A new appreciation

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

As I wrote in Keep Going, “Lists bring order to the chaotic universe.”

Each Friday, no matter how chaotic the universe is, it gives me great pleasure to send you a list of 10 things I think are worth sharing. Here’s this week’s list:

1. “Get off the Internet and read a book. Read it in paperback or hardcover. Read a digital version. Listen to it read out loud to you by the author or by a voice actor. I do not care. But read a book. This is the literacy initiative we need right now: actually f—ing reading.” (To help you get started, here’s a free zine about how to read more.)

   
   

2. “These books are good.” John Warner shared The Los Angeles Times’ 30 best nonfiction books of the last 30 years. I’ve only read 9 of them, but I can recommend every one: William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days, David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dave Cullen’s Columbine, Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, Patti Smiths’ Just Kids (which inspired a section of Steal Like an Artist), Stephen King’s On Writing (every writing book is good!), Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. (That last one is on my list of 21st century books with pictures.)
   
   

3. I’ve only read 7 of the 30 best fiction books of the past 30 years, but, again, I can recommend them all: Susan Collins’ The Hunger Games (my 12-year-old just read the whole series and we watched the movies together), Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others, Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo, and Richard Powers’ The Overstory.
   
   

4. True of books and people: Your next best friend is probably someone you already know.
   
   

5. Pop Dad: Walter Martin did a special episode about listening to pop radio with his daughters and then he shared a “My Life in Pop Radio” playlist where he picked a favorite pop song from every year of his life. I thought this would be a really fun prompt, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be once I passed the age of, oh, twenty! (Recent years were particularly bewildering: My boys don’t listen to pop! They play me video game music and 80s songs I already know that have become memes.) Still, I pushed on and made my own playlist.
   
   Try it — it’s fun! If you get one you’d like to share, drop it in the comments:
   
   

   
   And while I’m on the subject of pop nostalgia: Here’s a list of the most “CD album” albums ever, ranked. (It’s true: you must listen to Dookie on CD.)
   
   

6. TV Dad: Phillip Maciak is my favorite TV critic these days. He’s writing a book on the Dad in popular culture and making a mixtape as he goes along. (A practice I approve of!) We binged the ER reboot The Pitt partly on his recommendation and now we’re continuing the medical TV theme with This is Going To Hurt and Michelle Williams in Dying For Sex.
   
   

7. “No. I am your father.” For pizza night tonight we’re finishing the original Star Wars trilogy with Return of the Jedi. May the 4th be with you! (Here’s a list of 10 thoughts I have about Star Wars.)
   
   

8. “I was surprised when I heard Criterion was doing Armageddon. I didn’t think of it as that kind of movie when we did it. In retrospect now, I feel like maybe my best work in my career is the commentary on this disc… and it’s because I didn’t know any better than to be really honest.” Ben Affleck in the Criterion Closet.

   
   

9. RIP writer Joshua Clover. Here’s a lovely remembrance from his friend, Elizabeth McCracken.
   
   

10. Your assignment this week, especially “if you belong to the category of people psychologists call ’insecure overachievers’ […] the sort who works hard, gets stuff done, and impresses others with your achievements – but that to some degree, for whatever combination of reasons to do with upbringing, culture or DNA, you do it all because you feel that otherwise you won’t quite have earned your right to exist on the planet.” Be a disappointment!
    

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xoxo,

Austin

PS. Here’s an extra blackout poem about spring, just because: