May ‘23 Recap

This episode of Books for Men is a short recap of all the episodes from May '23. There was (1) nonfiction book, (1) work of fiction, and (1) edition of From the Vault. I also share some big updates for this website, like full episode transcripts, new tabs, etc. 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 like always when I start these recap episodes, I'd just like to send a big thank you to everybody who continues to support the podcast by sharing it with friends and family members and tuning in on a regular basis your attention and listenership means a lot to me, especially considering that I don't do much promotion for the podcast and I really rely on word of mouth for better or worse. And I know that you guys are out there sharing it because we are growing, little bit by little bit. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I truly appreciate it. And if you can continue to spread the word with family members and friends and other people who you think might enjoy it, that would be amazing.

(01:05)

So, before we jump into the recap, I did just want to give you a big update. So over the past couple of weeks, I have been renovating BooksforMen.org, so the website and I've been adding a few tabs. I'd like to keep it lean and streamlined. It's just an aesthetic that I tend to prefer with most things. So the website will never be too clunky. But with that being said, I wanted to add some essential things or things that I think would really improve the experience for anybody who visits the website or for you guys, the listeners. So what did I do? Well, the first big update is that going back all the way to the trailer episode, Welcome to Books for Men. Now, every single episode has a full transcript, and this will be a feature that I will include for all of the new episodes as well, including this one.

(01:59)

So full transcripts, you can expect them for every single episode. And if you want to go check them out, then they're live right now. The other thing that I added to the website is one tab that just says Note from Doug, and it's basically just a letter summarizing what I'm doing here. And I thought that this was important because as I direct people to the website or you direct people to the website, I do want them to have a clear explanation of exactly what my intentionality is with Books for Men. And this is important so that way the story gets shared in a very clear manner. I don't want there to be any confusion about what I'm doing here. And in that letter, I answer three big questions, why I'm doing what I'm doing, why just men, and also, maybe most importantly, why you should be reading books.

(02:55)

Now, I'm not going to expand on those questions here. You can go to the website and you could read that note, and I may update it as new things come to fruition or things that I want to share, or things that I think might be important for people to know. But right now, that will serve as a pretty good summary. And I might in the future think about doing a special episode where I kind of summarize it or talk about the importance of reading books over all other types of consumption. But as I've said if you are curious to know the answers to that now you could head over to the website books for men.org. Okay, so now just one more quick thing before we jump into the recap for this past month, and that is I've designed some books for Men bookmarks. So what's even cooler is that if you would like a bookmark and you live inside the United States, then I can drop one in the mail for you.

(03:58)

All you have to do is email me at dv (at) booksformen.org. They're pretty cool. They say Books for Men on one side and on the other side, they say, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” And of course, that's a George R.R. Martin quote. And it's also on the homepage of BooksforMen.org. All right, so now let's jump right into the quick recap for May 2023. And we did three episodes this month and I like doing things in threes. So I'm going to try to keep the months at three episodes. Definitely a fiction episode, definitely a non-fiction. And then alternating what that third episode is going to be. Sometimes, From the Vault, sometimes, Bad Advice, or maybe even a new format that I am starting to play with, but I'm not giving any hints there.

(04:54)

Anyway, the first book of the month was a non-fiction book, and it was called How to Tell a Story by Aristotle. And this was a brand new translation by Philip Freeman of Poetics, which is Aristotle's classic surviving text on the art of Storytelling. So quite simply, it asks the question, what makes one story better than another story? The reason why I shared it with you is because it is insanely readable. I think that that is one of the very distinct differing qualities of this translation versus any of the translations that I've read previously. And I do talk about my experience with the book in the episode. I've read it a few times. Many have concluded this text as being the rule book for storytelling or maybe the most important book on the subject matter ever written, which is pretty crazy considering that it was written 2000 years ago.

(05:50)

But again, if you want more information on that, I would definitely go back and listen to the episode or just pick up the book cause it's short, it's consumable and you probably won't regret it. The next episode of the month was an addition of From The Vault, which again is just a segment where I share an episode from my previous podcast. It's not what it seems. And this one was a great chat that I had with Tyler Cowen, who is the author of many, many books like, The Complacent Class, Talent is his most recent one. But this was a conversation that we had almost five years ago, and it was centered around his book at the time, Stubborn Attachments. But the big reason why I wanted to share it with you was because this conversation held up extremely well. In fact, I think it might even be more important today than it was five years ago.

(06:39)

Not only that, but it was also the most listened-to episode of my previous podcast. So I thought that that was pretty cool. And I think you will really understand why if you go back and listen to this conversation. And of course, last but not least, we have our work of fiction for the month, which was none other than the classic The Godfather by Mario Puzo, which is an epic novel about an Italian crime family headed by Vito Corleone. But as I alluded to inside of the episode, the real story is perhaps the succession of the family business and the arc of his son Michael Corleone. It's a book that examines power, influence, honor, family, and making it as an immigrant in the US. And overall, it's just an extremely fun read, I would say mostly because of all the life lessons and wisdom that you learn from reading this novel.

(07:32)

And although you can't relate to these people directly, I would imagine, anyway, you could definitely relate on a human level. And I think that that's what makes it so engaging and so honest. You know, Anthony Puzo, Mario Puzo's son is cited as saying, “He felt that if you were a true novelist, your first duty was to tell a story, if you wanted to moralize, write non-fiction. And I think that that pretty much sums up what Mario Puzo did with this book in that he is not trying to moralize, he is trying to tell you a story. And I don't think you need me to tell you that it was a damn good one, based on the resonance of this iconic story. So with that being said, if you want more on the book, I would definitely go back and listen to the episode because I go into it in much more detail.

(08:24)

All right, this is a wrap, and as a reminder, you could get the full transcripts to any of these episodes on the newly updated books for men.org. Also, I want to remind you that if you are a regular listener to please consider doubling down on that support by rating, reviewing, liking, subscribing, and following all of that good stuff on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on. It goes a long way in helping other people find the show, which ultimately increases awareness around inspiring more men to read and bringing together men who do. Lastly, like always, if you want more information, as I've already mentioned, you could visit BooksforMen.org. But more importantly, you can also sign up for the newsletter, which is a monthly roundup of every episode with full book and author information, all of the best quotes from each book, as well as newsletter-only book recommendations. And I can assure you there's going to be a full slate of quotes for each of these books in the upcoming newsletter. So, if you want to sign up for that, you could do so at BooksforMen.org.