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Chapter 158: Sonja Lyubomirsky helps harness happiness by honing hearty habits 

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​Sonja Lyubomirsky​ is one of the most influential happiness researchers of our time.

Sonja moved to the United States from Moscow at age 9 in the 70s. She went to Harvard and Stanford in the 80s and began studying happiness in 1989 ... longer than almost anyone else alive! Positive psychology wasn't "founded" by ​Martin Seligman​ and ​Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi​ for another decade.

Sonja has published hundreds of papers including her ​Most Cited 2005 paper​ which defined the field by flipping a long-held assumption on its head: That happiness doesn’t follow success but causes it.

Sonja is now following up her bestsellers '​The How of Happiness​' and '​The Myths Of Happiness​' with a new book called '​How to Feel Loved​', a joint effort co-written with relationship expert ​Dr. Harry Reis​, which is a culmination of 30 years of research that all point to one central truth: that feeling loved (not just being loved!) is a crucial ingredient of happiness.

In this conversation we talk about the four horsemen that can ruin a marriage, what MDMA does to our brains, why small talk doesn’t build connection, the best advice for dating, how our brains respond to love, the single best way to feel happier today, and, of course, the eminent Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky's 3 most formative books.

Let’s flip the page to Chapter 158 now...

Chapter 158: Sonja Lyubomirsky helps harness happiness by honing hearty habits 

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Sonja

Sonja’s 3 Books

  • First book (14:22)

  • Second book (35:54)

  • Third book (51:49)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “I realized a few years ago that almost all of the interventions that work to make us happier, the reason they work is they make us feel more loved by others, right, and more connected.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Most people will report to have at least one relationship in their life that they would like to feel more loved in.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We can be loved but not feel loved.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If you want to feel more loved, the first step is to make the other person feel more loved first. So we can talk about that, but it's really empowering because it's not about changing yourself. It's not about changing the other person. It's about changing the conversation.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Feeling loved is often at the root of relationship problems.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “3 buckets to determine happiness: genetics, life circumstances, what can we do everyday/how we think/behave/act.” (condensed quote) — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Money really does make you happy if it keeps you from being poor ... But it also depends on how you spend it. So it turns out if you spend money on connection, on contribution, helping others on personal growth, learning is going to make you happier than if you spend your money on just like buying more stuff.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If you want to feel more loved, you need to change your conversations and approach your conversations differently, or have more of them. So it's not just small talk, conversations in which you really listen, where you show curiosity, where, where you share, you help the other person to share.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The most powerful happiness booster is anything social.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If I were to give you sort of my, like one tip to be happier today, it would be to go out and have a 15 minute conversation with someone.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The best thing that you could give your kids is a good marriage.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We crave to be known, seen and heard.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So like it's sort of money, power, beauty, sort of status, fame. So those are the things that accomplishment and that we chase and we think those are the things that like will make us happy. And by the way, I still kind of chase those things too.Like I think we all, you know, even if we know very well that that's not the chasing that doesn't make it make us happy.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Feeling loved or feeling connected is sort of curiosity, genuine curiosity, listening and sharing.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Give more compliments to each other.” — Sonja Lyubomirsky | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 157: Paul Hawken junks jargon to jolt generations

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Paul Hawken is a brilliant thinker, author, activist, and elder who masterfully distills wisdom about our planetary home.

I remember hearing Paul's 2009 commencement speech called "​You Are Brilliant and The Earth is Hiring​" where he said "You are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on Earth at a time when every living system is declining and the rate of decline is accelerating."

Paul is the author of nine bestselling books including '​Drawdown​', '​Regeneration​', and his latest book '​Carbon, The Book of Life​'—an incredible book that came out in 2025 and masterfully distills endless planetary wisdom into simple truths we all need to hear. (I included it in '​The Very Best Books I Read in 2025​.')

Grab a seat between us and let's talk about how nature cooperates, why fighting climate change is the wrong metaphor, why the climate crisis is a human crisis, how jargon disconnects, and what decades of activism have taught Paul about being human.

This conversation with a sage of sages stuck with me and I think it'll stick with you.

Let's flip the page into Chapter 157 now ...

Chapter 157: Paul Hawken junks jargon to jolt generations

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Paul

Paul’s 3 Books

  • First book (22:28)

  • Second book (1:04:20)

  • Third book (1:20:55)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “I feel like there's so much rhetoric, which is sort of, it doesn't obfuscate, but it's jargonizing the situation. And jargon is a good way to actually occlude understanding as opposed to generate understanding.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Climate change is a silly term.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The living word is extraordinarily cooperative. Cooperative actually is kind of a small term for what they're doing because exquisitely interactive and symbiotic is probably the better description of the living world.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I would never say I am an environmentalist... I understand what why people use that word, you know, but it's also a word of separation.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Everyone is an environmentalist because they live in the environment.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We need to go tell it on the mountain because we are listening to the wrong voices..” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I always saw the outside as sort of sacred, you know, as a sanctuary, and the inside as a danger zone.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I love to share, but not in sort of a didactic, you know, prose style, you know, where listen up, you know, I got something to tell you.... It's really the opposite, which is, you know, trying to open up areas for the reader that invoke or evoke really a sense of wonder and curiosity.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “You could spend 12 lifetimes and you wouldn’t really understand what is outside.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The only remarkable thing about me, I believe, is that I am intensely curious.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The ingredients of a great walk are that you're finding your way.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “All life is flow.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think when you're walking, you know, you're entering into a non static relationship. And most of our relationship with nature is static.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “You know, the fact is climate, uh, you can't fight it. You can't combat it. You can't tackle it, you know? And so what you've done, you know, is other climate, you've made a thing that you can do things to fix, you know, it's another male verb, you know? Um, and, uh, and that thinking is the cause of global warming, othering nature, othering people, obviously, othering resources, othering the earth that we live upon, you know? And then, you know, and then it just goes out there to, oh, we're going to fix the climate. We're going to do this to the climate, you know, we're going to combat it, tackle it, you know, there's these sort of heroic imagery of complete nonsense because the biosphere and the climate are absolutely inseparable.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The climate movement has failed, no question about it.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We have a crisis. I couldn't agree more. It's not a climate crisis. It's a human crisis. A relationship, understanding, greed, violence, power. You know, there's a whole list there, you know, that's the crisis. Global warming is the symptom.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “And for me, when you read something like that, at least for me, anyway, so far, you know, your brain cells change. In other words, your capacity to understand to speak to parse to discern changes, because it's coming right at you and going into your, you know, your neurons.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “And I just suggest that there's another way of looking at time and our passage, and that can be imbued with grace and kindness and patience and understanding as to what other people are experiencing.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So if we're here for our short time, it's a very short time that we are in our body. Uh, who do we want to be during that time?” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I have no advice on being a parent... My kids are really amazing and I don’t take any credit for that.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We're creating ultra-processed children. Because they have to be smarter and better and they have to get ahead of thinking in junior high school, junior high school about what universities and colleges they're going to apply to.) I mean, getting ready and studying those universities and who gets in, who doesn't, and all that sort of stuff. I mean, there goes childhood.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We have too much. There's too much money and that it's kind of like stepping on a fork, you know, a rake really just hits us. We have the money and now we pay and pay and pay not in monetary terms, but in so many other ways in terms of our life and our relationships to whether it's our parents or children or others. And it's very difficult to be wealthy in this culture at this time. And that sounds like a ridiculous term because everybody's trying to be more wealthy. But I think that actually it works against us.” — Paul Hawken | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 156: Salim Amin chronicles courage and compassion in crisis and conflict (Copy)

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Africa is the world's second largest continent—by land and population!

One and a half billion people spread across fifty-five countries. It's huge! Even a trip there, even many trips there, can only scratch the surface. But we're trying! My mum was born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1950, and I recently returned from my first journey to Africa where I met incredible people and heard remarkable stories.

In this third African chapter of 3 Books I sat down with Salim Amin where we discuss what it means to be a great citizen in the world today and how leading with compassion and curiosity can be some of the balm the world needs.

As some background Salim's father Mo Amin lived from 1943 to 1996 and at his peak was the single most well-known photographer ... in the world! His photos of the 1984 Ethiopian famine were the basis of the famous ​Live Aid​ concert and directly responsible for saving millions of lives. Salim is going to share some of the most memorable stories from his dad's remarkable career and legacy ... all of which happened before he tragically died in a hijacked plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Today Salim is the CEO of ​Camerapix​, the legendary (and first-ever!) African media agency, which owns all his dad's photos—of dictators, wildlife, assassinations, and more—and he's become a documentary filmmaker, producer, author, journalist, and TV host in his own right.

Salim's documentary "​Mo & Me​" won over a dozen prestigious awards including the "Grand Jury Prize" at the New York Film Festival and I loved his stunning photo book "​Kenya: Through My Father's Eyes​."

I was thrilled to sit down in-person—in Nairobi!—with Salim, at the Camerapix office, to discuss legacy, identity, fatherhood, purpose, and formative books. There are some absolutely wild stories in this chat you won't soon forget!

Let's flip the page into Chapter 156 now ...

Chapter 156: Salim Amin chronicles courage and compassion in crisis and conflict

View full transcript here

CONNECT with SALIM

Salim’s 3 Books

  • First book (7:58)

  • Second book (1:17:44)

  • Third book (1:18:30)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “That is what journalism is supposed to be objective, unbiased reporting. Unfortunately, that has changed.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Unfortunately I think the journalists have become more important than the story.The personalities have become more important than the actual people that they're reporting on.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Young people today think that what they see on social media is reality.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We are in an age where people want to get everything in 148 characters. And you can’t.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So our job now has changed from being the bearer of the news to providing context and background and reality and giving people a historical look at why this incident happened, what is the context behind it, and then where are we going togo in the future rather than just that one snapshot.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “What's interesting is when the world is in a much worse place than it was in the 1980s—we have so much more technology and resources but yet we cannot do a movement like that (Live Aid) again.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We really do need to mobilize humanity.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I made it clear to people that I will never achieve what my father achieved. I will do my own thing.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Right now when you search AI for things, you come back with a very white, western male-dominated answer.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Want to put together an institute of truth.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “In a world of increasing intolerance, it’s very important to educate people on religions.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Every religion in the world comes from the same place.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Let me make the best of what my situation and circumstances not be envious or jealous of other people and not look down at other people because of what you feel is your privilege in life.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Be good to people. Be kind to people.” — Salim Amin | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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The Best Of 2025: Neil Pasricha mines memorable, mind-shifting moments and messages

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Happy Solstice, everyone!

In the northern hemisphere today we have the least amount of daylight of any day of the year. Below the equator it has the most!

And as we do every December solstice it's time for our annual "Best Of" episode of 3 Books.

3 Books is our award-winning 22-year-long conversation to uncover and discuss the 1000 most formative books in the world ... 3 books at a time.

This year we recorded shows in Nairobi, Ottawa, Del Mar, and even a few on the street ... journeying to collect stories and lessons that can help us all live richer lives of meaning and intention.

Thank you for being a 3 Booker and spending time with our incredible community of book lovers spread across the world.

Listen on your walk, drive, or workout, on your own, or with a friend, and let's continue to celebrate the awe in this world while striving to live our lives the best we can...

The Best Of 2025: Neil Pasricha mines memorable, mind-shifting moments and messages

View full transcript here

Show Notes

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Chapter 155: Bulle the Bookseller broadens borders and births bibliophiles 

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We're back to Africa!

Last month we kicked off a little Kenyan series on ​3 Books​ and today I’m thrilled to share another chapter recorded in the heart of pulsing downtown Nairobi in the country's top bookstore.

I landed after an overnight flight and immediately filled my belly with fresh samosas, pakoras, curried goat tripe, and fresh tamarind juice ... for breakfast! ... and then, after seeing the city I hopped into a car with Perlexy, who works with our guest in Chapter 104 and current Kenyan Presidential nominee ​Boniface Mwangi​, and drove downtown...

We parked the car and met up with Boniface and his son before walking up together to the second floor of a busy plaza. Tucked inside was a 1000-square-foot bookshop that happens to be one of the most influential literary hubs in the country: ​Nuria Bookstore​.

That’s where I met Bulle (pronounced "Boo-lay") who is of Somalian descent and born 700km north of Nairobi where he was largely raised by his wise camel-herding grandmother (who is 101 today!). Bulle took a business path early in life but as we'll hear his plans changed and now he runs what many consider the most successful bookstore in Kenya and is a huge champion and evangelist for African authors and African literature.

Let’s hang out upstairs in the Nairobi bookshop and talk about amplifying African voices, growing up among camels, the winding path of purpose, Bulle’s 3 most formative books, and so much more …

Let’s flip the page to Chapter 155 now …

Chapter 155: Bulle the Bookseller broadens borders and births bibliophiles

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Bulle

Bulle’s 3 Books

  • First book (19:06)

  • Second book (39:44)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “When you travel to a foreign country, may the people of that place be your brothers and sisters.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “You can visualize something that you think over and over again about something... And then now leave it with your subconscious brain now to make it happen.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We are a powerhouse but are unable to tap into that subconscious mind.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Once you visualize something you have to do something about it.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Failure and trying is the key to success.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If you are a nobody and you have written a book, you don’t have a place to take your book. So I began housing such books.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I will not reject any author.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “When you go to school you read to pass an exam. You don’t read for leisure and you don’t read to better your life.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “For you to be a better person, you must start reading.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think books play a vital key in shaping humanity.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Books tend to convey the pains and the aspirations of society. Bookstores play a key role in advancing societies.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

  • “School books shape you to become a worker and non-academic books shape you to become a better human being, a better person.” — Bulle the Bookseller | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 154: Peter Kimani on conquering the curse of choreographed colonialism

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We're heading to Africa!

Over the years we have taken the 3 Books podcast on the road many times ... from recording in ​Judy Blume's bookstore​ in Key West to to the ​back of Jackie's Uber​ in St. Louis to ​Jonathan Haidt's kitchen​ in New York we've gone where the stories take us. And for the first time we are going to the 55-country and 1.5 billion person continent of Africa.

I am so excited to share the first of three chapters of 3 Books recorded in Nairobi, Kenya.

I landed there and went whizzing down busy streets with colourful stalls, wandering goats, people pulling carts full of eggs, women carrying baskets on their heads, endless whizzing bodas (motorcycles).

I visited the lovely home of novelist and professor ​Peter Kimani​ — where he lives with his wife Anne and their two boys. Peter is a huge mind and talented writer whose work spans New York Times Notable novels such as ‘​Dance of the Jakaranda​’ to writing a poem for Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration. Peter has studied at the University of Iowa—the Harvard of writing schools, perhaps!—and earned his doctorate at the University of Houston. He was awarded the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature, Kenya's highest literary honor, and is a professor at Aga Khan University in Nairobi.

Let's sit down outside in his backyard garden, near the mango and orange trees, below the calls of the Pied Crows, and discuss normalizing abnormalities, decolonizing our minds, The Hardy Boys, writing as an extension of living, whitewashing conservation, Peter's 3 most formative books, and much, much more...

Let's flip the page to Chapter 154 now...

Chapter 154: Peter Kimani on conquering the curse of choreographed colonialism

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Peter

Peter’s 3 Books

  • First book (1:17:21)

  • Second book (1:32:33)

  • Third book (1:43:22)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “Writing is just an extension of living.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I mean, that's what writers of the world do, to keep memory, to memorialize their own origins, to invoke the past, to, you know, understand their future.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We are still perpetuating the British metaphysical empire. We are extending their cultural hegemony.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Conservation has been white washed.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Ancestors were prudent custodians of this heaven that we were given from the onset.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “My biggest risk as a writer will actually be what I write, rather than what I possess. So I've never thought of my safety in the sense of material things.I think of my safety in what am I saying to whom and how.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I would even argue we haven't even begun telling our story.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We’ve normalized abnormalities.” — Peter Kimani quoting Ngugi | 3 Books Podcast

  • “It is our brains that have been colonized not to be able to understand and to unpack the nuances.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Religion is the most harmless way of accessing a mind of another human being.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Writing is an act of recovering our past.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We have to start thinking about this animal we call democracy.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “It spoke to me in that profound way, because I understood my own experience is a story worth narrating. I think that that was the first moment when I thought, maybe I could write my own story.” — Peter Kimani on Weep Not, Child | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We must remember, even the most advanced societies in the world, their only claim to fame is through the stories narrated by the writers of those countries.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I see a connection between good reading habits and good writing habits. You cannot become a writer unless you are a reader.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “It's the best way to travel. By reading, you immerse yourself in a culture, in a country, in a community, in a continent that will give you the deepest nuances that you can experience life as known by those who've never set foot elsewhere. You can do your best travels through reading. Read outside your country.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We must make an effort to decolonize our minds.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If you've got this burning desire to do something, but this desire has been nurturing for years, the only way you can make a difference between those who have these desires and making it happen is actually by starting today.” — Peter Kimani | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 153: Carl Honoré imparts illuminating insights into intentional idleness

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The pace of living is accelerating.

I often feel like things are happening too quickly to process ... the reels are going too fast, the scrolls have too many colors, the information feed feels like a flood.

I just can't process it all!

Do you feel the same way?

If so you need this conversation as much as I did.

Carl Honoré is the godfather of the "slow movement" — a Canadian born, UK-based author, journalist, and ​popular TED speaker​ whose first book, the 2004 long-running bestseller '​In Praise of Slowness​', sparked a global conversation about time, speed, and how we live.

What's happened since 2004? Life has gotten even faster! Which makes his ideas and insights even more valuable. I love Carl's work so much I’ve read 'In Praise of Slowness' three times and enjoyed his tangential books on parenting in an era of hyper pressure ('​Under Pressure​') and making the most of our longer lives ('​Bolder​').

Carl is a warm, sagacious soul who oozes kindness and wisdom and in this conversation we talk about the best way to cook risotto, why you should read Orwell to your kids even in their 20s, how social media is changing travel, the benefits of learning new languages, the meaning of the phrase "tempo giusto", mindful ways to slow down our busy lives, and, of course, his 3 most formative books...

Let's flip the page to Chapter 153 now...

Chapter 153: Carl Honoré imparts illuminating insights into intentional idleness

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Carl

Carl’s 3 Books

  • First book (24:24)

  • Second book (39:32)

  • Third book (1:10:58)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “The slow revolution is about doing things at the right speed.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So if you are asking what polyglot means to me, it means joy-I love words, I love how they move around in the world, how they shape how we feel, how they change things, how they sound, how they look on the page. And the more words you have right across different languages, the more kaleidoscopically happy your life is, from my point of view.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Language is the perfect passport.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Language is just a kind of poetry we have at our fingertips.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I'm trying to save myself through my writing and try to help others live better lives and help the world be a better place.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Reading was a central part of parenting, family life for us.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The whole spark for my moving into thinking about slowing down was when I caught myself speed reading Snow White to my son, right? You know, my version was so fast, it only had three dwarves. It was not a good look. And I realized then when I caught myself flirting with buying a book called The One Minute Bedtime Story, so Snow White in 60 Seconds, I thought, this is insane, right? I'm racing through my life instead of living it.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Because I think we all have that or those of us who are lucky enough to have had books read to us as kids have that folk memory of that sacred magical moment when a parent sits down with a kid and the world around you just vanishes and you're in that bubble together and you're telling stories. You're doing the most eternal, simple human thing together. You are telling a story and you're sharing words and you're cuddling and you're reacting together.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “And I've read books out aloud to my, daughter was, you know, 21. I read Animal Farm by Orwell out loud and Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck out loud. And of course, my daughter could read it herself, but that wasn't the point. The point was being together, the human voice, sharing the story in a different way. And I just, it's just a kind of magic.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I feel like curiosity is even more urgently needed today because it feels to me like people have retreated into echo chambers and silos and little patches where they don't need to be challenged or questioned.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We cant really know ever everything.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The hallmark of this moment is that just as soon as you think you've got a fact, it turns out that fact is slippery and wobbly and it's not as solid as you thought it was.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We need that headspace, we need that bandwidth, we need quiet in order to go deep.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Skimming through life instead of actually living it.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Because when you go quiet, you go inside. And when you go inside, you reckon. You reckon with the big stuff.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We live in this world where we're more connected than ever before. Where there's lots of noise and sound and fury, but we feel very uneasy, right? Lonely, disconnected, like we're not really living the right lives for ourselves. And I think the big part of that is we just don't create space and moments for silence.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Whole libraries are going to be written about our tortured relationships with phones.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “So much of what would have been leisure now is packaged up as a product that not only is being sold to us, but that we're selling to other people, right? So we're turning our own leisure into a performance.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Orwell is such a beautiful clear crisp prose stylist. If you've got a teenager accustomed to consuming online content, Orwell is a good gateway drug.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Shows that the basic human need for the slow stuff, right, the reflection, the reading, the stillness, the quiet, the conversations, the listening, all that stuff, it's there, right? The muscles that want that are maybe a little atrophied and a bit tired, and they don't get used enough. But as soon as you give human beings that offering, they want it, right?” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I love when a writer identifies something that you know from your own life, you know to be true, but you've never articulated it.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If you embrace it wherever you are as a process of opening doors instead of closing them, as an adventure instead of as a punishment, then aging can be an upward curve.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I'm mostly writing to please myself. So I want to write a book that I want to read through, and that I don't want to put down, and that I don't feel gets turgid and stalls and overstays its welcome in certain anecdotes.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Orwell is such a beautiful clear crisp prose stylist. If you've got a teenager accustomed to consuming online content, Orwell is a good gateway drug.” — Carl Honoré | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 152: Robin Sloan weaves wonder and weirdness into the warbly world of words

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Last year I picked up a book called ‘​Moonbound​’ by Robin Sloan and it blew me away.

Reading it was like riding some rainbow-speckled rocket ship where I experienced the bizarre combination of having no idea what was going on while not being able to wait for what happened next.

The book was full of talking beavers. Talking swords! Strange video games. And ever-expanding worlds with wizards, who maybe aren’t really wizards, and oh—it's narrated by a microscopic AI-type chronicler, who’s been in many different lives across millennia and who now sits inside our protagonist’s left shoulder.

The writing was like a jacked up ‘Star Wars’ meets ‘Cloud Atlas’ by ​David Mitchell​ featuring Willy Wonka and Mad Hatter types with moments of poignancy dashed in to let us see, and see around, our endlessly twisting lives together. It is a big, loud, cymbal crash of a book so after I was done I reached out to the giant-minded author Robin Sloan to invite him on the show.

Robin Sloan is a writer, printer, and manufacturer—his new 3-word biography!—with three mind-expanding novels including ‘​Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore​’, '​Sourdough​', and, of course, the magical '​Moonbound​'.

Robin splits his time between the San Francisco Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley of California where he (wait for it) manufactures California extra virgin olive oil. He also (yes) prints wonderful zines and sends out a delightfully nerdy newsletter every 29 1/2 days via his ​website​.

Strap in as we discuss social media, AI ethics, childhood obsession, books as technology, olive oil, working with your partner, myths and identity, and, of course, the brilliant Robin Sloan’s 3 most formative books…

Let's flip the page to Chapter 152 now...

Chapter 152: Robin Sloan weaves wonder and weirdness into the warbly world of words

View full transcript here

CONNECT with ROBIN

ROBIN’s 3 Books

  • First book

  • Second book

  • Third book

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “It's hard to choose favorites in the vast and glorious realm of books.” — Robin Sloan | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think if a person feels like they want to be in the world that cares, it's really important to hold the line and take that responsibility really seriously. (on the ethics of AI)” — Robin Sloan | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I find that as a writer… It's an implicit challenge. Like, hey, can you imagine something this big? And you know, the answer is usually no, not quite. Not yet. It's an almost athletic feat to observe on the page.” — Robin Sloan | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I think that if you lend a book or borrow a book, the expectation should actually be that it's never coming back.” — Robin Sloan | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I would just see what was new, and I'd see the little bookseller notes describing how great these books were. And I would look at the titles. I would look at the author names. And, I would dream of being there on that shelf.” — Robin Sloan | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The only thing a work of fiction has to do, and it is mandatory, is just make you want to keep reading.” — Robin Sloan | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 151: The Holderness Family conquers content creation by corralling chaos

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What do xmas jammies, ADHD, and 'The Amazing Race' have in common?

​The Holderness Family​, of course!

Penn and Kim Holderness have created viral videos that have been viewed millions of times, won ​Season 33 of 'The Amazing Race,'​ and have published two books—all together.

Penn and Kim both started their careers in news broadcasting, but have found a massive following as the creators of hilarious yet educational videos on topics as wide-ranging as ​wearing masks during COVID​, ​losing your phone​, and ​mahjong​. They also host the weekly ​Holderness Family podcast​, and wrote one of my favorite books I read all of last year, '​ADHD Is Awesome​,' which has helped me as I have learned that I have ADHD.

I don't know how they put out such good content at such a staggering pace, but I know I'm glad that they do!

In this special couples episode of 3 Books, my beautiful wife Leslie joins me to talk with the Holderness Family about better names for ADHD, the secrets of making great comedy, the benefits of turning 50, premarital counseling tips, Shel Silverstein's best poems, why the world need introverts, and, of course, Penn and Kim Holderness's most formative books...

Let's flip the page to Chapter 151 now...

Chapter 151: The Holderness Family conquers content creation by corralling chaos

View full transcript here

CONNECT with PENN AND KIM

PEN AND KIM’s 3 Books

  • First book (12:00)

  • Second book (26:11)

  • Third book (48:07)

  • Fourth book (59:50)

  • Fifth book (1:20:00)

  • Sixth book (1:30:10)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “Home by 9:30? It’s amazing. You don’t have to try anymore.” — Kim Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I love my kids...but I was not a great, amazing mom in chaos.” — Kim Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “When I listen to poems I hear music.” — Penn Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Try and find a way to look at the everyday and what’s going on, and then make it a banger. Make it explode into something that’s really funny and relatable.” — Kim Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Before I read 'Quiet' I didn’t have the language to describe who I was.” — Kim Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I could erase that shame and be proud to be an introvert.” — Kim Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “It's a source of energy. It's not I wanna do this—it's I have to do this.” — Penn Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Where the Sidewalk Ends was my relationship with my mom. Dune was my relationship with my dad.” — Penn Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “The thing I’ve learned with in laws is you should come into every event with a sense of love and excitement.” — Penn Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Penn is like the dancing monkey; you can just wind him up and he’s so good in a room, he makes everyone laugh.” — Kim Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I love feeling small and insignificant.” — Penn Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “If the world's going to end, the world comes together. The world comes together to try to figure out an impossible problem. It is oddly utopian for me if the world is coming to an end because we're all working together. And I'm so sick of it not happening in the world that I live in.” — Penn Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I wish more people read books.” — Kim Holderness | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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Chapter 150: Prime Minister Jean Chrétien lays down lifelong lessons on leadership, liberalism, and longevity

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Born in 1934, the 18th of 19 children in the small blue-collar town of Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, Jean Chrétien has risen to become the "grandfather of Canada" and a definitive force in global politics for over 50 years.

Chrétien was one of the longest-serving Prime Ministers in Canadian history and led three successive majority terms as leader of the Liberal Party from 1993 to 2003.

He famously said no to joining the US in the Iraq War (solidifying Canada’s independence on foreign policy), signed the Kyoto Protocol (committing Canada to its first-ever international environmental agreement), established the Oceans Act (helping Canada become the first country to prioritize ocean health), creating the Clarity Act (to establish terms for secession movements after leading the 'No' side to victory in the 1995 Quebec Referendum), and leading Operation Yellow Ribbon which helped 40,000 Americans in the air and traveling through Canada on September 11, 2001 and beyond.

Let's put on a suit and tie and fly up to Ottawa, Canada to sit in the office of the 91-year-old leader—who still does meetings back-to-back three days a week!—and discuss the secrets of healthy living into your 90s... Canada on the global stage... how to get along with almost anyone... humility as a virtue... lessons from 63 years of marriage... thoughts on Alberta secession... the definition of liberal... how he said no to the Iraq war... and, of course, the Right Honorable Jean Chrétien's most formative books...

Huge thank you to Bob Wright, Bruce Hartley, and Monsieur Jean Chrétien for making this happen.

A rare and special conversation with a rare and special man.

Get ready to soak in so much wisdom.

Let's flip the page to Chapter 150 now...

Chapter 149: John and Alison on fascism-fighting fiction fomenting freedom and fraternity

View full transcript here

CONNECT with Jean Chrétien

Jean Chrétien’s 3 Books

  • First book (16:37)

  • Second book (32:33)

WORDCLOUD OF THE CHAPTER

Quotes

  • “Oh, I'm only 91 and a half, so I have to earn my living.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I want to die standing.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “Your job is when you have a problem to find a solution. But I say that to fill a hole, sometimes you create two more holes. So we're shoveling all the time.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “It's never easy in public life. Parliament is there. You are the so-called loyal opposition, but they are more opposition than loyal.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “We implement good ideas. We borrow good ideas and implement them. You know, in my career, a lot of people will say that I stole their ideas. But I said an idea is an idea. I would say to them, if you don't want me to steal your ideas, shut up. Don't tell me, do this and do that and complain because I've done it.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “A liberal in Canada is when the right says of you, you're a left-winger.When the left says you're a right-winger, you're a good Canadian liberal Chrétien, you know, the radical center.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “And I'm proud of our values. And we became the envy of the world.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “You know, when I was in politics, to be called a liar was the worst insult you could have. If someone will accuse you of lying, and cannot prove it in the house, he was suspended. And in the United States, they said in the first term of Trump, he lied 14,000 times.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “And perhaps we're living the end of the American empire. He is destroying what took 80 years to build since the war.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “I have weaknesses. I tried to overcome them, and I did quite well. But I know that I'm not a genius, that I'm just a human being. And when I get up in the morning, I say, Jean, you have to do your best today. And I'd like to go to bed and say, I've done my best today. And I sleep well.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

  • “You know, when you're a president of a country or prime minister, friendship is important, but you serve the interests of the nation, not the interests of the friendship.” — Jean Chrétien | 3 Books Podcast

Show Notes

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