The Books I Read In December

00:00:00.000 | [intro music]

00:00:04.880 | The new year means, as is our new tradition here on the podcast, it is time to go over

00:00:10.380 | my reading list.

00:00:12.320 | So as long-time listeners know, my target is usually to read about five books per month,

00:00:18.080 | and we've started the habit of at the beginning of each new month reviewing the books I read

00:00:23.160 | during the past month.

00:00:24.160 | So now it is time to talk about the five books I read in December 2021.

00:00:32.320 | Are you ready for this, Jesse?

00:00:33.320 | I'm ready.

00:00:34.320 | Let's go.

00:00:35.320 | All right.

00:00:36.320 | So the first book I completed in that month was How Star Wars Conquered the Universe by

00:00:45.200 | Chris Taylor.

00:00:47.300 | This is basically a George Lucas biography that has some pop culture reporting on the

00:00:53.960 | Star Wars phenomenon.

00:00:54.960 | Now, you might remember this, Jesse.

00:00:56.600 | This was controversial.

00:00:57.720 | We talked about this back in December when I was reading it.

00:01:00.960 | I asked the listeners, "Is it okay that I am skipping the chapters that are about the

00:01:09.640 | cultural reception of Star Wars?"

00:01:11.360 | So early on, the book started going back and forth.

00:01:14.600 | It would be a chapter from the timeline of George Lucas's career, so biography.

00:01:20.120 | And then it would switch to a chapter that would be about, "Here's a group of guys that

00:01:23.960 | dress up like stormtroopers and who they are and what's that like."

00:01:28.880 | I was not so interested in the cultural stuff.

00:01:30.880 | I wanted the biography.

00:01:31.880 | This is part of my ongoing effort to—my movie effort.

00:01:35.720 | I'm reading book after book about various people in the movie industry for some weird

00:01:38.840 | reason.

00:01:39.840 | So I asked the audience if it was okay if I skipped that.

00:01:42.400 | Jesse, you gave me the thumbs up on that, I believe, if I'm remembering.

00:01:45.480 | Yeah, that was okay.

00:01:46.480 | That was okay.

00:01:47.480 | Well, so here's the thing.

00:01:49.680 | I have more defense for my approach because he stopped—the author, Chris Taylor, stopped

00:01:54.280 | doing that switching before, I don't know, two-thirds of the way into the book.

00:01:59.480 | And so it became straight biography, really, for the end of it.

00:02:02.040 | So in the end, I probably only skipped, I don't know, 30% of the material.

00:02:07.680 | So I'm going to count that.

00:02:10.000 | So as I mentioned, this is part of my random project to really dive into the film industry.

00:02:18.000 | This is maybe the fourth or fifth book I've read in a row that is on that topic.

00:02:22.720 | I'm not sure why this is interesting so much, but it really has been this fall.

00:02:25.840 | I really wanted to learn about George Lucas, having finished the biography of Steven Spielberg

00:02:29.960 | the month before.

00:02:31.960 | And a few things I learned.

00:02:34.760 | One, Lucas was a really good director.

00:02:38.920 | So in this scene, there's this scene centered around USC where there was Lucas and there

00:02:44.280 | was Coppola, and Spielberg wasn't at USC, but he was in their circle.

00:02:48.760 | Scorsese was in their circle, among some others.

00:02:52.720 | Brian De Palma was in their circle.

00:02:54.440 | So it's this big group of directors, and they all knew each other.

00:02:58.800 | In that circle, Lucas was considered a hotshot.

00:03:03.400 | So he had this great animated student short that won a bunch of awards and put him on

00:03:08.760 | the map.

00:03:09.760 | Like, wow, Lucas is the guy that he's the auteur.

00:03:11.560 | He's the guy with the vision.

00:03:13.080 | And then he did the student version of THX, which also blew people away.

00:03:17.360 | So I think people didn't realize that about Lucas.

00:03:20.160 | Coppola really was trying to get Lucas to direct Apocalypse Now.

00:03:26.040 | But Lucas decided to do Star Wars instead, basically.

00:03:29.120 | So he was considered like the artistic guy.

00:03:31.920 | So that's kind of interesting.

00:03:34.560 | The other thing I found out about Lucas is, like these other guys, timing is important.

00:03:39.240 | Him and Spielberg came up just as the movie industry was changing, just as they were leaving

00:03:45.140 | the studio system.

00:03:46.640 | So Coppola's first movie was Finnegan's Rainbow, which was a classic studio soundstage movie.

00:03:53.160 | Then he did The Godfather.

00:03:54.400 | So it was like right as they were transitioning away from the studio system.

00:03:57.880 | And they invented this idea of the blockbuster, where you could have a movie that appealed

00:04:02.320 | to all these different age groups and could be in 3,000 theaters and make all this money.

00:04:06.440 | And so their timing was right.

00:04:09.120 | They were talented.

00:04:11.160 | And Lucas, even more so than Spielberg, had a relentless go-big ambition.

00:04:19.520 | So if he was going to do a movie, just like a student movie, he was going to do THX student

00:04:23.560 | movie, he was going to find a way to get access to an abandoned military base and push the

00:04:29.560 | setting, push the technology.

00:04:32.440 | He was going to make a movie where you're going to say, "Wow, this is a lot bigger than

00:04:36.520 | I thought someone with that budget could do."

00:04:39.240 | And that was the approach that made Star Wars big.

00:04:42.320 | He was like, "We're going to invent new technology for the special effects.

00:04:44.920 | It's going to be bigger than anyone's ever seen."

00:04:47.960 | Clearly James Cameron picked up that torch from Lucas after the fact.

00:04:52.000 | So anyways, that's what I learned about Lucas, is this guy was incredibly talented, incredibly

00:04:56.520 | ambitious.

00:04:57.520 | He was going to do everything bigger than anyone had ever done it before, and really,

00:05:02.200 | really focused.

00:05:03.200 | Also, very rich.

00:05:04.200 | I don't know if you know that.

00:05:05.200 | Yeah, he's like a billionaire, isn't he?

00:05:06.200 | Yeah, he's a billionaire.

00:05:07.200 | Were you a Star Wars guy, Jesse?

00:05:08.200 | I've seen some of the movies, not all of them.

00:05:09.200 | Probably not as much as you are.

00:05:10.200 | Is Lucas and Spielberg friends?

00:05:11.200 | Yeah, yeah, they were friends.

00:05:12.200 | They all knew each other.

00:05:13.200 | And they were going back and forth.

00:05:14.200 | It's hard to overestimate how much money they were making.

00:05:15.200 | And I think that's what made Star Wars so popular.

00:05:16.200 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:05:17.200 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:05:18.200 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:05:19.200 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:05:20.200 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:05:46.160 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:06:04.040 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:06:33.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:07:00.560 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:07:28.040 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:07:55.520 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:08:23.720 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:08:52.240 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:21.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:23.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:25.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:27.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:29.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:31.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

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00:09:37.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:39.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:41.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:43.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:45.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:47.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

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00:09:51.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:53.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:55.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:57.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:09:59.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:01.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:03.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:05.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:07.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:09.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:11.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:13.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:15.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:17.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:19.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:21.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:23.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:25.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:27.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:29.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:31.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:33.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:35.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:37.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:39.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:41.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:43.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:45.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:47.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:49.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:51.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:53.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:55.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:57.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:10:59.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:01.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:03.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:05.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:07.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:09.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:11.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:13.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:15.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:17.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:19.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:21.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:23.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:25.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:27.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:29.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:31.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:33.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:35.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:37.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:39.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:41.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:43.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:45.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:47.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:49.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:51.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:53.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:55.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:57.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:11:59.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:01.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:03.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:05.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:07.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:09.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:11.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:13.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:15.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:17.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:19.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:21.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:23.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:25.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:27.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:29.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:31.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:33.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:35.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:37.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:39.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:41.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:43.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:45.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:47.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:49.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:51.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:53.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:55.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:57.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:12:59.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:01.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:03.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:05.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:07.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:09.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:11.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:13.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:15.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:17.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:19.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:21.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:23.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:25.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:27.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:29.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:31.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:33.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:35.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:37.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:39.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:41.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:43.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:45.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:47.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:49.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:51.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:53.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:55.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:57.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:13:59.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:01.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:03.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:05.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:07.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:09.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:11.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:13.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:15.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:17.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:19.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:21.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:23.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:25.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:27.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:29.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:31.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:33.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:35.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:37.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:39.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:41.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:43.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:45.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:47.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:49.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:51.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:53.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:55.080 | I think that's what made it so popular.

00:14:57.080 | I love that idea of having land with a name.

00:14:59.080 | I love that idea of having land with a name.

00:15:01.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:03.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:05.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:07.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:09.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:11.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:13.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:15.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:17.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:19.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:21.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:23.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:25.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:27.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:29.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:31.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:33.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:35.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:37.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:39.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:41.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:43.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:45.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:47.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:49.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:51.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:53.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:55.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:57.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:15:59.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:01.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:03.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:05.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:07.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:09.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:11.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:13.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:15.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:17.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:19.080 | I think this one's called Goose Hill.

00:16:21.080 | - Well, somewhere there, hopefully you'd have a writing shed

00:16:23.080 | so that wouldn't get burned down,

00:16:25.080 | so you could just escape to there.

00:16:27.080 | - Yeah. Well, that is my dream, is I want a writing shed,

00:16:29.080 | and I don't have room for a writing shed.

00:16:31.080 | and I don't have room for a writing shed.

00:16:33.080 | It is a dream of mine, so I need...

00:16:35.080 | I was having this conversation.

00:16:37.080 | For real, I was having this conversation

00:16:39.080 | with two different people in the last month,

00:16:41.080 | writers, who have a getaway plot.

00:16:43.080 | writers, who have a getaway plot.

00:16:45.080 | It's kind of an interesting model.

00:16:47.080 | A place they go...

00:16:49.080 | It's not like a large cultivated land,

00:16:51.080 | and it's not nice, it's quiet.

00:16:53.080 | and it's not nice, it's quiet.

00:16:55.080 | And they have a place to write.

00:16:57.080 | So I have a writer I was talking to who lives

00:16:59.080 | right outside New York City in a town that's kind of like Tacoma Park,

00:17:01.080 | and about 90 minutes up 87,

00:17:03.080 | he has some land,

00:17:05.080 | I guess that'd be like the southern Cascades.

00:17:07.080 | There's a little writing shed.

00:17:09.080 | And then another guy,

00:17:11.080 | a good friend of mine,

00:17:13.080 | was telling me,

00:17:15.080 | he lives in Chicago, in the city in a row house,

00:17:17.080 | and they just bought a plot

00:17:19.080 | that is

00:17:21.080 | four or five acres,

00:17:23.080 | near one of the... I don't know what the Great Lake is,

00:17:25.080 | near there, but whatever that is, Lake Michigan.

00:17:27.080 | It's not on the water, it's one lot in

00:17:29.080 | from the water. And it has like an old barn,

00:17:31.080 | and they're planting an orchard on it,

00:17:33.080 | and they can get there in 90 minutes as well.

00:17:35.080 | And he's building, he was showing me these plans,

00:17:37.080 | like a fireman

00:17:39.080 | forest fire watch tower.

00:17:41.080 | You know, like you would build,

00:17:43.080 | they used to build to look for forest fires,

00:17:45.080 | and at the top of this tower,

00:17:47.080 | so it's like an elevated gazebo.

00:17:49.080 | And that's where he's going to do his deep work,

00:17:51.080 | because you can see the lake.

00:17:53.080 | How does he get up there? Does he take an elevator?

00:17:55.080 | It could be a ladder.

00:17:57.080 | It's like icy up there.

00:17:59.080 | Well, you know, a little bit of danger gets the heart going.

00:18:01.080 | So I'm excited about that. So I don't know,

00:18:03.080 | maybe this is, I like this notion of having a getaway

00:18:05.080 | plot, that it's not super

00:18:07.080 | hard to maintain, you don't need like a really big house,

00:18:09.080 | but the key to a getaway plot

00:18:11.080 | is, I think it has to be

00:18:13.080 | non-trivially

00:18:15.080 | sub two hours away.

00:18:17.080 | If it's two hours or more,

00:18:19.080 | you can't go and write for a day

00:18:21.080 | and come back.

00:18:23.080 | Yeah, I see that. Two quick points.

00:18:25.080 | I, there's

00:18:27.080 | no doubt in my mind that you'll find something like that.

00:18:29.080 | I've been listening to your stuff for a long time, and I

00:18:31.080 | think you'll find it eventually, because you talk

00:18:33.080 | about it a lot. And then,

00:18:35.080 | secondly, in terms of self-help books,

00:18:37.080 | I was listening

00:18:39.080 | to Ferris' podcast recently, and

00:18:41.080 | he quoted you on giving him a

00:18:43.080 | suggestion for the self-help book

00:18:45.080 | that he read when he wasn't even

00:18:47.080 | going to read new books. So that was kind

00:18:49.080 | of cool. I just listened to that recently. Yeah,

00:18:51.080 | that's a good book. So it's Oliver Berkman's

00:18:53.080 | book, "4,000 Weeks."

00:18:55.080 | I talked about it, I

00:18:57.080 | told Tim about it, and then Tim

00:18:59.080 | read it, and then Tim did the thing that I

00:19:01.080 | think every publisher

00:19:03.080 | wishes would happen.

00:19:05.080 | I said, "Tim, I believe he,

00:19:07.080 | you listen to this, he released the first

00:19:09.080 | chapter, the audiobook

00:19:11.080 | version of the first chapter of Oliver's book

00:19:13.080 | on his podcast. Is that right?

00:19:15.080 | Yeah, I just listened to it, actually.

00:19:17.080 | Man, could you imagine having the first chapter

00:19:19.080 | of your audiobook on Ferris'

00:19:21.080 | podcast? So "4,000

00:19:23.080 | Weeks" is a cool book.

00:19:25.080 | I read it a long time ago, because I blurbed it.

00:19:27.080 | I read it back before it came

00:19:29.080 | out. And it's

00:19:31.080 | a great concept. It's called "Time Management for

00:19:33.080 | Mortals," and 4,000 weeks

00:19:35.080 | is roughly how many weeks you live.

00:19:37.080 | Oliver's whole point is

00:19:39.080 | most things you're not going to get done, you have a very

00:19:41.080 | limited amount of time.

00:19:43.080 | All these wild dreams you have, most of them won't happen.

00:19:45.080 | And be okay

00:19:47.080 | with that. And spend

00:19:49.080 | more time enjoying

00:19:51.080 | what you do have and what you can do,

00:19:53.080 | and don't be so aggressively goal-oriented.

00:19:55.080 | It was that book hit a nerve

00:19:57.080 | well before Ferris mentioned it.

00:19:59.080 | That thing was, yeah, that thing crushed it.

00:20:01.080 | I think it's one of the

00:20:03.080 | better-selling in our world of the people

00:20:05.080 | we know that write the sort of

00:20:07.080 | New Yorker-style self-help.

00:20:09.080 | He's a Guardian guy. He's a very smart guy.

00:20:11.080 | I think that book is the one that really crushed it this year.

00:20:13.080 | I'm very happy

00:20:15.080 | for Oliver. I've always loved his stuff, and he's been very

00:20:17.080 | kind to my stuff. So, circle

00:20:19.080 | goes around. All right, one more book.

00:20:21.080 | I finally read

00:20:23.080 | some Wendell Berry.

00:20:25.080 | So I don't know, do you know any...

00:20:27.080 | He's not as well-known as I thought.

00:20:29.080 | Have you heard of Wendell Berry?

00:20:31.080 | No. Cool guy.

00:20:33.080 | He's old now. He's in his 80s.

00:20:35.080 | But he went... grew up in Kentucky

00:20:37.080 | on a small farm.

00:20:39.080 | Went to New York City.

00:20:41.080 | Got educated. I don't know, Columbia

00:20:43.080 | or NYU or something. Got sort of overly educated.

00:20:45.080 | Got a writing job in New York City. He wanted

00:20:47.080 | to be a writer, and he was going to do the whole

00:20:49.080 | modern

00:20:51.080 | cosmopolitan writer thing,

00:20:53.080 | where you live in a city.

00:20:55.080 | You're not from somewhere. You're just

00:20:57.080 | observing things around

00:20:59.080 | the world. And

00:21:01.080 | for whatever reason, he's like, "I don't like this.

00:21:03.080 | I'm from Kentucky.

00:21:05.080 | I want to go back to Kentucky.

00:21:07.080 | I want Kentucky to be my muse.

00:21:09.080 | I want to be from a place and write about the place.

00:21:11.080 | I don't want to be just this

00:21:13.080 | abstraction writer that just

00:21:15.080 | is commenting on the world from a cosmopolitan

00:21:17.080 | detached place. I want to go back."

00:21:19.080 | So he moves back to Kentucky,

00:21:21.080 | gets a professorship at a small

00:21:23.080 | Kentucky college near

00:21:25.080 | where he grew up. Him and his wife

00:21:27.080 | buy... I think it's 12

00:21:29.080 | acres. Like a hobby farm.

00:21:31.080 | He grew up farming, but this

00:21:33.080 | is not a production farm. He's like, "We're going to live on

00:21:35.080 | 12 acres. I'm going to be a professor, and I'm

00:21:37.080 | going to write about Kentucky."

00:21:39.080 | And then another plot became

00:21:41.080 | available. "We should probably buy that."

00:21:43.080 | And then another plot became available after that. "We should probably

00:21:45.080 | buy that." And he ends up with

00:21:47.080 | a real production farm, 100-plus

00:21:49.080 | acre farm. And

00:21:51.080 | this is why he's awesome.

00:21:53.080 | He's like, "I'm not into this whole

00:21:55.080 | gasoline thing.

00:21:57.080 | I'm going to farm the way I learned to farm,

00:21:59.080 | which is teams of horses."

00:22:01.080 | And he still... I mean, he doesn't

00:22:03.080 | farm. He's 80 now. But all throughout

00:22:05.080 | his career, he never went

00:22:07.080 | to tractors. He farmed with horses.

00:22:09.080 | This guy's awesome. So he leaves

00:22:11.080 | New York to farm with

00:22:13.080 | horses this farm

00:22:15.080 | in Kentucky,

00:22:17.080 | rural Kentucky, and

00:22:19.080 | is a novelist

00:22:21.080 | poet, but mainly an essayist.

00:22:23.080 | And he writes essays. He

00:22:25.080 | writes a series of essays,

00:22:27.080 | Bill McKibben-style

00:22:29.080 | essays about the economy and the environment,

00:22:31.080 | and a very influential writer.

00:22:33.080 | And writes it from

00:22:35.080 | this farm where he doesn't own a computer

00:22:37.080 | and you can't read. If you want to talk to him, you have

00:22:39.080 | to call the farmhouse and come out

00:22:41.080 | to the farm. He's an awesome guy.

00:22:43.080 | And they just released the first

00:22:45.080 | definitive

00:22:47.080 | essay collection where they

00:22:49.080 | pulled together. It's called "The World Ending Fire."

00:22:51.080 | This came out in 2019. If you get

00:22:53.080 | it, you'll love it. And I think Nick Offerman,

00:22:55.080 | who I also love from Parks and Recreation,

00:22:57.080 | Ron Swanson, who by the way is a guy

00:22:59.080 | who lives in LA, is a working actor,

00:23:01.080 | but also has a giant woodworking

00:23:03.080 | wood shop in a light industrial

00:23:05.080 | warehouse in LA. And he spends a lot

00:23:07.080 | of time building canoes.

00:23:09.080 | Like Ron Swanson, he does the

00:23:11.080 | intro or the prologue. So on the audio book,

00:23:13.080 | Nick Offerman reads it. Anyways,

00:23:15.080 | so I read my first collection,

00:23:17.080 | full collection of Wendell Berry essays.

00:23:19.080 | Are you going to take a field trip out there and check it out?

00:23:21.080 | I should, man. This guy's awesome. He has an essay

00:23:23.080 | in there that I might write an

00:23:25.080 | essay about for my newsletter

00:23:27.080 | that's called "Why I Didn't Buy a Computer,"

00:23:29.080 | which is cool. And I think this was the

00:23:31.080 | '80s when he wrote this essay.

00:23:33.080 | And he's like, "Look, here's my rules for

00:23:35.080 | technology." And it's very much

00:23:37.080 | like I wrote about in Deep Work,

00:23:39.080 | where I go and I talk to a farmer, Forrest Pritchard,

00:23:41.080 | and say, "Farmers care.

00:23:43.080 | Farmers have

00:23:45.080 | pretty strict criteria

00:23:47.080 | for when they're going to spend money

00:23:49.080 | on a new tool, otherwise they'll go bankrupt.

00:23:51.080 | And we should have that same strict criteria when thinking about

00:23:53.080 | technology. We shouldn't just say, "I don't know.

00:23:55.080 | I heard

00:23:57.080 | about TikTok. I should probably use it."

00:23:59.080 | We should have a farmer's mindset. That was my point in

00:24:01.080 | Deep Work. It'd be like, "What's the value? What's the cost?

00:24:03.080 | Is there better ways to get that value?"

00:24:05.080 | Wendell Berry wrote this essay

00:24:07.080 | about this in the '80s. I didn't know about this. He gave

00:24:09.080 | this whole list of, "Here's how I decide whether

00:24:11.080 | or not to use a new technology, and

00:24:13.080 | the computer doesn't

00:24:15.080 | pass that test."

00:24:17.080 | He published it in Harper's.

00:24:19.080 | But what's cool about it is he got

00:24:21.080 | in trouble.

00:24:23.080 | The whole thing is in the essay collection.

00:24:25.080 | He wrote this essay.

00:24:27.080 | He's like, "I don't need a computer.

00:24:29.080 | See if you can see the part

00:24:31.080 | here we got in trouble." He's like, "Yeah.

00:24:33.080 | I write my things longhand, and my

00:24:35.080 | wife types them up, and

00:24:37.080 | we're good."

00:24:39.080 | That got him in a lot of trouble. In the essay

00:24:41.080 | collection,

00:24:43.080 | Harper's published a lot of these letters,

00:24:45.080 | and they published the letters in the essay collection.

00:24:47.080 | Then a lot of people got mad about that.

00:24:49.080 | They say, "Oh, well, you have a great technology

00:24:51.080 | called Wife, and that's how you actually blah, blah,

00:24:53.080 | blah." Then he wrote

00:24:55.080 | an essay in response.

00:24:57.080 | This is like analog

00:24:59.080 | Twitter. You're like Twitter, but if

00:25:01.080 | Twitter was in Harper's magazine, and there was

00:25:03.080 | a week between every ...

00:25:05.080 | He writes this thing in response, and he's

00:25:07.080 | like, "Basically, screw you. You don't know our

00:25:09.080 | family. You don't know how

00:25:11.080 | our marriage works, or this or that." He goes on this

00:25:13.080 | big, long, whatever.

00:25:15.080 | He's like, "Why are you all so defensive?

00:25:17.080 | I must have touched a nerve saying

00:25:19.080 | I don't need a computer, and you're all so mad at me.

00:25:21.080 | You're all techno-determinists, apologists."

00:25:23.080 | It's really interesting, this heated

00:25:25.080 | back and forth.

00:25:27.080 | This was kind of interesting. He introduces

00:25:29.080 | this

00:25:31.080 | very grounded in farming

00:25:33.080 | idea

00:25:35.080 | of home economics, which

00:25:37.080 | is quite different than what

00:25:39.080 | you would see in suburban D.C., where

00:25:41.080 | it's all

00:25:43.080 | salary, job,

00:25:45.080 | dual-income government families. He's like, "We

00:25:47.080 | have a

00:25:49.080 | home economy." It's a very farmer

00:25:51.080 | way of thinking about it, and that

00:25:53.080 | we all are ... Everyone

00:25:55.080 | in the family, me and my wife, we're all part of.

00:25:57.080 | We have this farm we run, and there's all these different

00:25:59.080 | things that have to happen, and this fence has to

00:26:01.080 | get repaired, and the milking has to happen,

00:26:03.080 | and the horses have to be fed. I don't know how

00:26:05.080 | it works. We're all just working on everything

00:26:07.080 | as part of keeping this

00:26:09.080 | very incorporated, this household economy

00:26:11.080 | functioning, which is a very

00:26:13.080 | pre ... When you're not thinking about salaried

00:26:15.080 | work, but I'm producing from land,

00:26:17.080 | it's the way you think. It's like we

00:26:19.080 | have endless things that have to happen that we're all

00:26:21.080 | working on and trying to keep collectively

00:26:23.080 | our farm running.

00:26:25.080 | He thought of his article writing,

00:26:27.080 | he just placed it in that same context. He's

00:26:29.080 | like, "Yeah, these articles that go

00:26:31.080 | out as part of what keeps the household economy

00:26:33.080 | running, we're all just part of it. I do

00:26:35.080 | some writing, she does some editing, we do some

00:26:37.080 | whatever. It's just like I

00:26:39.080 | put the staves on the fence,

00:26:41.080 | and you whitewash them." It was really interesting

00:26:43.080 | to see this

00:26:45.080 | clash that was happening. It's like

00:26:47.080 | a culture clash. He was coming

00:26:49.080 | from a world where

00:26:51.080 | you

00:26:53.080 | owned land, and

00:26:55.080 | that was your source of income. It was very ...

00:26:57.080 | You're a ...

00:26:59.080 | I don't know what the right term is, but like yeoman farmer

00:27:01.080 | type thing. I'm

00:27:03.080 | trying to make a living off of ... Our family's

00:27:05.080 | trying to make a living off of our land. We all work together

00:27:07.080 | to try to do it. He was coming from that mindset, but

00:27:09.080 | in the '80s, everything was shifting

00:27:11.080 | towards most people weren't on farms.

00:27:13.080 | Most people weren't running their own

00:27:15.080 | small businesses in town, where just the whole family

00:27:17.080 | works at it, the donut shop to keep it

00:27:19.080 | running. It was salaries,

00:27:21.080 | and it was typically dual income salaries.

00:27:23.080 | This whole discussion about work

00:27:25.080 | and meaning and

00:27:27.080 | who's working and not working,

00:27:29.080 | all of that was just beginning, and

00:27:31.080 | this "Why don't buy a

00:27:33.080 | computer?" came out, boom, right as that

00:27:35.080 | was happening. You could see in that frision

00:27:37.080 | this

00:27:39.080 | is when this huge cultural

00:27:41.080 | shift was happening. That was a cool

00:27:43.080 | part of the book, is in this essays and the letters

00:27:45.080 | and the back and forth, you can see these

00:27:47.080 | worlds colliding.

00:27:49.080 | In the collision, you actually got

00:27:51.080 | more insight than what any individual

00:27:53.080 | essay or letter was saying about.

00:27:55.080 | It was a very dialectical thing. It was really cool.

00:27:57.080 | In the collision of Barry with

00:27:59.080 | these letter writers in the '80s, you got more

00:28:01.080 | insight into the changing

00:28:03.080 | culture than you got

00:28:05.080 | from just reading any one individual

00:28:07.080 | essay about that period. I just wanted

00:28:09.080 | to point that out. It was a pretty cool part of the book.

00:28:11.080 | You should send him a letter, because

00:28:13.080 | earlier you were talking about how your friend saw you

00:28:15.080 | mention on Twitter, but this way you

00:28:17.080 | only get in touch with him if you send him

00:28:19.080 | a letter. That's literally how you get in touch with him,

00:28:21.080 | by the way. I know. You should do it.

00:28:23.080 | That's how reporters do it. That's how this essay book

00:28:25.080 | came together. You have to send him

00:28:27.080 | a letter, and then he may answer.

00:28:29.080 | He's very old now.

00:28:31.080 | Probably doesn't get much mail.

00:28:33.080 | Yeah. I wonder what that's like.

00:28:35.080 | If you only do letters... He probably liked getting mail.

00:28:37.080 | But it's the Internet age. Does he get a lot

00:28:39.080 | of... I'm sure he gets a lot of

00:28:41.080 | stuff from publicists,

00:28:43.080 | like books,

00:28:45.080 | where you blurb this, that type of stuff.

00:28:47.080 | Anyways, Barry's a cool guy.

00:28:51.080 | I'm going to read some more Barry.

00:28:53.080 | That's what I read in

00:28:55.080 | December 2021.

00:28:57.080 | I'm deep into working on January

00:28:59.080 | 2022 books, and we will check in

00:29:01.080 | at the end of this month with how

00:29:03.080 | my current reading

00:29:05.080 | is going.

00:29:07.080 | [music]

00:29:09.080 | (upbeat music)

00:29:11.660 | (upbeat music)

The Books I Read In December | 2021

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