December ‘22 Recap

This episode of Books for Men is a short recap of all the books and authors we covered in December '22. It also shares a little about the power of influences (in one's life or art.) Listen for more!

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So I'm excited to wrap up the year with this December 2022 recap. I decided to forego the year-end recap, so don't expect one of those mostly because we have only been doing the podcast now for about five months, and maybe at the end of next year, I'll do a full year-end recap. I mean, most shows and most podcasts tend to do them. I don't know if that's a good enough reason for me to do them as well. Maybe I will just forego them altogether. Who knows? But they seem like a fun idea. Just if you want to go back and you want to listen to any of the episodes, they're short enough. Go back, do it. Scroll through. There are a lot of great books that I featured throughout the year, a very wide-ranging, diverse set of books.

(01:00)

There have probably been some subgenres that have appeared more than others and some preferences on my end, right? I mean, I love crime. I love noir. I love music. I love good writing. I don't know, I think a lot of things will make themselves more apparent as you continue to listen to the show. And if you're into some of these books already, then you're probably going to be into some of the books that are coming in the future, because I just like any other reader, have certain tastes that I like. And although I will say I'm never going to just feature a book just because, and I think that that is something that I want to drive home and I want to make very well known to you, the listener, isn't that if I feature a book on this podcast, it means that I've read it and I really, really like it.

(01:55)

With that being said, I wanted to point out one wrinkle as it pertains to my interests, my tastes, especially since we're coming off of a month in December where I featured a lot of my most influential authors, I would say, in my life to date. And so I had a female friend point out to me that she likes the podcast and she listens to it, but she noticed that there were a lot more male authors than there were female authors featured on the show in totality. And while this is definitely not my overt intention to feature more males than females, something that I've alluded to and said on the podcast multiple times, I think it's relatively reasonable to assume that men read more. Men and women read more women. Now, of course, this is not the case in every single situation, but on the whole, I would imagine that would be true.

(02:53)

So while it hasn't been my intention to feature more male authors than female authors just by virtue of me being a man, I think that you should expect there to be or at least not be surprised by the fact that there are more books written by male authors than female authors. Now, with that being said, I do value perspective. I do value a diversity of perspectives, which is why I will incorporate a wide range of voices. And that doesn't just include voices from the female gender, it includes racially diverse voices. It includes culturally diverse voices, right? Some of my favorite books, if you go back into the archives, are translated books and books that are written by authors who aren't American. Now, in an effort not to harp on this anymore, let's move on to the December 22 recap. I featured some of my favorite books and some of my most influential authors, and I think influences are a really, really important thing to understand and to come to grips with, especially for aspiring artists or somebody who strives to create stuff in their lives.

(04:09)

I had a conversation with my brother over the holidays, and Quentin Tarantino came up, and that's because I just read his book and I'm a huge fan of his. I love his movies. And I think one of the coolest things about Tarantino to me is his openness about his influences. And I don't think all creators are able to or willing to cop to their influences in the way that Tarantino does. Tarantino openly will talk about the homages that he pays in his movies, literally ripping things straight from a lot of his influences. I think most people are afraid to talk about influences and the power of influences in their life because they think it detracts from what they're trying to do. So if they're influenced by these people over here, then they can't be original. And I'm using air quotes right now, which is silly because everybody is influenced by something.

(05:08)

And it's not like you are copying somebody word for word or sentence for sentence or scene for scene. It's more like you are taking the bits and pieces of their work that makes sense to you in incorporating them with your style as a creator. And I think that that's a really, really important thing. I used to have this idea called The Hope Model when I was writing more big idea work. And that model looked like this Explore, Model, Customize. So you explore all of these different facets of art or business strategies or whatever, then you model them, which means you're copying them in a sense. Then you customize them to fit who you are or your goals or your strategy or your style. And so I used to think that this was a conscious thing that you could do, and I still believe that it is.

(06:04)

But my thinking has changed more as I've changed more to understand this as something that just happens subconsciously. So the things that we take in and the influences and the art that we enjoy and what we consume, we subconsciously model it when we go to create the things that we want to create. And because you're not that great person who probably created the thing that you enjoy and that you are loving and you're modeling in a sense, you're not going to be able to do it just like them. But guess what? It's going to come out in your way, and then that contributes to your style as a creator. So just to reign this in a little bit, and to tie a bow on this idea, this month's set of books featured authors who were influential in my life, and I alluded to that in many of the episodes, so I featured The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, LaBrava, by Elmore Leonard, Hell's Angels by Hunter s Thompson, and Conversations with Tom Petty by Paul Zollo.

(07:10)

And I think the fun thing about all of these writers is that they are all a little bit different. So Ernest Hemingway is that lean terse, super clear writing, right? It is the exemplar of what writing can be. Then you have Elmore Leonard who has openly said that he was influenced by Ernest Hemingway. But the thing that kind of detracted him from Hemingway a little bit was his lack of humor, because Hemingway was such a serious writer, and obviously his very distinct dialogue. And so I talk a lot about this in the episode, but he's definitely a much different writer than Hemingway for all of those reasons. And then you have Hunter S. Thompson, which is like a stick of dynamite on the page. It's very voice-y. It's very wordy. It borders on fiction even when writing in the non-fiction category. So it incorporates this whole other element of writing that neither of these other two individuals really portray in the work that they present to the world.

(08:18)

Although you could find little things that I'm sure link them together as I do when I read them. But on the whole, they're just vastly different authors. And then you have an individual in Tom Petty who for many reasons that I allude to in the actual episode, I found to be and find to be extremely admirable, inspiring, both in his tenacity and his commitment to the craft and his remarkable consistency throughout his career, as well as just his overall approach to being an artist. And what that means to value your work and have conviction about what you're doing, especially in the face of adversity or differing opinions, which if you are a creator of any kind, come fast and furiously as you try to write, create, and deliver your work to the world. So that was our month of December, and it was a great month.

(09:22)

It was a fun month for me for obvious reasons. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed the start of this podcast in the first five months. And as we close out 2022 and move into 2023, I really look forward to bringing you more great books, books that I think you will enjoy. And as always, I like to remind you that the whole point of this show is to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. Therefore, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend, or a family member. Word of mouth is everything as we try to spread awareness and increase awareness around the initiative. And of course, if you want to double down on that support, you can by rating, reviewing, or subscribing on whatever podcast platform you listen to this on, you can get more information at BooksforMen.org where you can also sign up for the newsletter, which is a roundup of all the books and authors that we feature on the podcast, as well as two or three additional book recommendations that don't get featured on the show but are from the books that I am reading in real-time. So things that I read during that month, not everything, of course, just things that I think you will enjoy. So, if you want to sign up for that, you can head over to BooksforMen.org.