Weekend Guide: 04.16.2021
Book adjacent
Figuring out who you are as a reader can be an interesting journey. Deadheads would call this a long strange trip. The Dalai Lama would call it the path to enlightenment. It’s a route of your creation. For the learned - your own personal syllabus. Life is a highway.
Are you into history, fiction, or historical fiction?! What’s your pleasure? We all have a feeling of who we are as a reader. We have our lanes, and we try to swim in them as best we can 🏊🏼♂️. Sometimes pushing a bit deeper into the depths with some more obscure authors or difficult/heavy texts. Other times we find ourselves in the shallows (no Gaga) looking for an escape. Beach reads. ☀️
I tend to be heavy on the dark novel with short detours into non-fiction every now and again. Hundreds of books into my lifelong reading journey, i’m starting to form a pretty clear picture of what get’s me going. If you’ve been following my reccomendation guide here - you get the gist.
But where does the recommender get their recommendations?
I have my book guru friends whom I rely pretty heavily. A simple text “what are you reading?” opens up the possibility of me finding a new favorite. When in a bind, they never fall through. I’m sure you have one or two of these folks in your life. Send that text, baby!
I also listen to this one…podcast.
Over the past few years I have not missed an episode of Apology. There are only 18 of them but each conversation opens up a lot of doors. I’ve gotten a lot out of these. The host, Jesse Pearson, is super thoughtful and has seemingly read every book on planet earth. Somehow he still comes off as incredibly like-able.
Apology was founded by and is edited and designed by the writer Jesse Pearson, who ran Super Deluxe’s online video stuff from 2015 until 2018, was the editor-in-chief of Vice magazine from 2002 until 2010, was an editor at the NYC culture magazine index from 1999 until 2002, and was a process server from 1995 until 1998 (but only in the summers)
Jesse interviews writers, musicians, and other creative people about what they read and why they read it. How they came to reading what they read and how they have been influenced by great readers.
Guests include: Stephen Malkmus, Bill Callahan, Lesley Arfin, Elaine Kahn, Will Oldham, and more!
*full disclosure, I am really trying to bite his whole schtick I just do not know any cool famous people!
Each episode of the Apology podcast features an intimate interview with one person about their reading habits and history (plus any tangents that come up, which happens a lot).
Let’s leave it there for now. I would rather not wax poetic about a podcast. I know better than that. If you are keen to find something different or to chart a new path on your reading journey. Give one of these a listen. I’ve pulled my top 5 below:
If you dig. Apology is also a literary magazine. You can support them by purchasing past issues - or by gripping this very esoteric “Bart Das” shirt.
Where do you find great books to read? Seriously. I would love to know!
PS: WPRB Princeton 103.3FM is in the midst of their annual pledge drive. Consider sending them $25. You will get some cool stuff. This radio station has been with me through thick and thin. It has soundtracked my life. New Jersey's Only Radio Station!