3 Books With Neil Pasricha

Happy new moon, everybody! I am going to release a few of my favorite classic chapters of 3 Books . Let's start with Seth Godin! I flew down to New York to uncover and discuss the most formative books of the one and only Seth Godin ( ​ @ThisIsSethsBlog ​ ) from his Hastings-On-Hudson studio. Seth is the bestselling author of ' ​ Linchpin ​ ', ' ​ Purple Cow ​ ', ' ​ Tribes ​ ' and ​ many more book...

I was at a coffee shop on College Street when the barista Tony yelled "Hey! There's that duck!"     I turned and, sure enough, out the front window was a…  duck. A giant pixelated-looking green-headed Mallard set atop a rubber-tire-sized body on top of orange-stockinged legs and a pair of orange Converse. And he was just … walking by.     Like some kind of interdimensional tumbleweed.     Uh, what...

Maria Popova was born in communist Bulgaria and emigrated to the U.S. six days after her 19th birthday back in 2003. She studied at the University of Pennsylvania after "being sold on the liberal arts promise of being taught how to live."     Did it work?     Well, yes and no.     She spent her family's life savings in the first few weeks on textbooks and, despite attending an American high school...

  I remember getting the knife.     It was near Christmas about 10 years ago and Leslie and I were zipping up a tiny suitcase before a beach trip with her grandparents and extended family. We weren't married and I was making a desperate last-second plea to stuff a 576-page novel called 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen into our bag. "It just won't fit," Leslie said. "You have … 100 pages left?...

I just got back from St. Louis.   It was my first time there and I met a wonderfully rich collection of people who I'm so excited to introduce you to in a special on-the-ground, in-the-street, from-the-backseat Chapter of 3 Books.   On the way from the airport to the hotel, the driver regaled me with St. Louis trivia from a deep well of St. Louis pride. "Did you know we hosted the World Fair and t...

Cal Newport is a guide, a visionary, a role model to me and millions of others on living an intentional and productive life amidst our noisy, scatterbrained, tech-drenched world. He's an MIT-trained computer science professor at Georgetown University and author of 10 books which have collectively sold over 2 million copies including 'Deep Work,' 'Digital Minimalism,' and his latest bestseller, 'Sl...

I got an email from longtime 3 Booker Bo Boswell who told me he found an enticingly-titled thread on reddit called  "What's your field or study (hobbyist or professional) and what's a cornerstone beginners book for that topic/field?"     The most upvoted reply on the thread read: "Librarian here, Susan Orlean's 'The Library Book' is at first glance a true-crime book about tracking the arsonist who...

It's Oscar season!   I was so thrilled to see ' Past Lives ', the astounding slow-moving-yet-somehow-fast-paced debut film from Celine Song nominated for Best Picture. Best Picture! On her very first film. Oh, and no biggie, Best Screenplay, too. This following a slew of other noms like 5 Golden Globes, 3 Critics Choice Awards, 3 BAFTAs, and a recent Director's Guild of America win for Outstanding...

Back in Chapter 101 of '3 Books' we had a magical, eve-of-'Everything-Everywhere-All-At-Once'-coming-out moment-in-time conversation with creative super-geniuses Daniels — who are Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. We were discussing the fascinating book 'Sex At Dawn' and our conversation led to discussing Dunbar's Number.   Dunbar's Number! Have you heard of Dunbar's Number? It's 150! That's the c...

Buckle up! We are heading down to the fields of Clemson, South Carolina!     I got an email from 3 Booker Rumble D. back in February which said "Neil, I have a guest suggestion for you. J Drew Lanham is a 2022 MacArthur fellow and an American ornithologist. I loved his book and would love to hear you interview him (maybe while you guys go birding?)" Intrigued, I looked him up and discovered I … so...

Another year around the sun!   It is the Winter Solstice which means it is time for our sixth annual "Best Of" episode of  3 Books . 3 Books began ​ back in 2018 ​ with a simple goal of counting down the 1000 most formative books in the world ... 3 books at a time. We wanted this show to help all of us read more and read better and we wanted to do that by being different -- with a lunar-based sche...

"Your airbag" by Ralph Nader. "Your seatbelt" by Ralph Nader. "Your cleaner air" by Ralph Nader. "Your safer food" by Ralph Nader. "Your lead protection when you get dental x-rays", "Your warning labels on cigarettes", "Your right to know if you're exposed to dangerous chemicals at your job". By Ralph Nader, by Ralph Nader, by Ralph Nader.   We slap names on everything! Bylines. Authorship! We see...

Today I'm putting out a special Bookmark episode of  3 Books featuring my incredible wife ​ Leslie Richardson ​ . If you've been listening to 3 Books for a while you've heard Leslie interviewing guests like ​ Brené Brown ​ , ​ Kristen Neff ​ , and ​ Rebecca the Sex Therapist ​ . And, of course, I started the show by interviewing her way back in ​ Chapter 1 ​ . But this time she takes center stage...

I flew down to New York City and sat in a plush purple corner booth at the pricey and exclusive Core Club in midtown Manhattan. Sahil Bloom is the youngest member they have because, as he says, "If you get into the right rooms, good things start to happen."   Sahil Bloom is a fascinating, unconventional, maniacally disciplined, wisdom-distilling writer, thinker, and investor -- with a goal of moti...

I started  3 Books   back in 2018 .   I didn't fully appreciate how big, wide, and deep the core question of this 22-year conversation was at the beginning. " What are your 3 most formative books? " Sounds simple! But as you trace back which books inspired ideals, ignited passions, altered values, slingshotted directions...well, it turns out there's always a lot there.   That was definitely the ca...

Early episodes of Sesame Street from the late 1960s show five-year-olds walking streets alone, talking to strangers, and playing on vacant lots, but when those episodes were released on DVD years later a warning was added at the beginning saying "The following is intended for adult viewing only and may not be suitable for young viewers."   I read about this in 'Stolen Focus', the massive bestselle...

I've been lucky enough to be invited onto 'The Social' (@TheSocialCTV) a few times. Do you know the show? It's like 'The View', but Canadian, with four dynamic hosts sharing fast-paced opinions in a raucous, bombastic, high-energy exchange. Producers hand you the topics of the day about 30 minutes before you go on — formed by that morning's early headlines — and then it's time to form an opinion a...

"All the time focus on the positive things. Not the negative things. Then the karma, it will come, it will reflect to you."     Meet Chef Osama Harwash and Chef Houssam Harwash. Two brothers who came to Canada as Syrian refugees and rented a food stall to begin crafting traditional recipes learned from four generations of Syrian chefs. Listen as they share lessons learned from their sheep-farming...

Do you have book festivals where you live?      I feel like book festivals are such a sign of healthy community. Long lines to check out independent manga. Local bookstores sponsoring stages where authors answer questions. People walking by dressed as Harry Potter and wearing "The book was better" T-shirts. And, of course, just the energy that comes from thousands and thousands of readers walking...

Martellus Bennett is reimagining imagination.  He's perhaps best known in cultural press for his championship NFL career which included the famous Super Bowl LI comeback where his Patriots were down 28-3 at halftime and rallied for a 34-28 win in OT. But Martellus, who goes by Marty now as well as the new moniker  Mr. TOMONOSHi , served as starting Tight End and recorded five catches for 62 yards...

Happy new moon! Here's a story and a snip from my appearance on The Rich Roll Podcast. Listen to the full show right here:   YouTube   Apple   Spotify

"Do you realize what you've done? You've taken the smell out of shit!"   Suzy Batiz says this is what her husband Hector said — shocked! amazed! — when he realized the strange essential oil spray she'd been obsessively working on late into the night for nine straight months really and actually … worked.   Today Suzy is founder of billion-dollar-valued Poo-Pourri and supernatural. But the endless t...

Penn and Kim Holderness are a beam of light in the world.    If you aren't one of the billion people -- like, an actual billion -- who've watched their viral videos, well then, let me quickly usher you over to their YouTube Channel or Instagram feed. From their original 2013 "#XMAS JAMMIES" singing Christmas card ( parodied by Kristin Wiig and team on SNL ) to their truly astounding " Hamilton Mas...

Diluting central news sources. Constantly narrowing echo chambers. An ever-fracturing sense of community. It's easy to feel disconnected from each other right now — and from what's collectively real and true in the world. We need people and places that help unify us and bring us together.   "Fear displaces faith and vice versa," says Tank Sinatra on  Chapter 122 of 3 Books . "And laughter displace...

I felt trapped early in the pandemic.   I normally walk every day in downtown Toronto. I write on park benches and in distant coffee shops and love popping into bookstores and bumping into friends. I am very privileged in that I get to travel one or two days a week, too. But then: the pandemic. It hit hard and I was suddenly sitting in a makeshift office upstairs. Staring at four blank walls and p...