Thanks to a recent whirlwind of work travel, I've had extra time to read these past two weeks. One of the books I just finished is called "One More Thing: Stories And Other Stories" by B.J. Novak. You most likely know B.J. as Ryan from NBC's "The Office." What you may not know, is that B.J. and I both grew up in Newton, MA. Have to support the hometown!
For me, "One More Thing" was a collection of short stories likely stemming from jokes B.J. told at dinner parties and never quite got the reaction he was hoping for. So instead of tossing that small talk material, he decided to jot those thoughts down and get praise for them by publishing those bits in a book. I really wanted to love it, but I just didn't.
The list of crazy topics discussed includes: a Comedy Central roast of Nelson Mandela, Mark Twain attempting to get "Huckleberry Finn" published in 2014, the life of the man who invented the world's most famous math problem (if a train leaves Boston at 10:00am, and another from Seattle at 12:30pm, each going 60 miles per hour, at what point will they meet?) and how roller coasters get their names.
There were a few stand out stories. My favorite one is called "All You Have To Do" (page 43 of the hard cover edition) which is written from the point of view of a man who always wears a red shirt out in public and when he returns home at night, he checks the Craigslist "Missed Connections" section for the key words "red shirt" or "red t-shirt" to see who noticed him or developed a crush on him that day. Yes, seriously.
My gut instinct about how B.J. wrote the book wasn't exactly wrong. When I finished the stories and read the acknowledgements (which you should always do, because there is always amazing information revealed in there), I discovered that before writing the book, B.J. performed these stories as live readings for the Upright Citizen Brigade in Los Angeles and New York as a way to test the material.
In the acknowledgements he mentioned two celebrities with hilarious shout outs:
1. "Years ago, I shared a lunch with the actor John Stamos. While we did not discuss any aspect of this book, I felt that it would be fun to include his name as a surprise for anyone casually scanning this section for names of celebrities."
2. "Mindy Kaling gets her own line in the acknowledgements, as previously negotiated by her representatives. Thanks, Mindy. I love you and you're the best."
Reading those two tidbits made it worth reading the whole book!
Since finishing this book, I've moved onto Tom Perrotta's "The Leftovers." Over two plane flights I've already devoured 250 pages. It's so good! When I finish, I am going to reward myself by watching the adaption that's been running as a new series on HBO.
What are you reading?
