Let's Start Small

I was all excited about writing this, and I was going to write about like three different books and I got way too enthusiastic and then I started overwhelming myself and I had too many thoughts in my brain going on and that's when I was like, "ummm dial it down Kelly. Calm yourself."

So instead of being an insane person, I will briefly mention one book I read recently and hopefully it will end up being a little bit coherent.

I just finished reading "One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories" by BJ Novak and it was hilarious.  Shocking right? I bet most people could have guessed that, or assumed it would be, I mean not going to lie I did. I opened that up and without even realizing it I thought, "Ok man, this better be funny." Talk about a little pressure. So my apologies to BJ Novak, if you felt the collective pressure of the English speaking world as you wrote this book, excellent job rising above and getting the job done in spite of that.

But it wasn't just funny. It was really smart. The title of one of the stories is now something I literally cannot stop thinking about. "Regret is just perfectionism plus time." I said that to someone, and we both just sat there for a few minutes and thought about that. You know something is powerful when it stands in silence like that. I still keep thinking about it and marvel about how spot on that is, why has no one said that before? Why haven't I realized that? It's perfect.

Novak balances a more obvious humor with subtle (or not so subtle) underlying jokes throughout his stories. I definitely laughed out loud to myself (in public, casual) reading this book and at then a few chapters later I'd be just thinking about how cleverly worded the story was. What I found particularly amazing about this book, is that they are all short stories but when I reflect on the book that is not how I think about it. Someone asked me to to give them an example of a story from the book for a "preview" of the kinds of stories he tells. I couldn't answer that question, because I realized I really hadn't been thinking of them as completely separate. I mean yes, I consciously was aware of the differences between stories, it was clear when a new one began and ended, but I still think of "One More Thing" as a cohesive book, not a collection of short stories. I can't really explain why, but I think it's pretty cool that Novak is able to do that and connect everything by some invisible thread that just makes sense. This is why I could never write fiction! Writers are much more clever than we give them credit for. Thank you writers, for continusously blowing my mind but also making me feel like a bit of a dumbass at the same time. Amen.

So what should I read next? I can't decide, I don't really have any certain preference right now which is making it very hard to choose since the options are everything. Hm.

Team Read EVERYTHING EVER.