February ‘23 Recap
This episode of Books for Men is a short recap of all the books and authors we covered in February '23. It also shares a key update on The Books for Men Newsletter. Listen for more!
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And so first and foremost, I like to always start these recaps with a big thank you to everyone who has listened so far and who continues to listen to the podcast. And more importantly, the people out there who are sharing the podcast via word of mouth with friends, family members, and other people who they think might like it. Your support means everything. And I cannot thank you enough because again like I led this show off by stating, and like I lead every show off stating the main goal is to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And so by you supporting the podcast and by you sharing the podcast, you are supporting that mission and that is really, really important. And I hope you can continue to do that.
(01:05)
If you are a reoccurring listener or someone who really enjoys the show, then I would love for you to consider rating the podcast or reviewing it, or following on whatever podcast provider you're listening to this on. That is how you can really double down on that support, and I would be super appreciative of that. Now, with that being said, let's pivot into the recap episode. And so it was a short month, so I'm going to keep this episode rather short. It's kind of weird because January was also a short month, but that was because I took the first week of January off. But February was a little different in that it's actually a short month, so there are fewer weeks. And so we only had three episodes. And because of the new edition of Bad Advice, which I hope you are enjoying, we only have two books this month.
(01:58)
And the first one was non-fiction. It was a big idea slash self-help book by Robert Greene called The Laws of Human Nature. And this was such a good book in so many ways. It's really an entertaining and engaging tomb, I would call it, about our innate human tendencies and more so what to do about them. And it really tackles some unflattering aspects of humanity. And that's an aspect of it that I personally really enjoy because it's down to earth and it's practical. Nobody in the style of how Greene actually writes does it better than Greene. And that might sound almost like an oxymoron because, of course, Greene is going to write the best green that there is. But I just mean stylistically and I talk a lot more about that style in the episode. So if you are interested, I would just go back and listen to that episode.
(02:52)
Now, on the fiction side of things, I featured probably one of my favorite authors Haruki Murakami, and I featured my to-date favorite Haruki Murakami book, which is Sputnik Sweetheart. And man, this book just hits so hard in so many ways, but it's not hard as in aggressive. It just hits you so viscerally and so deeply. Line for line, and I know I said it in the episode, but I'll say it again here, for me, in general, nobody hits harder than Murakami. This book just has a ton of great lines and everything just gels together. And it's kind of harrowing in a way, but in a totally good way, if that makes sense. I don't know, it's kind of hard to describe. I explain it a lot better in the episode. So if you're interested in a novel about an aspiring female writer who falls for an older woman that mysteriously goes missing on a Greek island while on vacation, then I'd go and listen to that episode.
(03:49)
But I will warn you, the book is way more than the plot, and the ending is, in my eyes, two thumbs up. Supreme. You could read it a bunch of times and read it differently a bunch of times, which is a feat on its own. And then the other episode, which I had already alluded to and mentioned earlier in this one, was an addition of bad advice. And I tackled the advice that you must go to college. And the question that I propose is, should you though, and in my eyes, it really comes down to a value analysis really. And is the cost of the degree worth the debt that you are going to be saddled with? And in some cases, it might be, and in some cases, it might not be. And so I propose a solution and some other ideas in that episode. And if you're interested, I would definitely go back and listen to the episode.
(04:49)
And so the last thing that I just wanted to mention to you before I wrap this episode up is that I'm going to be making a slight change to the newsletter this month, and I'm going to be featuring the top five quotes from each of the books that I shared with you this month or in this episode, right? So, Sputnik Sweetheart and The Laws of Human Nature. And I'm going to probably do that moving forward, maybe three to five for each book, just because I take so many notes and I pull so many excerpts and so many quotes out of these books while I'm reading them that I feel like I'm doing you a disservice by not sharing them with you. And so, if you're interested in signing up for that newsletter, you could do so by visiting BooksforMen.org.
