#256 | Special Edition: Happy 3rd Anniversary, Books for Men—Some Fun Stats and Favorites From the Past 3 Years!
Quick SUMMARY:
In this Special Edition episode of the "Books for Men” podcast, host Douglas Vigliotti celebrates the podcast’s third anniversary and reflects on the show’s journey since August 2022, sharing gratitude for listeners and highlighting key milestones. He reviews three years of episode types, favorite books, and standout episodes, inviting listeners to reach out with collaboration opportunities and sharing fun listener statistics that now reach over 40 countries. It’s a celebration of consistency, community, and the ongoing mission to inspire more men to read.
Listen to the episode:
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TOPICS COVERED IN the EPISODE:
Introduction & Anniversary Reflection (00:09) - Douglas celebrates the third anniversary, thanks listeners, and mentions the companion newsletter.
Call for Collaborations & Episode Length Promise (01:25) - Douglas invites collaboration ideas and promises to keep future episodes under ten minutes.
Podcast Statistics & Consistency (02:41) - Shares podcast start date, never missing a Monday, and top ten listener countries.
Book & Episode Statistics (04:00) - Breakdown of fiction, nonfiction, special editions, "bad advice," "from the vault," and novel-versus-movie episodes.
Favorite Books & Episodes: 2025 (06:30) - Highlights "Orbital" (Jan 6, 2025) and "True in False Magic" (June 16, 2025), plus a special edition on curation.
Favorite Books & Episodes: 2024 (07:52) - Recommends "The Great Gatsby" (Oct 7, 2024), "The Catcher in the Rye" (Dec 2, 2024), and "Aristotle for Novelists" series.
Favorite Books & Episodes: 2023 (07:52) - Mentions "The Thief" (Jan 23, 2023) and strong October 2023 episodes, including works by Dylan, Bukowski, Ephron, and Nabokov.
Favorite Books & Episodes: 2022 (07:52) - Recalls first episode "Miles from Nowhere" (Aug 1, 2022) and most-listened episode "Hell’s Angels" by Hunter S. Thompson.
Listener Call to Action & Contact Info (10:00) - Asks listeners to subscribe/rate, and shares contact details and newsletter sign-up info.
READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week I am sharing a Special Edition episode. As you may have already figured out by the title of this episode, it is the third anniversary of “Books for Men”. It's hard to believe that I've been doing this show in its current monologue format for three years, and of course, I wanted to. First and foremost, thank you for listening to the podcast. Although the interesting thing about podcasts in general is that you are sort of speaking into a void. So I don't know who. 99.9% of you are, who listened to this podcast, but in no way does that reduce my gratitude for you. I should take this moment to remind you that there is a companion newsletter that is with the podcast, and that just rounds up all of the episodes each month with summaries, five top quotes from each book, along with additional book recommendations. And if you're interested in signing up for that, you can easily do so by heading over to the website Books for Men.org.
01:25 - So something that I really want to look into moving forward is doing some collaborations with the podcast. So if anybody out there is listening to this and you have any kind of introductions or connections to different collaborations that you think would be good for “Books for Men”, please reach out to me directly at DV (at) BooksforMen (dot) org, and tell me some more information on what you have in mind, because I am open ears. So momentarily, I'm going to be sharing some stats from the past few years, as well as a few of my favorite books over that time period and their corresponding episodes. But before I do that, I also want to just throw it out there that I'm going to be trying my hardest to keep these episodes shorter moving forward. So, under the ten-minute mark, I think that's really a sweet spot for this style of podcast. So I've promised this in the past, and I've done a poor job at adhering to it. Hopefully, by really being deliberate and intentional and declaring it now, I get a second chance, and you can hold my feet to the fire.
02:41 - Not that I've heard from any of you, of course. I just think it will help the podcast. All right, so now let me turn to some statistics from the first three years of books for men. So, just to be clear, it did start in 2022. So August 1st, 2022, was the first episode. The welcome episode was the Monday before that. And that leads me to the first big statistic. And that is, we've never missed a Monday since we started “Books for Men” and I think above everything else, that is the thing I'm probably the most proud of, because consistency and showing up to do the work regularly is something that I think is important for not just myself, but to a model to the world more broadly. On that note, I wanted to share another fun statistic, which is the top ten countries where “Books for Men” is listened to. And of course, number one is the United States, which is overwhelmingly number one. But then the nine other countries that follow are Canada, Belize, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, India, Mexico, Singapore, and France.
04:00 - And so the last time that I checked, it was streamed in over 40 countries total, which is pretty cool. But this is the top ten. And I thought that would be a fun statistic to share with you. Now let's move to some of the book statistics. So over those three years, I've shared 53 fiction books. I've shared 52 nonfiction books. Three more, if you include the deep dive into my book “Aristotle for Novelists”, which I featured four episodes on. I've also done four Bad Advice editions of the podcast, which were fun episodes that I did experimentally. I think it was in 2023. Maybe I could do some more moving forward. It's kind of a fun column where I debunk crappy advice or advice that I think is crappy. I've also shared eight From the Vault episodes. Episodes from my old podcast, whether it be conversations or audio articles, things that I think are still resonant today, or maybe they correspond or relate to a subject matter that I am sharing that month, or with a previous episode or something of that nature.
05:17 - Most recently this year, I've added the Novel vs Movie episodes, and I've done three of those so far. I'll probably do more in the future. That would also add three more books to that fiction category. So, from 53 to 56, I've also done eight Special Editions since we started the podcast. Nine if you include this one. And prior to this year, I did Recap episodes every month, and there were 27 of those before I stopped doing them. In total, that was 159 episodes over three years. And that is, if you're counting, approximately 53 per year. Which sounds about right, because there are 54 weeks in a year. I may have missed a couple of episodes because I did do a manual count on these. Nonetheless, it's pretty close, and we like imperfection around here anyway. Okay, so now let me turn to some of my favorites, and I will start with 2025. And the first one that I'm going to share with you is a novel. It was called “Orbital” and it was the January 6th, 2025 episode.
06:30 - This was a novel that had a really big impact on me. It also challenged my notion of what a story could be, because it is probably a plotless novel, which is extremely interesting. It's just written in such a beautiful way that it changed the way that I see the world, essentially, and our universe more generally. I should mention that all of these will be linked in the show notes. The nonfiction book that I want to share with you is one that I shared not too long ago. Actually, it was the June 16th, 2025 episode, and it was “True and False Magic” by Phil Stutz. That's a book again, which has been very impactful for me, and I would say influential in my life. I also wanted to remind you that I shared this year a Special Edition episode that was called “How I Curate What I Read”. And I think that that's just a great episode for people curious about how this “Books for Men” list comes to be and what I read more broadly for 2024, I wanted to share two classic novels with you, and that is “The Great Gatsby”, which was an October 7th, 2024 episode, and “The Catcher in the Rye”, which was the December 2nd, 2024 24 episodes.
07:52 - Both of those books, I think, should be on everyone's reading list. In those episodes, discuss why in a pretty compelling way, so I highly recommend them. And for nonfiction, I'm going to cheat and just say “Aristotle for Novelists”. Mostly because I did four episodes on it, breaking down in an abbreviated way, of course. What each principle is all about in 2023. The novel that I wanted to recommend to you is “The Thief” by Fuminori Nakamura. That was our January 23rd episode, and I'm also going to say the entire month of October 2023 was just really strong, so it's something to go back and check out. It featured “Chronicles” by Bob Dylan. “Ham on Rye” by Charles Bukowski. “I Remember Nothing” by Nora Ephron, an essay book that I just adore in so many ways, and then “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov. And then in 2022, I wanted to remind you of some of the very early episodes. So the first episode ever, which aired on August 1st, 2022, was for the novel “Miles from Nowhere” by Nami Mun.
09:00 - I don't want to go back necessarily listen to that episode because I am afraid of what I sounded like, but it's still one of my favorite novels of all time, and I'm shocked that so many people have never read it. And I'm reminded of that each time I bring it up in real life. So I wanted to remind you of its existence. Now, also, I wanted to share with you the most listened to episode on this podcast. And that's a work of nonfiction, and it is “Hell's Angels” by Hunter S Thompson. It's still one of the greatest and most entertaining feats of journalism ever. I think every now and then, we all could use a jolt of Hunter S Thompson in our lives. All right, so I have one huge ask from you. And that is if you've listened to this podcast and you are a regular listener of the podcast more broadly, please click subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on, and if you have it in you to just rate the podcast on any of those platforms.
10:00 - Because doing these things is the best way for new listeners to find the show and, in return, inspire more men to read. This is a huge, huge help. Probably more than you even realize. Having said that, I want to let you know that there are two ways you could reach out to me, either on Instagram @DouglasVigliotti or via my website: DouglasVigliotti.com. Last but not least, I've already mentioned it to you previously. But if you want more information on this podcast specifically, which includes signing up for that monthly newsletter, then all you have to do is head over to the website BooksforMen.org
