Chapter 159: Eve Harlow on bolstering bibliophilia and boosting bookish brains

Listen to the chapter here!

[Neil Pasricha]

Eve Harlow is an incredible television star. She's famous for being in a number of TV shows like The 100, The Night Agent, and now currently, Watson, which is on Sunday night on CBS in the United States, streaming on Paramount Plus in Canada and available on Sky Witness and now over in the UK. Hey, we're going to jump into this bibliophilic conversation now, but stick around at the end.

We're going to hang out. We're going to talk about your letters, your phone calls, the word of the chapter. We're going to talk about the values of the show.

We're going to have a lot of fun. Let's jump into the conversation with Eve now. Okay, we are recording.

We are officially recording. Thank you so much for doing this. Thanks for coming on Three Bucks.

I really appreciate your time.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah, my pleasure. I'm in Toronto. I'm at my home in the basement.

You are in Vancouver? Yes. Yeah.

You were on set, right? You're filming Watson.

[Eve Harlow]

Yes, we're in the middle.

[Neil Pasricha]

Season two, which I just saw episode one of. I watched it. It was good.

[Eve Harlow]

Okay, awesome. Yay.

[Neil Pasricha]

You were like cameo in episode one. I was like 18 minutes in. I was like, where is she?

Where is she? But then your character strikingly appears in the hallway.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

You know, but they set you up. They set you up for like, you know, and I saw you were like second billing. So I was like, okay, she's going to be like front and center, episode two, episode three.

I can see that you're really teeing this up.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, you got to watch more. That's how they get you in. You know, you got a little bit of a sprinkle me in the first episode.

But yeah, it's I really, my character kicks in, I think, episode three. So.

[Neil Pasricha]

Okay. Okay. So you're filming in Vancouver.

Yes. Which is also where you were raised. Yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

So I lived in Vancouver from the time I was seven years old to 21. And then so born in Moscow, then lived in Jerusalem for the first seven years of my life and family immigrated to Vancouver. Yeah, till 21.

And then at 21, I moved to Toronto till I was 25. And then I moved to LA. So I've been there ever since.

[Neil Pasricha]

Wow. Okay. And now you're 36, because your birthday and my birthday and everybody's birthday is like published on officially on the internet.

So this whole like, not knowing how old everybody is thing that's like gone, you know, we know you were born 1989. And you were born in the Soviet Union, right? Like not even Russia, because Russia, Russia wasn't Russia till as we know it till 1981.

I think so. You were born under the, I guess the Iron Curtain in a way.

[Eve Harlow]

Yes. I actually, so in 89, the year that I was born, it was kind of like when the, they call it like the Iron Curtain came down so people could leave the country for the first time. And that's why I was on a plane at three months old.

I say, that's why I was so comfortable living out of a suitcase. Cause I was like, three months old, baby on a plane. Let's go.

[Neil Pasricha]

And your family was living in Moscow.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

And your mom was, your mom's an actor as well?

[Eve Harlow]

So my mom wanted to be an actor. Yeah. She was in the Moscow theater and when she lived there and then it's the whole like immigrant thing of like when you go to a new country, leave the past behind.

And so when we moved to Israel, she was doing things like cleaning houses. And then same thing, we moved to Canada, you kind of get whatever job you can so that, you know, your kids can have a better life. And so in a way, whatever she like visits me on set, it's this like every job, it's a win for me because it's a win for my mom, you know, just like I, the best feeling in the world that just seeing her pride in me, you know, cause I'm like, mom, look, I'm doing it for the both of us, you know?

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

And do you have siblings or only child?

[Eve Harlow]

I do. I have an older sister and a younger sister. And my younger sister is like...

[Neil Pasricha]

You're the one that followed your mom's dream.

[Eve Harlow]

Yes. Yeah. But my younger sister, like she's my best friend and the smartest, best human being I know.

She's a scientist, you know, so it's kind of like someone walks in, I play a doctor and my sister, she got her master's, but she never got her PhD. I booked the part. She's like, well, I'm glad one of us gets to be called doctor.

There's one doctor in the family. I'm like, I got you. Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. You, so you, so you're born in Soviet Union. I'm going to play on your three months.

You're, you live in Israel. Do you have memories of Israel? Like I know it's sort of zero to seven, maybe foggy or...

[Eve Harlow]

You know, what's weird is that I actually do have memories. And I think we think that we don't remember much of our childhood, but then I have so many that are very distinctly from that time period that it kind of, because I think they say that you're, you start getting memory at around three, four years old. So it's definitely there.

It's, they're all, you know, it's a politically heavy topic right now, but my memories from when I lived there as a kid are all very good. You know, you're a kid, right? You're protected from a lot of things by your parents.

And yeah, Hebrew was my second language. I don't speak it anymore, unfortunately, just because it's been like, you know, 30 years of not talking to anyone. I still speak Russian because I talked to my mom in it.

But yeah, I don't know. The only good things, you know.

[Neil Pasricha]

And then what, what, what made the move to Canada? Like, was it your, was it your mom? Was your dad in the picture too?

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, my dad was in the picture at the time. I mean, this is what I'm saying is like, my parents protected us from stuff. So in the nineties, when we were living there, it was a suicide bombing was a very big thing.

I'm sorry. Oh God, this is getting so politically so fast, but it's not, it's just, that was a fact. That was people who were living in Israel at the time had to deal with.

And my parents were just really scared for us. You know, as an adult, I asked my mom about that time period. And she was just saying, cause we took the bus to school.

And my mom was just like, until you girls got home from school, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was just holding my breath the entire day, waiting for that phone call telling me that you guys got home safe. As a child, I was not aware of this.

Right. Um, but again, that my mom just hated living in the fear of that. She also didn't like, you have to go to the military as when you turn 18.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

And my mom just didn't want, my older sister was eight years older than me. And, uh, my mom didn't want her kids going in the military. Understandably, we're very pacifist family, you know?

And so it was kind of like, it's the thing of like, you know, you leave Russia to, for a better life and then you come to a certain place and there are certain things about it that are better for sure. But again, it's like you want better. And then we came to Canada and, uh, it was great.

So, you know, it was, it was also this thing of like, there were a couple of different countries that my parents were looking at of just like wanting to go to is like Australia, uh, the States and Canada.

[Neil Pasricha]

Um, and just like- Same three that my dad was looking at coming out of, coming out of India.

[Eve Harlow]

Seriously. Okay.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. Those are literally his top three as well. And then he came to Canada cause the letter came back first.

[Eve Harlow]

Yes.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yes. It was just a total crapshoot.

[Eve Harlow]

That was, it was the same thing for my parents. It was Canada was the country that kind of responded first. And so sometimes I think about like weird domino effect of like, my God, if Australia had responded first, who knows, maybe I'd be like some, you know, surfer teacher, babe, with an Australian accent.

It's so weird to think about that. Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

Well, don't apologize for getting into the heavy stuff. I think that is the state of the world today. And, um, I think growing up Jewish and in Russia and then Israel and then coming to Canada, I say for Haven and navigating those identities.

I mean, these are things that we're all thinking about. I recently got back from a trip to Kenya. My mom is from Kenya, like she's a Indian, but, but born in Nairobi.

And, you know, uh, there's a lot of processing and there's a lot of trauma. There's a lot of, uh, we all feel the effects of these major sort of large scale political moves and we have to figure that out in our own identity. So those are, those are safe things to talk about here.

Um, you know, we, we think of reading as a tool on this podcast as a way to kind of get into some of the bigger issues around living a great life. And I know you're a big reader. I see your Instagram post stacks of books all the time.

You're like, here's the books I read last year. And there's like, literally I counted them and I was like, Oh my gosh, like 52, 52 books you read last year. Is that right?

And they're like books. They're like, there's no graphic novels in that pile, right? You're a big reader.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, I'm very nerdy. And I, uh, I try to do a book a week basically. Like that's my goal.

I have the Goodreads app on my phone that makes me feel guilty when I'm a, I'm a book behind right now. I'm like, Oh my God. Oh no.

I'm a book behind. Yeah. Cause I, I, yeah, I, I do love reading.

It's always been a part of me. I think like, okay. So for example, when growing up, family was very poor.

We, I didn't have, you know, people are like put in like, classes and stuff. I wasn't putting classes. Family didn't have money for that.

But what we did have money for was the library because it costs nothing. Um, and so my mom would just like drop me and my younger sister off there. And it was actually kind of a thing of like, she didn't have, we didn't have anywhere to go while she had to go like run errands.

And like the library was a safe place that we would just sit there for hours reading. It's just, and I also like adore my mom. Um, and she was a very big reader.

So you're like, you know, mom, wait, wait, what are you doing? What are your favorite books? And then I'd go and like read all of her favorite books because I wanted her to love me, you know, and my mom did love me, but you're always kind of like competing for to be like the favorite child, you know?

Um, and yeah. So, and that's just kind of remained since I was a kid, you know, that like love for reading and, um, Which branch of the Vancouver library? And then if I end up really loving the book by the time I'm finished, I'll go and I'll buy it from the bookstore and I'll go back to all my favorite parts and like underline it so that my copy is underlined and I can flip back to like my favorite parts in the future or whatever.

So that way I'm supporting the library and bookstores and authors on both fronts. Yeah. Wow.

[Neil Pasricha]

No, no, I love this. I love this. And I want to get into this a little bit more on your reading habits and your reading life because you really have designed this very well.

And this is a big challenge that a lot of our listeners have, which is, you know, how do you find time to read? How do you design this? So I'm, I'm remembering the highlighting the library process, the Goodreads app, the book a week.

So we're going to hold all that in the air here because I want to get into that a little bit more. And I also want to, you know, you're, you're on set right now. You have 52 acting credits on IMDP page.

You're 36 years old. So you have, you know, you mentioned you moved to Toronto when you were 21 and you've been living in LA I think since 26. You have done, you've been on so many shows.

You've been on three episodes here, nine episodes there, 13 episodes here. Like you're like back to back to back. Like you are just doing a ton of acting all the time.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, I've been very lucky. It's been very fun. I get to do what I love for a living and I'm exceptionally grateful for it.

You know, like there's not a day I always, I made a deal with myself that I'm like the moment that I complain about an audition, the moment I complain about having to do the work that I do, I'm quitting because there are way too many people who want to do this and have such a like pure, total love for it that I, anyone who is miserable doing it shouldn't be doing it, you know?

[Neil Pasricha]

Anyone that's miserable doing it shouldn't be doing it. I like that. I like that.

I made a deal with myself. You seem like the kind of person that makes deals with yourself. Same with the book a week thing.

So, so yeah, we're going to get into some of this and we were going to get into some of these, these topics and open them up a little bit through of course your three most formative books. And I'd asked you at the beginning if there was an order that you wanted to visit them. And I think you said it was okay to go in any order.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

So we may as well start. Okay, so I'm just going to go for it. So I'm going to introduce each book.

I'm going to hold them up to the screen for anybody who's watching on YouTube and they can see the cover. I'll introduce it as if people are holding it in a bookstore or a library. And I'll ask you to tell us about your relationship with it.

And then I'll ask for some follow up questions. So we will start with Blow Up. Blow Up.

Stories, of course, a bunch of short stories by Julio Cortazar. If I said that right, C-O-R-T-A. So they do Z-A-R.

The cover is a super close zoom up of Cortazar's own face smoking a cigarette. I know it's his face because I checked his Wikipedia profile. It's the same photo.

It's literally that picture. Pixelated and bright pink. Right?

So they got, you know, it's like pre having a photo on LinkedIn. This guy's mastered like one severe looking photo on every channel. So this book was originally published in Spanish in 1951 and then eventually in English in 67.

The version I have is the 1985 edition from Pantheon Books. Cortazar is a really big part of the Latin American boom. A 1960s to 70s literary movement where the work of Latin American writers such as Gabriel García Márquez of Colombia, Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru, Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, and indeed, of course, Cortazar from Argentina were first published in Europe and then essentially because Europe was a little bit more of the publishing capital of the world at the time into English and around the world.

So Latin American writers kind of thrust up. He is one of the first kind of big ones that was read worldwide. Cortazar lived from 1914 to 1984, born in Belgium, interestingly enough, but then grew up in Argentina and then died in France and lived around the world in many places in between like you.

What is this book about? A series of short stories. A young girl spends her summer vacation in a country house where a tiger roams.

A man reading a mystery finds out too late that he is the murderer's victim. In the 15 stories collected here, including Blow Up, which is the basis of a film, Cortazar explores the boundary where the everyday meets the mysterious and sometimes even the terrible. Dewey Decimal has filed this one under 863 for literature slash Spanish-Portuguese Galician literature slash Spanish fiction.

Eve, tell us about your relationship with Blow Up by Julio Cortazar.

[Eve Harlow]

Honestly, you reading the synopsis of it, it makes me want to reread it. I love this book so much, so much, so much. Okay, so I'm a huge fan of Magic Realism.

Love for it started, you know how earlier I said I wanted to read books that my mom loved. So one of my mom's favorite books is The Master Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I don't know how to say that name in English.

You know better than me.

[Neil Pasricha]

It's a Russian name, isn't it?

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. So that book, Magic Realism, it kind of made me fall in love with it. My mom also loved 100 Years of Solitude, Marquez's book.

So I kind of became obsessed with this genre, with these authors. I read a bunch of Marquez and like Murakami also, because he's also in that, lives in that realm. And then fast forward to me coming across this, I don't actually remember how I came across it, but I got it from the library.

I remember reading it and being like, why? And the first story, Axolotl, like, it's so short. I found it to be so eerie, so unnerving.

And the way that it just like captivates you with just a couple of pages. Oh my God, what am I in for? And every single story is so different, but has this like, it's so moody.

So you enter this like world that he builds for you, even though all the stories are very separate. I read it. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

And like two weeks later, I actually reread it because I was like, I just want to be in this world again. I want to be in this, this, this atmosphere that he created. And then I was so mad about the fact that I'd never heard of Corazar before, because he definitely is in that, like, he's a master of this magic realism genre.

Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

How do you define magic realism for those that don't know it?

[Eve Harlow]

Okay. So I guess it's when really weird things happen and it's like the world is ours, but really weird things are happening and the people who are experiencing them don't perceive them as being strange. So for example, you're walking along and a cat starts talking to you and it's not out of the norm, you know?

So the difference, but like fantasy is a completely new world is built with new rules. Whereas magic realism is just like, it's our world, but weird shit happens.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great way of putting it.

It's accepted as if it's normal. Right?

[Eve Harlow]

I'm sure there are people out there who are like, that's not magic realism. She got it wrong. And I'm sorry, but this is off the top of my head.

That's the way it is.

[Neil Pasricha]

Well, that's how, what I want is your interpretation of it. Cause you have a connection to it. And by the way, The Master and Margarita was chosen in chapter 58 of the show with David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas.

So you can share a formative book with him.

[Eve Harlow]

I loved Cloud Atlas.

[Neil Pasricha]

So good job. Oh yeah. Yeah.

That's, that's an incredible book. He, the opening story Axoloidal is he goes, he's into this like aquarium where he's kind of going into like a museum type place. And he sees Axoloidal, which are like, you know, a baby salamander type of thing.

Like the popular now, these big eyes, right? Like this, like emoji type of character. And then by the end of the story, it seems like he is looking through the aquarium glass from the other perspective.

Like he's the inside looking out and it's trippy. Right? Like that's just a bizarre little twist.

And so what did it do for you? You love it. You read it again in two weeks.

So what is it about this that, that shaped you?

[Eve Harlow]

I think that it's the, so when I read it, I'm like, it's almost like he becomes the Axoloidal like that. I know it's like, it's the, he just sees the world through the eyes of this little creature. I think that the way of just like interpreting really mundane things in your day-to-day life and then seeing them in a different way.

So it's like, just not, you know, there's, there's another story. I can talk about the book, right? It's not like spoiler alert.

[Neil Pasricha]

No, no, don't worry about that. We won't be able to talk about it.

[Eve Harlow]

Um, it's this thing of, uh, it's a, I forget the name of the story. I think it's like writing a letter to a woman in Paris or something. And it's the, this person is Letter to a young lady in Paris.

Yes. Yeah. And it's about this person like vomiting bunnies.

And the idea, it's just like, it's so weird. Like what, what are you talking about? What?

Cause, cause I think we take our day-to-day life for granted and we get so used to like habits and patterns. And it's kind of like, but what if, like, what if this happened? What if a bunny was to come out of your mouth?

What if, you know, yeah. Like you saw through the eyes of this little creature in an aquarium. What if there's, I think it's almost like a, like Alice in Wonderland quality to it, like a dreamy thing to filter and seeing the world.

And I think I really like that and I'm drawn towards it. And I think that it, again, like, it's just, you know, the magic realism is the fact that we're not taken to, I mean, I, I guess Alice in Wonderland is a bad example because you are taken to a new world, but like in this, like we stay in our own world and there's still like moments of just like magic and strangeness and weirdness. And like I said, like Cortazar is a little, he's darker and it's heavier.

Um, I, for example, I find like Marquez is lighter and he's more like very passionate in the way that he writes and stuff. But I just, I, I like that of like taking the real solid world that we have and being like, but there is, there are unsolved mysteries there. There is this like, you know, I don't know, a talking cat around the corner, you know?

Um, so I think that's why I like it.

[Neil Pasricha]

I remember the talking cat, of course. And, uh, and Matt and mass from the margarita as well. And that sentence you're talking about once in a while, it happens that I'd vomit up a bunny.

It's not reason for one to blush and isolate oneself and to walk around keeping one's mouth shut. You know? So it's followed up by this idea that like, it's not that big a deal, you know?

Um, I wanted to ask you about identity. So quarters are very global, right? Like born in Belgium, spent his childhood and adolescence in Argentina and moved to France for over three decades.

But he also lived in Italy, Spain, Switzerland. As we talked about, you're born in the Soviet Union, turned Russia three months, you moved to Israel. You grew up there for seven years.

You moved to Canada. Now I think, you know, you live in LA, but you're in Canada to shoot. Right.

Um, I just wondered how you think of yourself, both of all, first of all, like identity wise, like how do you even articulate your own identity? And then just moving up a level from that, I wondered what you think it means to be a citizen of the world today.

[Eve Harlow]

Um, oh man, you're just like going for the hard hitters, huh? Uh, no, I, I think.

[Neil Pasricha]

And I know it's 7am there. I saw it. Cause I know it's like, you're on Pacific time.

So I'm also asking these questions like right when you wake up.

[Eve Harlow]

Um, yeah, I was like, I have to get it early cause I have to work later. But, uh, okay. So identity is definitely a thing that I've thought about a lot.

Cause it's a, I also like, I look like ethnically ambiguous is the term that people, I have been thrown a lot. And so the question of where I'm from, people ask me all the time. I'm sure you get this too.

Right. And it's so the, the question of like, how do I answer that? You know, like, especially when it's again, like the, language that I spoke first that I interacted with was Russian, right?

Then it was Hebrew. And now, I mean, the language I speak best, the language I think in is English. But then the question of where are you from?

It's constantly like growing up, I felt like it was very like alienating and very like distancing. So I'm like, I'm not, you know, I'm like, I'm not from Canada. When I was living in Canada, I'm like, I'm not from here.

And at a certain point, you're like, well, I've lived actually the biggest chunk of my life in Canada. But then it's like, I, again, I was thinking about this cause it's like, actually it's approaching now the time when it's not going to be like, I've kind of spread out all over, you know? And so I don't think I have an answer for how I think of myself as except for like a citizen of the world.

I know that sounds so corny, but that is the way, like, I'm like, I, and I think maybe that's part of the reason also why I've always loved books so much, because there are like no barriers, you know? And you read something like, I remember, this is another book that I really love, White Teeth by Zadie Smith. And it's, you know, it talks about the immigrant experience in a very like specific way, but it so resonated with me.

Like some of the things that the characters were going through and I think that art in general, in the specific, there is the general. So people who are reading it, people who are watching it, people who are listening to it, you're kind of like, this story might be very, very different, but I see myself in it, you know? And I think that's so powerful.

And in the time where it's like, what am I? I don't know. I'm a human being and I've experienced something similar to this and oh man, this other person across the world has also experienced this and we're not that different, you know?

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah, you can relate to the form, but you're also an actor. So you're also inhabiting different characters and personalities and, you know, you're having to be a little, you call it, you know, people would say you're ethically, ethically amorphous or whatever it was, ethically ambiguous. But you also have to be, you also have to hold that in your identity in some sense, because you, I mean, I couldn't do what you do, you know, sort of be someone else in lots of different scenarios.

So I wondered if that plays a role in it as well. Like you have to kind of maintain a water-like personality in order to inhabit a whole bunch of different hollow body shapes all the time.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, but I think it's having empathy, you know, like it's one of the number one things is like that I hold to approaching any character is not judging, you know, you completely strip any judgment of, because I've played some of the last three parts, honestly, that I've had have been villains or what other people would call villains, but I'm like, they're just misunderstood. And I truly do believe that, right? Like, I don't think that people are born with like this mean streak of wanting to go out and do cruel things, you know, I think, and again, this is contentious, but I think that people are inherently like good.

And we all at the very core want the same thing, which is like safety for ourselves, safety and love for ourselves and the people that we love, you know?

[Neil Pasricha]

I like that. We all want the same things, safety and love for ourselves and safety and love for the people we love, I guess.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. No, and then it's just the way in which we go about gaining these things, attaining them differs for everybody. And like circumstance of like given circumstances of where you live, who your parents are, surrounding people, that's what kind of dictates how you go about getting those things, you know?

And they're just like very different depending on where you are in the world.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah, totally. I like that. Lead with empathy, especially when you're learning how to play a villain or somebody that's, you know, tasked that way in a show or a movie.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, no one's born a villain.

[Neil Pasricha]

Okay, so identity. No, no, no. I got your, this is a Canadian philosophy too, right?

It's kind of how we think about our jail system and our prison system. It's about rehabilitation and helping and I like that. Okay, so we've talked a little bit about blow up cortisol book of short stories, which I'm really liking.

I've read a few of them so far. I'm going to keep reading them and enjoying them. And I've got that lady in Paris one now mentioned as like a check mark on that one.

Any others that you'd point to off the top of your head or?

[Eve Harlow]

No.

[Neil Pasricha]

There's a lot in here.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, it's, I mean, blow up is really weird too. They're all just like weird. I know that's not like saying much or enough about it, but, but truly it's like, it just puts you in a, um, uh, it's just, just read it.

Just trust me. I've literally, I've never done that with any other book.

[Neil Pasricha]

I never, I never heard of this. I'm, this is the joy of this show is that people constantly tell me books I've completely never heard of. And then, you know, there's millions and millions of books and this is how we, we need to curate them.

And we have to get which books most change your life. And another book that most changed your life was of course, a visit from the goon squad by Jennifer Egan, E G A N. I can see squealing on, on the screen.

You're published in 2010 by Knopf K N O P F. The cover I have, there's different covers, but the cover I have is like this mesmerizing overlay, translucent rainbow image of a person or multiple people dancing against a cream background. And then printed in all lowercase is Jennifer Egan, a visit from the goon squad and a novel with the gold circle, a very important gold circle saying winner of the Pulitzer prize.

What is this book about? It's a series of completely disjoint, barely weaved together stories about the lives of Benny Salazar, a former punk rocker and record executive and Sasha, a troubled young woman he employs over decades in cities from New York to Naples to Kenya. There's Sasha's traumatic childhood.

There's Benny's rise and struggles, but the book is told in like a series of disjoint, like memories and stories. And you don't really know how they're all attached. It's sort of the equivalent of, if I wanted to tell you about baseball, showing you a photo of the dugout and then a biography of the guy who built Fenway Park and a history of how baseball is made in the factory.

It's like all these weird little tangential shards that kind of together kind of produce an image. File this one Dewey Decimal Heads as 813.6 for American Fiction in English. Jennifer Egan, by the way, born in 1962 in Chicago.

She's a very active writer at age 63 today. Eve, tell us about your relationship with A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

[Eve Harlow]

Okay. So, um, I, okay. So my best friend, he is also a voracious reader and he, we actually, we met on a show like that we did like 10 years ago.

It was called the hundred. And I actually don't remember how we started talking on set. I thought he hated me at first, but then I found out that he read a lot.

I was like, so, so what are you reading? And then we basically, our love for books is what brought us together. And our first friend date was actually Pulp Fiction in Vancouver.

Cause the show was shooting in Vancouver too. It was the Pulp Fiction on main street. Um, and I think I'm sure that you get this too, but when people find out that you read, people are like, Oh, you should read this.

You should read that. And I am very particular about what I read because I, I have a limited amount of time and I do not want to be wasting time on stuff that I, if I was to read the, like, if I was to know anything about it, I would know that I wouldn't like this. Right.

Um, but Chris, my friend knows me again, we've been friends for over a decade at this point. He knows me very, very well. Um, and I trust his taste and we mainly communicate like when I'm like, you know, he films, he's an actor, I film, I'm an actor.

Uh, most of our communication is through email form. Cause he's also, he has a flip phone. He doesn't really, he's very much old school in that way.

So I remember this email that he sent me, it was really, really long. And then at the end of it, he was like, by the way, you have to read visit from the green squad by Jennifer Egan. Um, it will like change your life or something along those lines.

And I, for a very long time was a huge book snob and I would only read classics. Like I was like modern, like contemporary fiction. It hasn't stood the test of time.

I don't want to waste my time on it. Right. Um, I was like, fine, this one won the Pulitzer prize.

I guess I'll read it. And I read it and I was obsessed with it. It is such a good book.

And in the time since the very first time I read it, I don't really read books often because again, you have a limited amount amount of time. I want to experience as many as I can, but I've gone back to that book several times and every single time it hits me just as hard as it did the first time. Um, and it kind of made me change my mind about contemporary fiction.

And I will now read it. I do have certain like, oh good. Oh God.

I'm going to sound like such a sob, but for a long time I was like, okay, I'm going to read all the Pulitzer prize winners. And then I like slowly discovered that that's actually not necessarily, um, my most favorite kind of book. And now I'm really into the Booker prize winners.

Cause I feel like a lot of the times the Booker prize winners do whether even if I don't like the book necessarily, it'll do something interesting stylistically that will have made the book worth reading, you know? So yeah, I'm very into the, yeah, actually they came out with a shortlist for this year. Uh, not too long ago.

So yeah, check it out. That's another way I found fine books too. I'll go through like the shortlist of the Booker prize winner, uh, for the Booker prize.

Um, if you haven't read it, cover your ears, fast forward, I don't know, do what you have to do. Um, but yeah, like you said, the way that this book is constructed and initially was supposed to be a collection of short stories. And then, uh, her editor or maybe the publisher, I don't know, somebody within like Egan's world was like, you should make this into a full novel.

And so the, the way that it's like every story kind of push it, like we're going through time. And so by the very end work, we're a little bit like in the future. Um, and that for like the title of visit from the goon squad, we like real, we uncover what is referring to at the very end when the care, I forget what it's the, the, the music executive, I forget what his name is, but he goes like, yeah, he goes back to the apartment where that, the Sasha character lived and he looks up and he's just like, basically like times a goon and it sends chills.

It gives me chills because that moment you're like, yes, time, the way that it passes and it passes by so quickly and so unexpectedly and things happen. And when you're in it, it feels like it's going to go on forever. And there's such, there's, there's so many beautiful things that happen.

There's so many tragic things. Like there's that, uh, there's a story where like this kid drowns. And then there's another story, which I think is really fun too, where she, uh, the character has like autism, I think, and like the way that they see the world.

So there's like, it's just that bit is so interesting the way it's written. Like she just plays around with a lot of things in that way. And, um, and then, so we've experienced all of this where you're taking her on this whirlwind of characters and places.

And, and then we come to the very end of it and it's like this like breath of like, Whoa, what just happened? It's like time, time happened, life happened. And I just think it's so beautiful.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

I love that.

[Neil Pasricha]

Page 120, page 127. I want interviews, features, you name it. Bosco went on, fill out my life with that shit.

Let's document every fucking humiliation. This is reality, right? You don't look good anymore.

20 years later, especially when you've had half your guts removed. Time's a goon, right? Isn't that the expression?

Jules had drifted over from across the room. I never heard that. He said, time is a goon.

Would you disagree? Bosco said a little challengingly. There was a pause.

No, Jules said. So the function of time being this thing that sort of takes and gives everything that we have. And I'd love to plumb a little deeper here, even to your reading life, because it sounds really fascinating.

And you filter because right away, you know, there's, there's, this is the crux of any podcast too. It's like, there's 5 million podcasts. There's a lot to listen to.

Like one of the things I always wanted to say is like, by listening to every chapter of the show, I call them chapters on episodes. You get three, 400 books that have changed someone's life. And then the sort of context around it.

So it's like a book selection tool as well. But you've said, okay, I have very little time to read. So you're using classics as a filter, the Booker prize nominees as a filter.

David Mitchell, by the way, we mentioned, I said three or four books of his are shortlisted for Booker. So you've, hence you said Cloud Atlas, but also Steve Toltz, who is one who's written my favorite novel, a fraction of the whole Booker shortlist. Yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

I feel like it's a good filter.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah, it's a great one. And then you said you started down Pulitzer prize road and then that you kind of swerved away from that. So what other, how else are you choosing what to read?

I know when you were a kid, it was reading what your mom liked. And now when your photos on your Instagram page, you know, you're still mostly library. It was like, so how are you choosing what to read?

And then talking about the time of the day that you're reading, like, when are you reading a book a week's a lot? So, and you're busy. So what are you reading?

How are you budgeting that? Do you have a minimum page count? Are you putting your phone in the basement?

Like, what are you doing to like, create that zone? And then also, I'm interested from a systems point of view, sorry to go another level deeper, but it's like, what exactly are you doing on Goodreads so that that sort of pushes you into this so that people listening could like set up something like this for themselves, potentially. Sounds like you're using Goodreads in an interesting way.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. I mean, Goodreads has a very simple thing of where they say, you put a goal for the year, and then they tell you if you're behind. It's like, I don't know if, have you ever used Duolingo?

[Neil Pasricha]

No.

[Eve Harlow]

Like the language tool? Yes. Duolingo guilts you into it.

It's like, Duo is sad. You haven't checked in. And I feel like on Goodreads, it doesn't, you know, shame you to the same extent, but it says like, you're a book behind.

And so that kind of like light a fire under my ass. I'm like, I'm a book behind. I have to basically take like, it's very, it's not like, oh, I casually pick up a book and like read a couple of pages.

I don't like doing that. Like I need, it's hours of just like everything, everything gets turned off. I lied, but I don't like reading outside.

I know a lot of people like, I wish I was that cool person sitting in a coffee shop reading. I can't do it. It's too distracting.

I stay home on the couch on the, I, this is, this might sound weird, but like, I like lying on the floor. Like, it's just like, there's a, you know, carpet. There's, I have my pillow book on the floor reading for hours.

Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

And it kind of like, you're holding the book above your head.

[Eve Harlow]

No, no, no, no. Usually like on, on the floor, like it's just like, I'm like on my stomach. Yeah.

I don't lie down on my stomach.

[Neil Pasricha]

Pillow is under the arm armpits.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

Okay. Gotcha.

[Eve Harlow]

Gotcha.

[Neil Pasricha]

In front of it. I wondered if you had one of those fancy like reading pillows that I'd sometimes see, you know, like the, the three sided ones that you would sit in.

[Eve Harlow]

Absolutely nothing fancy about this. The least, the least fancy way of reading you can envision.

[Neil Pasricha]

And is it, is it morning? Is it morning? Is it night?

[Eve Harlow]

Whenever I have time. It's cause like my schedule is kind of crazy, you know? And like, for example, I, yesterday I started work at like two 30 in the afternoon.

Uh, but the, and then I went to like nine o'clock, but then the day before it was, I was there from like six 30 in the morning until like 9. So it's so differs day to day. So I can't, you can't really have like a system or a schedule, but, um, the weekends honestly are a really good time.

Cause I'm like, okay. So a couple weeks ago I was like three books behind and I was like, Hey, fuck it. I need to like Sunday turning everything off.

I'm like, I just need to read, you know? And I got like, uh, yeah, like I, I finished a book in that day. Cause I'm like, you got to catch up.

You got to catch up somehow.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. You know, the pressure system and you're, and you're inputting 52, I'm assuming into like the Goodreads goal.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. And like, usually I try to do more than that. Like I have, okay, hold on.

I I'm just, I'm bringing up my phone because I do keep it in, uh, my phone. I do like read books. So 2024, I had 55 books and then it's like 2020, it's 55, 58.

Yeah. This was nerdy. Um, but yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

You're obviously you're a fast reader though. Like to book off a Sunday and get through two books. Like not many people could do that.

You're, you're, you're must be, you must have some tools that make you read so quickly.

[Eve Harlow]

No, I think that people just underestimate themselves. I think that anybody can read. It's just like the, we, I think another reason why reading is really important for me because I find myself, uh, being easily distracted as we all are with our phones.

Um, you know, this need to check my phone, even though it's a weekend, nothing of importance is coming, you know, like chill out. But it, but I don't know, it might, like, I think it's really unhealthy and I don't want, like when I was younger, I, this is again, this reading stuff comes from when I was a kid. I, I used to not sleep at night.

Like I would, when I was in high school, I'd stay up all night reading a book. Like I would start it and I just couldn't put it down and we'll continue reading. I remember this one time actually in class, this is an elementary school.

We had like reading hour or whatever. And I was reading a book and a kid was just like, it was like, Hey, Hey Eve. And I was like, yeah.

And she's like the, the, the kid was like the teacher, she's been calling your name. And I didn't hear it because I was so captivated by what I was reading. Like I'm that person.

And so I know this system sounds really intense and like, why is she so obsessive about it? And it's because it's kind of like, you know, people like exercise in order to feel good. Cause they know they get the, like the dopamine hit and they need it.

Like reading is exercise for my brain. And if I don't do it, I find that I get kind of depressed. Like you read or you listen, read the news, whatever, however you consume the news and the world is on fire.

It's the feels kind of hopeless at times. And also, and then you, you're like on a, you know, I'm currently on the show. I'm away from all like my friends, from my, you know, quote unquote real life.

And so the show becomes your life. And then books are this way of like, it's a way to escape, but it's also a way to ground myself at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense.

Does that make sense?

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Eve Harlow]

Cause it's like, as like, as, as much as it's like, it's escapism because it's not my world, it's also grounding because it's opening yourself up to like other viewpoints and other worlds and other people and all of it, you know? So yeah, I don't know. It's like, it's, it's really, it's really important for me.

And I find that I like begin to like lose myself if I don't read.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. I love that. I love that.

I love the way you articulate it and the way you shut everything off and the way you talk about being distracted by your phone. You probably know this, but you know, it, it comes out online when, when you're researching you that you, you are like a social media sort of abstainer. Although you have a big public Instagram account.

You've just, you've just, you know, there's a line in your Wikipedia that says, Harlow was driven off social media after fans of the 100 were just saying the meanest things for her performance of a perceived villainous character. So I guess I was just going to ask, how do you use or not use social media today? And it's kind of funny that they have that on driven off because the Wikipedia is supposed to be like clear, factual written.

And it sounds totally biased the way it's written.

[Eve Harlow]

Yes.

[Neil Pasricha]

But I will tell you how you set that up.

[Eve Harlow]

I learned that it was the hard way of learning that you have to be so careful about what you say, because it will be taken out of context and just like dramatize in a way that I had. So what had happened was that when I was on the show, the hundred, um, cause I was, a lot of people thought that I was a villain and on Twitter at the time it was Twitter, people said, just tweeted really mean, mean shit at me. And I was like, I don't want to engage with this anymore.

Right. So I kind of like, I didn't, I was, I was like, fuck this. I wasn't driven off as yes, I have an Instagram page, but I will say, um, I have it for work.

You know, it's kind of like, yeah, look at me help pictures of myself. I'm going to put that up there. Hey, shamelessly self-promotion.

I'm on a show. You should watch it, you know? Um, but just in terms of, I think people forget how curated everything is and how, um, it's just not real, you know?

And I think that what I don't like about how engaged everybody is with social media is that, um, I just think like privacy, right? Like the, the, the lack of it and this desire to share. And I think, you know, some people come back to that with the rhetoric of like, well, I have nothing to hide.

Everybody can see everything, but it's not about hiding. It's the fact that we like in private, we act differently and it doesn't have to be in like nefarious way, you know? But it's just like, like when it's just me and a book, it's just my own world that nothing else can enter.

And I think that having that privacy and that space is really important. And I don't think that everything should be shared, you know? Like, I don't know if he, the, I don't know how to say her name properly.

Elena Ferrante. Do you know that author?

[Neil Pasricha]

No.

[Eve Harlow]

She's, she wrote the, like, I think the thing that she's most famous for is like the Neapolitan series. She wrote these four books and starts off with my brilliant friend. It was made into like an HBO series, but that was a pseudonym.

No one knew who she actually was. And then some journalists went and he like found out, it's like, follow the money. He found out who she was and then published her identity.

And I have actually like refused to read that article because I think that every artist should be allowed to have their privacy. And that the only thing that they really owe to the world or to their public is their artwork. And if they want to come along and explain it and talk about it, sure.

That's great. But I think now we live in this time where it's like, everybody feels like they have the right to everyone's personal information. And I don't think that that's necessarily healthy.

And I think that it also like, um, kind of stifles imagination, you know? Like it's, it's just it completely eradicates that our natural thing, which is like to daydream. I remember reading this once, this was years ago.

And it was that like the really sad thing about the cell phone is that we're constantly on it now. So that thing of that in the past where we would naturally do that stand around, you're standing in a line, you're bored, you start to daydream, right? And from daydream comes innovation.

Uh, cause that's where any idea comes from. It's just like this little spark.

[Neil Pasricha]

Creativity that pours a vacuum.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

And, and then, yeah, exactly.

[Eve Harlow]

Exactly. But now we're, we're constantly on it all the time, right? And you don't give yourself a moment to be bored because you're looking at a, like a cat video, you know?

And it's not like my algorithm, it's like poems, like artsy pictures, you know, like it's like pottery. Cause I got really into pottery and then the CERN coin and now it's just like there for forever. Uh, but so I'm not, it's, it's, it's not like bad, right?

It's not, it's not this thing of like, Oh my God, it's corrupting your brain. It's making you feel bad about everything, but it's filling your brain with kind of like nothing. So I think that's where my pushback to it comes from.

You know? Um, I know that it's like, you can learn a lot from it. You people are like, I, I learned a bunch of stuff from Tik TOK.

[Neil Pasricha]

No, this is like the minority of people that are, that are celebrated in the ads though. I mean like the vast majority of people that we sit beside and we see their phones on the subway, it's like, they're just scrolling through people in bikinis. I mean, it's mindless.

Not many people are like, I've learned a new language from Tik TOK or whatever, but, but, um, I hear what you mean. And I completely agree with you. Creativity abhors a vacuum was a line that I heard from Michael Harris.

He wrote the book solitude and he's from Vancouver and you should not should, but it's a wonderful book. Um, if you haven't heard of it, it's a, if, if loneliness is alone and sad, then solitude is alone and happy. And he had that line that I have thought of that many times, two chapters before that chapter 27, I talked to Robin, the bartender.

Um, and he said, you know, we're living in this panopticon and I hadn't heard that phrase before. And since then, I can't stop thinking about that either. Even to the point now where I have to be careful because I could feel paranoid and that's kind of the issue.

But when I'm walking down the street, like a busy street, I just like happened to glance around and I'm like, okay, this biker is whizzing by with like a camera on his helmet. These people are talking while like holding their phones up, videotaping or FaceTiming. And I'm in their FaceTime or I'm in their videotape.

These cam, these cameras and all the stores are, you know, filming security. And I'm like, just walking down the street, I'm being recorded by like five to 10 different places at all times. And that is unnerving to me.

I find that really, you know, and the instinct of course, is to bunker into your, you know, your basement and be alone with the book as you and I both like to do. But then that also hurts your ability to like fucking live and just like go outside and stuff. And so that's why I said you have to be careful about the paranoia, but I also agree with you completely that privacy is so deeply eroded now.

And it's a huge, massive issue because then we are always performative. You also think about what you have to, what you're wearing to take out the garbage.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. And I think that that's what you've just landed on. That's really important that it's when we know we are being observed, there is that understanding.

Ultra is perhaps not the way that we are actually acting, but there's a shift that happens inside, right? And I think that that's why now more than ever, it's so important for me to continue this like reading habit because it's just because it's being taken away, right? That ability to be alone, that privacy, that being with your own thoughts, and that you don't necessarily need to share these thoughts and that these thoughts are like constantly evolving, right?

And that these, your opinions and your ideas don't necessarily like make you who you are being open to have them change, right? But then when you put something out on the internet, first of all, it's attacked by a gazillion people, you know, and it's just like it strips everybody of their humanity. I think.

[Neil Pasricha]

Reading is a bastion of privacy as you're articulating a reading as like this, one of these last bastions of privacy. And I think that's true. There's no trackers.

There's no algorithms involved. I saw somewhere on the internet, somebody said like a great activist act these days is to buy a book in cash from an independent bookstore. I mean, like you just, nobody knows what you're doing or what you're putting into your mind.

It's one of the only places where that isn't been sold back to you in a way that then monetizes more of your attention, right? And so, yeah, I love that. I love that.

Okay, cool. Now we got to keep moving. So I want to, I want to hold all these wonderful ideas that you've shared with us about, about your reading life, because that's really powerful how you've cultivated that.

And I think 55 books in 2024 is like amazing. So we're learning a lot from you, even amidst your busy, busy career. And your third and final book, which you did tell me before we recorded that was like the most recent book you read is called The Choice.

The Choice. And the sub headline is Embrace the Possible. It is a cream colored book with a very interesting image.

It's like a barbed wire fence, but it's, the fence is also a plant. So there's like little leaves off of it and a kind of a watercolor-y like orange flower at the top. This book came out in 2017 by Scribner.

It's written by Dr. Edith Eager, if I said that right, E-G-E-R, or a memoir by Dr. Edith Eva Eager. There's a blurb on the front by Oprah saying, I'll be forever changed by Dr. Eager's story. Won some awards, a couple other bursts on the front, National Jewish Book Award winner and the CRISPR award, which I never heard of.

So I looked it up. It's like a Christian organization that awards this book for a book that brings about like life's purpose kind of thing. So at the age of 16, Edith Eager was sent to Auschwitz.

Hours after her were killed, Nazi officer, Dr. Joseph Mengel forced Edith to dance for his amusement and her survival. Edith was pulled from a pile of corpses when the American troops liberated the camps in 1945. Edith spent decades struggling with flashbacks and survivor's guilt, determined to stay silent and hide from the past.

35 years after the war ended, she returned to Auschwitz and was finally able to fully heal and forgive the one person she'd been unable to forgive, herself. This book weaves a remarkable personal journey with moving stories of those she has helped heal. She explores how we can be imprisoned in our own minds and shows us how to find the key to freedom.

The choice is a life-changing book that will provide hope and comfort to generations of readers. Edith, by the way, was born 1927, Czechoslovakia. She's still alive.

She's 98 years old today, hardcore. She moved to Texas. She got her PhD.

She started a clinic and now she put this book out relatively recently, in 2017, many, many years later, many decades later. File List 1, Dewey Decimals under 150.92 for philosophy and psychology slash biography. Eve, please tell us about your relationship with The Choice by Dr. Edith Eager.

[Eve Harlow]

Okay, so my younger sister reads, but she reads very, very different genres. She's really into fantasy, loves fantasy, like Lord of the Rings, obsessed with it. I enjoyed Lord of the Rings, but it's just not really something that I gravitate towards.

So my sister recommended this book a couple of years ago, and she just came out. She's like, have you read it yet? Have you read it?

And I'm like, no, no, I'll read it later. I'll read it again, because I have this list of other books I have to get through first, right?

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

And then when- Yeah, yeah. And then, and it's also, you know, when your sibling tells you, it's like, kind of like your friend will tell you, you're like, okay, friend, I'll read that, but your sister is kind of like, okay, okay, I'll get, I'll get around to it. And then when I did finally get around to reading it, I was like, Adia, why didn't you read it sooner?

Because it is life-changing. I know, I feel like every, the back of every book says it, this will blow your mind. But it is a book I feel that everybody should read.

I don't, I, you're probably, you're probably familiar with Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yes, we've had that, we've had that on the show a few times.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah, so I feel like this book honestly falls within that realm. I think, and I, I'm a little surprised that it is not more popular than it is just because, and maybe it's because like, you know, because Viktor Frankl, like he's a philosopher, right? So that Man's Search for Meaning kind of falls under philosophy, whereas I think the choice, because she is a therapist, falls under, under like the self-help category and people are like, oh, this is a self-helper, but this, this is philosophy.

So it's like regarded as higher, but the, I mean, it's all in the title, what she talks about is that like, the way that we respond to things is all a choice and we can choose to be like a victim, or we choose to, but that like, by allowing that victimization to happen, our abuser actually wins. And again, this is all set in the first like chapter, so I'm not like ruining anything. I also know you said we're, we're allowed to talk about it, you know, but you know, like she talks about this one moment where they're taking blood from her and they were taking blood for like, you know, for Nazi soldiers and she was a dancer and she goes, she's like, I was sitting there and as they're taking my blood, I'm thinking, oh yeah, you try to win the war with my pacifist dancer blood, you know? So there was just like this rebellious spirit in her. And then, um, there was another incident that was like so moving.

So it was when she danced for like Mango, who's known for that, doing these like horrific experiments on people, threw her a loaf of bread. And in that, that loaf of bread, she ended up sharing with the people that she was in the bunker with. And then, uh, fast forward, there was the death marches that people would go on and she couldn't, she could barely walk.

[Neil Pasricha]

55 kilometer walk. Yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. So she was on this walk and later she found out that her back was broken, which was why she was in so much pain. And she's really struggling.

She can barely walk. Her sister is helping her. And, and then this other woman comes along and she starts helping her as well.

And this is when you're helping someone else during, at that time, it's like you're exerting energy. So you're kind of risking your, putting your own life at stake. Right.

And she asked this woman, she's like, why are you helping me? And this woman responded, it's because you shared your bread with me. And she, in the book has been so mangled by giving me that loaf of bread.

He saved my life. Like, how are you interpreting? It's so powerful.

It's so powerful. And honestly, it's the book that I think back to most often I've read so much. And that one, I just can't because it, it just, you, it gives you no excuse to be miserable.

You know, like it, you're like, if this woman, this is the way, this is the filter she saw through things through. And she went through the, like the worst, the worst of the worst of the worst. And that's how she interpreted it.

You know? And I think that for her, it was just like inherently a part of who she was. It was how she looked at things before the war started.

And I think that that's also just what like saved her, you know? But I think it is a book that literally everybody should read. Because I think that it, it's just the, and like the compassion for other people that she has is so remarkable.

You know, she talks about how like, as like, she, she becomes a therapist and somebody like comes in and he is, you know, antisemitic and how do you talk to somebody like that, you know, and she's capable of doing that. And I think that the only way that we will get through anything is like empathy is communication is listening and we're losing all of that, you know? And so I think it's like now more than ever, it's like, read the book.

I guess it sounds so corny, but like learning to love each other and have more understanding toward each other and just being like, and finding that strength within yourself too that she has is just, it's very, very inspiring.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's, it sounds easy, the stuff.

I mean, it's not, this sounds easy, but like our painful experiences are a liability. They're a gift. They give us perspective and meaning and opportunity to find our unique purpose and strength.

Okay. Next one. Time doesn't heal.

It's what you do with the time. Healing is possible when we choose to take responsibility, when we choose to take risks. And finally, when we choose to release the wound, to let go of the past or the grief.

And the next one, we don't know where we're going. We don't know what's going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put into your own mind. It's a lot here about like resolve, resilience, deciding which way you're going to go in the face of, you know, horrors and pains, which is hard.

It's hard to do.

[Eve Harlow]

I mean, you know, but I think it's like the, what I love about it is, and I don't, you know, I think that a lot of these contemporary self-help books are written by people who yeah, went to school, got a degree and they're like, I can tell people how to live life, but this is, it was her living.

[Neil Pasricha]

Guilty. You're right. You're totally right.

I, Mark Manson, James Clear, uh, right. Holiday. I'd put, I'd put like, so Hillblue, I'd put all of us in the camp of, we're just writing stuff.

You know what I mean? Like we haven't been through the Holocaust or, or, you know, we haven't. So, so we're, we're reflecting it based on our own experiences.

But to your point, this is a different type of book. I mean, it's going through severe emotional and physical trauma and telling that story in a way that is inspiring because it's so much more severe than what most of us experience.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. And I, I think that at the most, and it's the same thing for like, you know, Man's Search for Meaning, like he came up, well, you know, Viktor Frankl came up with the whole like logo therapy thing, not just like, you know, sitting around and like thinking about stuff, but like what helped him survive Auschwitz? Like why did he live where so many like people around him perished?

Right. And the same thing with her. Like, what is it that it's, you know, she was saying that, and there's another moment where she saw, um, like cannibalism and she was like, I could not, like, I could not, she was like, I will eat the grass because that is one, it's like a line of like, I can't, because once I do that, I've lost humanity, you know?

And it's like, how do you, it's like most people have not had to choose between eating the limb of a human being or eating dirt, you know? And, and that is what was in front of her. And like, what is it that made her eat dirt and still like come out on the other side of that and be able to like tell her story, you know?

Um, and it's, again, it's not just like telling her story, but lessons that then we can all take away, you know? Um, yeah. And it is about just like the strength of the mind and your spirit.

That sounds so corny, but it's true.

[Neil Pasricha]

No, no, it doesn't. It doesn't sound corny. It's, it's, it's, you're right.

That Victor Frankel's book, Manswers for Me, which has been chosen four times, by the way, on this podcast, has an overbearing, like, when you think about book of a Holocaust survivor story of resilience, that's the one that comes to mind, whereas this book is relatively unheralded. So I'm really grateful to you for bringing it, um, to our attention as well as the other two books, Blow Up and Other Stories by Cortazar, and of course, uh, The Goon Squad from Egan. And so to kind of wrap things up here, because we've talked about three really formative and interesting books, as well as got a lot of details on, um, things like identity and your reading life and how you design your reading habits.

I thought we might close things off with a fast money run question or two, if you're ready for it, they're all book related, so you're going to like them. First of all, hard cover, paperback, audio, or e?

[Eve Harlow]

Uh, oh my God. No, I hate eBooks. Paperback.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. Okay. How do you organize your books on your bookshelf?

[Eve Harlow]

Um, no real order. It's just the authors have to be together. Like I would never separate the people who do like, cause at one point a friend was like, oh, you do color.

I'm like, no, because that would mean separating the authors and I, or like the books written by the same author. And, and I just think that that's blasphemous. No, like if it's all written by the same author, they should be sitting next to each other.

That's the only rule.

[Neil Pasricha]

Wow. Yeah. Wow.

That's interesting. Yeah. That's, that's important of course, because there's their work.

It's existing as a body.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

Wait, how do you organize them? What is your book lending? I go Dewey Decimal System, although like the library basically in my house.

So every single book, I like look up the Dewey decimal number. I write it on a, on a yellow sticky note. I put it in the front.

I label it. That's why I always call it the Dewey decimal number. And then my books are organized that way, which both shows me massive gaps.

Like I'm like, you know, uh, wow, I only have two books on science, you know, or whatever it is. Uh, it shows me gap helps me find them. But also now that I've been doing this for a number of years, I'm starting to realize the Dewey decimal system, it has this massive amounts of problems.

Like for example, pretty much every book that's international or world, you know, it's just like wedged into the nine hundreds when more and more books that I'm reading are from. So that, that one second is getting huge, but I'm like, well, let's just be in the one hundreds. And then, so there's all kinds of issues with the system of course, but it is like a nice organized way.

So we have that in common. It's kind of like a periodic table. I can relate to it.

Every library is organized this way. It works for me, but, uh, I know it's unusual. And then the other problem is a bath log.

Like, I'm like, okay, I have like a hundred books to like, look up the numbers too now and like, write them on a piece of paper and sort them one by one. So I'm like, oh, it was like bath logging app. Oh, it's a little bit easier now with AI because in chat GPT, I can just say, what's the DDC of this?

What's the DDC of that? Where I was like, try to look it up online. It was really actually a hard job.

It's not like publicly available sometimes. Anyway, there's my long answer to your question.

[Eve Harlow]

What is your book lending policy? Sorry. I'm like, I might have to, I might.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah, no, I, I, I might have to, but then it's, it's, it's, I don't like color. Like that just doesn't work for me. So I don't think that way.

Honestly, my next, my next most obvious thing would probably be alphabetically by last name period. But then I'm often like looking for a book and I have to remember who wrote it or, you know, so nothing's really perfect. That's kind of why I asked the question and everybody has got a different process.

So far Dewey Decimal is the best I've got.

[Eve Harlow]

But, uh, yeah, no, mine's, mine's mine's chaotic. It's all over, but sorry, the lending. Okay.

So this is my thing about lending. If I lend a book, I know I'm never getting it back. And so I will only lend a book if I know that, cause I, I don't know how you feel, but I find that a lot of times when again, people know that you read, they're like, Oh my God, can I borrow a book?

Like what would, what would you recommend? But then they'll borrow it from you and not read it for like two years if they ever read it. So I think that if I lend a book, it's, it's with the knowledge that I'm never getting it back.

And I usually will like go and like buy a book right away. But there are two books that I gift so often that whenever I see them at like a used bookstore or whatever, I'll always buy them. Cause I know that I'm going to gift them.

And actually one of them is visit from the goon squad. And then the other one is just kids by potty Smith. And I found that whenever I've gifted them, people will come like, however, and I give them with like, if you read it now, cool.

If you read it in two years, cool. These are like timeless books. And whenever you get around to it, I guarantee you, you will love it.

And sure enough, across the board, every single person I've gifted either one of those books has come back and been like, you were right. It was amazing. So yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. Those are, those are, those are classes, just kids chosen in chapter 63 of the show by Brandon Stanton, the creator of humans of New York. Yeah.

So interesting overlap there. Uh, do you have a white whale book or a book you have been chasing in any sense? The longest as in like that, that I need to read well that you think to yourself that you need to read or that you are always trying to do.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. I'm going to move this because it's actually propping this up right now. Cause I, but two, six, six, six.

Oh, Roberto Bolano. Wait, can you, I can't see. Cause I can't see myself.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. I can see it.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah. So it is.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah. Savage detectives.

[Eve Harlow]

I can 898 pages. I just got it from the library. I'm like, there's no way that I can do this in three weeks.

Um, so this is one of them also infinite jest. I actually, I saw that somebody like, or it's one on the list that have like, like greatest books or whatever. I was like, who, I feel like no one's actually read that book.

Actually my best friend, who I mentioned earlier, he's read it and he was like, it was good, but like not that good. It's like, Oh shit. Can you imagine getting to the end of like, you know, 1500 pages and being like, Oh, it's okay.

But yeah. So I think this, like this one, the Bolano book and infinite jest are my two ones that I kind of, I almost want to do them just because so I can say that I've done them, you know?

[Neil Pasricha]

Um, yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

Yeah.

[Neil Pasricha]

Just as one for me as well. Uh, Mark Manson author of subtle art. I'm not giving a fuck chapter 28, pick that book.

He has read it all the way through, but I've, I, I'm, I think I'm all on page 700 or 800 sort of terminally. Uh, but there are parts of that book that that has stuck with me that I still think about. Like there's just, you know, a couple scenes where it goes for like a five or 10 or 15 pages and it just totally mesmerizing.

But for me, David Foster Wallace, I love his nonfiction and the book both flesh or not is one of my favorites. I buy that one in multiples. It has an essay in it called the nature of the fun that I really like.

Um, and so I, uh, yeah, I like his nonfiction more. I think it kind of holds up maybe a bit better, but, uh, if it adjusts, it's definitely on the list for me. Do you have a favorite bookstore living or dead?

[Eve Harlow]

Oh, I don't know. I like, I, I, I love a lot. I just, I find bookstores to be really exciting.

I mean, in LA there are, you know, like a handful that I love. Like there's like the last bookstore, which is it's downtown and it used to be a bank and they refurbished it, but they left a lot of the stuff that was when it was. And it's cool.

Cause like there's on the second floor, there's also a couple of like art studios and they did this thing of there's like the vault of where they use, I guess they used to keep or the safety deposit box or whatever it is. Like it's this big thing and you have to like, it's a whole room. So they keep the horror section in it, which I think is so cute and so fun.

Um, you know, but there's a, yeah, again, in LA there's like skylight books. Um, and they have a lot of like, they have, uh, signed copies oftentimes. So if it's the, you know, like ocean Vaughn, uh, the author, you're like, uh, on earth, we're briefly on earth.

So I had like preordered his, his new book, but then I was walking by skylight and they had like a signed copy of the book. I was like, okay, well obviously I have to go get the signed copy. Now I can't just have like the regular copy.

Um, so I like skylight because they have yet signed copies of books oftentimes.

[Neil Pasricha]

Um, and then I love how much of a bibliophile you are. Like you're really in, you're, you're going on the fourth bookstore. Now I hear, I'm curious, what is it?

Oh, it's like, I love how into, into, into bookstores. Yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

It's cause they're, I think like every, they all have like their own little different things, you know, and like those, um, stories and it's also in LA and it's, it's just like a cute coffee shop and stuff. But then there's also, okay, this one that I really, really love it's in new Orleans and I don't remember the name of it, but it is, I've never been in a bookstore. There's like no space, there's no space.

There's just like piles of books everywhere. And, and, and the crazy thing is there's this, this little, you know, this, this man at the front, you know, he was every single time I've gone in there, he's just like sitting there reading and I'm like, oh, Hey, do you know where this is? He's like, yeah, follow me this way.

And we'll like go through, you know, all these like, you literally see like something's going to fall on you. Um, and there is it Faulkner house books. No, but that one's okay.

[Neil Pasricha]

There's Crescent city as well.

[Eve Harlow]

You know, I will, gosh, I look it up.

[Neil Pasricha]

We'll add it to the show notes once we find it out.

[Eve Harlow]

Because I definitely have like, I did have a picture in it of it. It's wonderful. Um, yeah, I, I just, I really liked that feeling.

I think I, I liked book, like bookstores where they're just like, yeah, piles of piles. It's the same thing with like Pulp Fiction that I mentioned earlier on mainstream in Vancouver. Like you go in there and I'm like, Hey, do you have this?

And they're like, I don't know, we could, or we could not like, they don't have the books in the system. So you have to just like go and like rummage to find what you're looking for. You know, it's like the thrill of the hunt.

And then you walk away with something that you weren't initially coming in for, but it's there, you know, and there's, there's new books and used books. And sorry, I know I gave you like way too many. You're like one bookstore.

[Neil Pasricha]

And I'm like, no, I love it. Cause if you're shouting out bookstores and we want to support bookstores and encourage people to go to their local independent bookstore bookstores to continue to thrive, bookstores are growing. They are a safe space.

They are, you know, uh, a way that we annex the past into our day and age and try to make sense of things. And you're right. They're all different.

There's many great, wonderful, independent bookstores in Toronto that I can get to from my house and they don't have any of the same books. Like, you know, that's the cool part because there's so many books and they all have to choose a format or a style or a positioning. Is it just new?

Is it classics? Is it which, you know, tight bookstore in downtown Toronto where I had my last book launch, they have a huge second in there that I've never seen anywhere else, which is plotless fiction. You know, that's like the genre that they've really focused on.

They have plotless fiction bags. They have a plotless fiction book club. What the fuck is plotless fiction?

Well, that's how they define it. You know, fiction that doesn't have a plot. Um, it's cool.

Like they have their own identity, as you said. Now you're a huge, uh, super reader. You have carved out and designed a really satisfying and fulfilling reading life.

You gave us the quote that, you know, if I, when I go a while without reading, I feel depressed or, you know, it gives you like a mental health in a way. What would be your final hard fought piece of wisdom for anybody who is aspiring to improve their reading life?

[Eve Harlow]

Just do it. It's, I know that it's like, I'm giving you the Nike quote, but I, um, I think that people are intimidated by it and it's really not intimidating. You know, it's way easier than it's, I think than, than, than people think or realize that it is.

It's way easier, you know, and it really is about like finding that story that will hook you. And there are so many genres out there. I think you just need to find the one that, um, cause it feeds your brain and it feeds your soul in a way that nothing else does, you know?

Um, and maybe that's why it's, it's a little difficult to get into, but then once you do, you're, you know, you're kind of hooked.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yeah.

[Eve Harlow]

I wish that was more eloquent.

[Neil Pasricha]

Just do it. No, I, I'm, I'm don't, you know, you're, you're, you're great. It's wonderful to chat with you.

You've got a very interesting, you've carved out a very interesting reading life. You've got great formative books. We haven't talked about before.

I really appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure.

[Eve Harlow]

See you on your class. Thank you.

[Neil Pasricha]

Hey everybody. It's just me, just Neil again, hanging out in my basement. Listen to the effusive, loving, beautiful soul that is Eve Harlow.

I love Eve's, you know, the way she merges books into her life is inspiring. The way she kind of maps out 52 books a year and she kind of keeps pace using Goodreads. It's like this little bunny rabbit, you know, down like a dog track to kind of keep her going.

52 is a lot, but it kind of, I like the fact that she'll just like move a whole Sunday around to just make space for books. A beautiful and passionate soul. And if you haven't checked it out, I do recommend you check out Watson.

It's nice to just sink into a TV show now. Like a TV show that's on once a week on cable, you know. CBS 10pm if you are in the States and Paramount Plus if you are in Canada.

In the UK it's on now, and overseas you can find it. Watson is the TV show. You can kind of see her starring in there.

It's a totally different version, right, than the bibliophilic queen we just spoke to today. Many quotes from Eve jumped out to me, including this one. People are inherently good.

We all at the very core want the same thing. Safety and love for ourselves and the people we love. My wife, Leslie, who you've heard on the show many times, also often says that people are inherently good.

I do like to think that. One time she was walking home with our kid in the stroller and like the flowers she bought, she got home and they were gone. She traced her steps and they were gone and she came home.

She said, it's so nice for me to think that somebody who maybe doesn't get flowers very often has flowers on their counter. Like it just goes to that place right away. It's a beautiful way to think.

How about this one? The only way that we will get through anything is empathy, listening, and communication. And we're losing all of that.

So kind of other side of the coin, empathy, listening, communication, those sort of softer skills we're kind of losing in society, Eve says. I kind of agree, but reading is a way back. She says, reading is exercise for my brain.

If I don't do it, I get kind of depressed. I kind of feel that way about nature, but I don't know if I feel that way about reading, but I probably do without noticing it. I have noticed that my life has vastly improved since I've massively uptake my reading rate.

Hence this podcast, hence my monthly book club, which you can sign up for at Neil.blog if you don't get that. So I try to make sure reading's there. And I guess in a way I'm more depressed because if I'm not intaking words on a written page that has been carefully curated and edited and processed through the ravages of time, then I'm probably scrolling on something, which, you know, that makes me feel less good.

There's ads there, everything's gaming for my attention, and so on. We've talked about a lot. She also says, reading feeds your brain and feeds your soul in a way that nothing else does.

And she says, books are a way to escape and ground myself at the same time. I love that paradox, both the way to escape and to also ground yourself and center yourself in who you are. I'm reading this fascinating book right now called Rejection.

It's kind of like seven interwoven short stories by Timothy Tlatoit, if I said his name right. It's Thai. And wow, is it pulling me out of myself and grounding myself at the same time.

Thank you so much to Eve Harlow for giving us three more books to our top 1,000. If you go to threebooks.co slash the top 1,000 or just click the top 1,000 button at the top, you will find now number 539 Blow Up and other stories by Julio Cortazar, C-O-R-T-A with an accent. Z-A-R.

I think you call it an accent, but maybe you don't if it's in Spanish. Number 535, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, E-G-A-N, a book I read and loved many years ago. Number 537, The Choice by Edith Eger, E-G-A-R, a fasting story.

How much later after she was in Auschwitz that she wrote it. But you know, these days addressing and facing trauma is a great kind of storyline that we all need to think about. So kudos for those three books to add to our top 1,000.

Thank you so much to Eve Harlow for coming on the show. Are you still here? Did you make it past the three-second pause?

If so, I want to welcome you back to the end of the podcast club. This time, like every time, let's start off the end of the podcast club by going to the phones. Hi, DL.

My name is Jonathan Chasen, and I'm from Charlottesville, Virginia. I saw you speak on a stage at a conference in Nashville and immediately started Lifty to free books. And that was in 21.

It was an adventure, frankly, to go down that rabbit hole of Lifty to all of the podcasts, all the episodes so far. So I'm happy to be in the cover to cover club to get the one to get through all of them. I want to leave one formative book, and that is Their Rude Landing by Sherry Reynolds.

She was a Virginia Commonwealth University professor about the time that I started there. And she's most famous for an Oprah book selection, Rapture of Canaan. But her first book, Bitter Root Landing, I think is far better.

And she's just a fantastic writer. She doesn't get much recognition, particularly now. So I thought I'd throw her name out there.

Thank you again for all the work you do and for bringing attention to books. Like you, I went through a period where I didn't read as much, and I'm happy to now read frequently. And this podcast has given me a lot of great ideas for a book, of which many I've read.

So thank you. Thank you so much to Jonathan from Virginia, a member of the cover to cover club. By the way, remember, cover to cover club members are people that listen or try to listen to every single chapter of the show.

There is also the secret club. The only way to get into the secret club, of course, is to call our phone number, which is 1-833-READ-A-LOT. I had not ever heard of the book Bitter Root Landing by Sherry Reynolds.

It's S-H-E-R-I Reynolds, R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-S. It's a novel, came out in 1997. Here's the back of the book.

J.L. hears voices. Some are real, like the voices of the others in her incest survivor group, or the homeless woman she meets at the laundry. Some are more mysterious, like the Virgin Mary's.

J.L. was born into a hard life, but she's a survivor, growing stronger all the time, waiting for the day when the only voice she needs is her own. Wow, thank you so much, Jonathan. That's kind of the amazing thing about books.

There's so many. I'm just about to interview Jonathan Klassen, author of This Is Not My Hat and a ton of other kids' books, really popular kind of children's book writer and illustrator. He gave me three books, and I was like, once again, there's a book by William Steig.

I never heard of it. There's a book by Anton Chekhov. I never heard of it.

He just piles them on. That's the thing. Books are the gift that keeps on giving.

Thank you so much to Jonathan. And now it is time for a letter of the chapter, and this chapter's letter comes from Mr. David Havercroft down in Australia. Hi, Neil.

A belated Happy New Year to you from these Australian parts. I've just listened to your conversation with Ryan Holiday, prompting me to write you here. As you may have possibly heard, the 2026 Adelaide Writers' Festival, the OG Writers' Festival in Australia, held outdoors, in which people can attend for free, has been suddenly canceled at short notice, with 180 presenting authors boycotting the event as a result of an Australian-Palestinian academic being uninvited.

And he links to a Guardian News article about that. It's been quite the shitstorm, with the Premier of South Australia likely to be taken to court for defamation by that academic, Dr. Randa Abdelfattah, as a result of what he had to Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, who was a dream guest for the show, by the way, was one of those who pulled from the event. I suspect Randa isn't the go-to, but it did have me thinking of young Australian First Nations women, Evelyn Arlewin, as a potential very articulate guest.

Another academic-published author prompted boycotting along with other Black authors on the program. And he links to Evelyn Arlewin. I'm going to check out Evelyn Arlewin, send her an invitation or a note, because David is astute, he's kind, he's written me notes over the years.

He's recommended Jacinda Ardern, who I've been trying to reach out to for many years without luck, but always interested in interesting literary voices, especially global. So what you're trying to do with the Kenya series, you know, let's get out there, let's try kind of what's happening outside the little bubble that I live in, in Canada, and of course, it's swamped in U.S. news media. So thank you so much, David, for the letter.

As always, if I read your letter on the show, drop me a line and I will send you a book of your choosing. Any of my books, I will sign them, personalize it to you, and mail it on its way. Now, before we get into the word of the chapter, let's talk about a value of the show.

You know, threebooks.co slash values, we got a lot of values. This one I want to talk about today is, so please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place, you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall. That is a quote from the incredible poem Television by Roald Dahl, which is an excerpt from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I think it was a song by Duval Lumpus about Mike TV, one of the characters. And I've been thinking about that a lot, because as you travel, and I've been traveling a bunch lately, I went down to Austin, I checked out Book People, by the way, incredible indie bookstore down there. It's kind of like an old Barnes & Noble store, but like independent, which is beautiful.

Austin Cleon's a big fan, our old guest. As you travel, it's like, you know, screens have infiltrated our public spaces to such a degree that it's overwhelming. I now go to hotel gyms in the morning, and when I get there, there's like eight TVs, and the volume is on all of them.

How are you supposed to listen to any of them? Why are they all on? Why do we need to have noise and screens surrounding us at all times?

Why can't you listen to an audiobook? Why can't you listen to nothing? So what I usually do is I look for the remote control and mute all the screens, and this is embarrassing, but it was necessary.

They're like blaring news at six in the morning. Nobody else was in the gym, by the way. I got up on a, you know, I unplugged the TV.

I had to do it. It needed to be done. I could not install a bookshelf, but the principle was there.

Where in your life can you reduce the screen? Where in your life can you add a bookshelf? That is one of the values of this show.

All right, and now it's time, after that screed, it is time for the word of the chapter, and for this chapter's word, let's head back to Eve.

[Eve Harlow]

My best friend, he is also a voracious reader.

[Neil Pasricha]

Yes, indeed, it is voracious. Voracious. Voracious.

Voracious. V-O-R-A-C-I-O-U-S. An adjective meaning having a huge appetite, i.e. ravenous, or excessively eager or insatiable, such as, as Eve said herself, a voracious reader. I've heard that phrase a ton, like, growing up. I was like, oh, he's a voracious reader. He's a voracious reader.

What the hell does that mean? Voracious. Well, it turns out—I didn't know this—voracious is one of many English words that come from the Latin verb vorare, V-O-R-A-R-E, which means to eat greedily or to devour.

Did you know vorare is also the ancestor of the word, of course, devour itself, and all the iverous words that describe diets of various creatures, like carnivorous, meat-eating, herbivorous, plant-eating, omnivorous, like us, feeding on both animals and plants, frugivorous, fruit-eating, and, of course, greminorvous, feeding on grass. I'm just kidding, of course, because who knew that greminivorous, G-R-A-M-I-N-O-V-R-O-R-A-U-S, means grass-eating? We did also forget piscivorous, which is fish-eating.

Notice the difference, though. There are two words, and when Eve first said that, I was like, wait, was she saying voracious or voracious? Because V-E-R, V-E-R-A-C-I-O-S means truthful, honest or truthful, like veritable, verify, or vary.

Those are all from voracious, but voracious, V-O-R, that is having a greedy or insatiable appetite. So, if you are a voracious reader, well, you eat like a pig. You read like a pig, I should say.

You can't stop. You read greedily, with an insatiable appetite. Unlike that in some books, I'm not in others.

I mean, some books are a slog. Some books I read voraciously, and I wish all of us, until the next moon, time voraciously reading whatever book you are reading right now. If you haven't already done so, please give me a call.

There's no pressure to do so, but I always love hearing from you. 1-833-READALOT. If you butcher it, just call me back.

Leave me one formative book, one book that changed your life. Leave me a dream guest. Give us a comment on somebody that we had on the show, somebody you liked, somebody you didn't like, something you agree with, something you disagree with.

It's lovely to have the community. This community of three bookers globally is why I do this. It's what makes this fun.

Thank you all so much for listening, and until next time, remember that you are what you eat, and you are what you read. Keep turning that page, everybody, and I'll talk to you soon. Take care.

Listen to the chapter here!