, a few months ago I got an email from 3 Booker Karen where she said “Hi Neil. I love this! Have you seen it?” The this was this video, going viral, about a woman in the Bronx trying to get funding to start up a bookstore on wheels.   I couldn't believe that the 1.6 million residents of Manhattan have 82 bookstores whereas the 1.4 million residents of the Bronx had ... one. That's it! One bookstore. Well, Latanya grew up in the Bronx and decided to do something about that. So she founded Bronx Bound Books -- a "bookstore that comes to you." Today we're going to hang out with her and Jerry, who's the proud driver of this bus, that serves underserved communities across New York.   We'll be hanging out in the storage locker parking lot of the (freshly painted!) bus with the 5 train ripping over the tracks behind us. We'll learn how Latanya and

Alok ("A-loke") Vaid-Menon was born in College Station, Texas in 1991 to parents from India and Malaysia.   When they were young they’d dress up in their mom and sister’s clothes and dance around the living room for all their extended family, including their Auntie Urvashi (a gender non-confirming lesbian of color and national activist). The entire room would clap and cheer them on over syrupy bowls of gulab jamon. But when they performed a similar Bollywood routine onstage at the school talent show at age six ... they got laughed at by the entire school. Thus began a shame-filled odyssey through pretending to live as a boy -- or, at least, male-presenting -- for many years. And it also began an astounding personal dialogue and examination around gender which they're helping to lead globally today.   Alok graduated summa cum laude from Stanford University with a Bachelors and Masters of Arts in feminest, gender, and sexuality studies. Stuffing their post-graduation work into boxes doesn't work but if forced t

Happy Summer Solstice! (and happy Winter Solstice!)   Have you noticed we're tilting further toward the sun compared to every other time of the year? While our Australian, Chilean, and Easter Islander friends are tilting further away? This means is time for another 3 Book bookmark -- our relatively recent innovation to add a little spice to our 333 chapters along the way. Sometimes a bookmark will be me on another podcast, sometimes it'll be me giving a speech, and sometimes, like this time, it'll literally just be a YouTube video I made years ago that's somehow struck a nerve online. Please enjoy "How to help someone with anxiety or depression."   If you'd like to spread the 3 Books love, please share online or drop us a 10-second review at this link.   Enjoy the bookmark and I'll see you on the New Moon with Alok Vaid-Menon!

Nancy Pearl is a Superhero Librarian.   One of our values on 3 Books is “Librarians and booksellers are doctors for the mind” and while we’ve hung out with a number of booksellers, Nancy is somehow our very first librarian!   How did we find Nancy? Well, 3 Booker Cindy Sharek left us a gushing voicemail at 1-833-READ-A-LOT singing Nancy’s praises and we were convinced. She’s won the Librarian of the Year Award, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, and, get this, has even been turned into an action figure!   Nancy is a frequent guest on NPR’s Morning Edition, has her own TV show called Book Lust with Nancy Pearl, and, as if all that wasn’t enough, is also a bestselling author with titles like George and Lizzie, Book Lust, and The Writer’s Library.   Nancy joined me from her home in Seattle and we talked about the role of the library today, the power of reading, the joy of meandering, the 4 Ps of books, which books help reluctant readers get their start, wha

Boniface Mwangi is a Nairobi-based social justice activist fighting for equity in his home country and abroad. In 2007 his photos of violence following the national election went viral and spawned global attention on political instability and corruption in Kenya.   He is the subject of the Sundance-award winning documentary Softie and the author of the photojournalism book Unbounded which has been hailed by Hilary Clinton and President Barack Obama.   Over two million people follow him @bonifacemwangi on Twitter and Facebook where he remarkably fearlessly calls attention to untold cases of abuse, corruption, and cronyism. For his work he has been beaten, arrested for “organizing a revolution”, and had his home burned down.   His 2014 TED Talk is called “The Day I Stood Alone” and in it he shares that he’s called a heckler, troublemaker, irritant, rebel, activist, and … the voice of the people. He continues to fight for justice every day alongside his wife Hellen Njeri Mwangi and their three children.   Bonif

Jonathan Haidt is the Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the author of bestsellers The Righteous Mind, The Happiness Hypothesis and The Coddling of the American Mind. He has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, selected as one of the Top 50 Thinkers in the world, and delivered four TED Talks.   I was lucky to be introduced to Jon by our mutual friend Roger Martin, our guest in Chapter 68.   We sit at his kitchen table to discuss his then-in-process 8000-word Atlantic cover story slammer After Babel: How Social Media Dissolved the Social Mortar of Society and Made America Stupid, which doubles as a sneak peak on the book he’s working on now.   I hope your mind is stretched like taffy as mine was when you listen to Jon. There’s a reason Roger Martin warned me “You’ll have to keep up with him. He thinks pretty quickly.” And yet he is incredibly kind, patient, and humble. A consummate teacher.   We discuss: hive culture, the binary divide, the need for

This is a very unique chapter!   It is a double chapter, in a way.   To begin with I was so lucky to interview Susan Cain at our very first live chapter of 3 Books at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. So many 3 Bookers came out and celebrated on a snowy night just before the pandemic began. (We had no idea!) At the time Susan was deep in the throes of writing her new book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole but as we discuss a lot of her work in process we didn’t want to scoop the book so held onto this conversation until it was ready for the world.   Well, it’s ready for the world! Bittersweet just came out and debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list! How did we celebrate? By having another conversation, of course! Susan and I partnered with the wonderful indie bookstore Magic City Books of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and just conducted a live book tour stop together.   So Chapter 102 of 3 Books is a double interview! Our first ever. It’s a before and after. Two live conversations with you h

The best movie I have seen in years is called Everything, Everywhere All At Once and it was written and directed by Daniels. Daniels? Yes, Daniels. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, to be specific. Two brilliant artists who met in college and began stitching together short films before working on music videos like Turn Down For What by DJ Snake and Lil John (over a billion views), Simple Song by The Shins, and Tongues by Joywave. Watch those to see their energy and magic.   Daniels made their feature-length debut at Sundance in 2016 with Swiss Army Man also known as the “Daniel Radcliffe farting corpse movie” and then followed it up with this twisting multiverse action flick Everything Everywhere All At Once starring Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis.   And how’s this arthouse flick (with a paltry $25 million dollar budget!) doing? Well, it is the highest rated film of the decade on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s being credited with bringing back multiplex crowds post-pandemic. And the pe

Welcome to Chapter 100!   Thank you for four years of this journey and conversation.   To mark the move into triple digits I thought we could do a reflection and visioning discussion … back in the basement with Leslie just like we did in Chapter 1.   We will discuss some highs and lows, lessons learned, current podcast challenges, and some dreams for the future.   Thank you for being a 3 Booker and joining this heart-forward community of book lovers, writers, makers, sellers, and librarians. Whether you’re a bibliomaniac (like Doug in Chapter 99!) or trying to peel yourself off your screen to read more (like I was!), welcome, welcome, thanks for coming, thanks for being here to discuss life’s biggest themes through the power of reading.   Join us for the Chapter 100 check-in and then let’s keep going…   What You'll Learn: How do we think about reflecting and visioning in the middle of big projects? How do we learn to accept imperfections? What are the pros and cons of creating something independent? H

Welcome to Bookmark #5.   Last year we started experimenting with the idea of releasing four extra episodes during the year to mark the spring and fall equinoxes, as well as the summer and winter solstices.   You may recall we released my guest appearance on Nora McInerny’s wonderful podcast, Terrible Thanks for Asking, we then released my SXSW Talk: Building Trust in Distrustful Times, we followed this up with my appearance on Ologies with Alie Ward and we released the annual Best Of 2021.   This year I am curious if the concept is something we should keep doing?   For me, this is another lens, another angle, another perspective to compliment this walk that we are on together, navigating this epic 15 year chapter by chapter journey.   Today I am excited because I am releasing a podcast episode that has done remarkably well: my guest appearance on The Knowledge Project hosted by Shane Parrish of Chapter 60 and the genius behind Farnam Street. He just put out a tweet saying it crossed the mark of 500,000 downl

Just dial 416-482-5665 and chances are Doug Miller will pick up the phone at Doug Miller Books, an incredible stuffed-to-the-ceiling bookstore that represents a mere sliver of the over 500,000-book collection of self-described bibliomaniac Doug Miller. Why do I say chances are? Well, Doug works in his shop 364 days a week. He comes mid-morning every day and shovels the front walks of six of his neighbors in Koreatown in Toronto, Canada.   I have known Doug Miller for over ten years and it was a rare treat to spend an afternoon with him, with you, and with (as you’ll hear) an ever-growing ‘shush’ of booklovers. As we we tip up against Chapter 100 of 3 Books — four years of this conversation! — I thought where better to spend time than in an incredible bookstore.   We discuss why publishers ‘hate’ authors and booksellers, bibliophilia as a lifestyle choice, processing grief, helping reluctant readers, and, of course, Doug Miller’s three most formative books.   I hope you enjoy this aural feast with the incredib