Welcome to Chapter 91 of 3 Books!
How are you holding up in 2021? It has been a wild 20 months.
You’ve been telling me you are thankful for the show and I have been telling you I’m thankful for you. I appreciate your notes, your phone calls, your letters, and your reviews and we travel and meet across space and time — meeting up whenever the moon above is is completely full or completely empty.
Today I am so thrilled to share with you the enigmatic, witty, multi-hyphenate Nora McInerny.
In 2014 Nora went through a deeply traumatic six weeks. She had a miscarriage, lost her father, and lost her husband Aaron with whom she had a young son. She spent the next year of her life couch surfing, staying with friends, trying to process the loss, the grief and the trauma. And what has emerged is somebody who I feel is at the world’s leading edge of discussing things like grief, trauma, loss, widowhood, and how we navigate forward with those all bottled up inside us.
Nora is the successful author of It’s OK to Laugh, Crying is Cool Too, No Happy Endings, The Hot Young Widow’s Club, and the movie novelization of Bad Moms. (Shoutout to Chapter 82 with Quentin Tarantino!).
Nora gave a wonderful TED Talk called “We don’t move on from grief; we move forward with it” which, at the time of me writing this, has 5,798,513 views.
But all that stuff — the books! the talks! — are probably not as well known as her spectacular, award-winning podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking (TTFA).
If you don’t already, check it out — subscribe, listen, and love. I was lucky enough to be a guest a year and a half ago and Nora gave me permission to share the audio in a 3 Books Bookmark this past March.
Nora McInerny is coming to us from her closet in Arizona, where she is now resettled into a new relationship, co-parenting her child with her new husband’s children.
Get cozy in between us and let’s the three of us hang out and talk about: intentional parenting, grief processing, shininess vs work, sliding scales of empathy, dating after divorce, navigating our deepest needs, and, of course, the one and only Nora McInerny’s 3 most formative books.
Let’s flip the page into Chapter 91 now…
What You'll Learn
What is emotional coziness?
How do we navigate self-consciousness?
What makes children’s books so unique?
How can we better understand our values?
How can we process our grief?
What is the difference between processing versus coping with grief?
What is the difference between grief and depression?
How soon should you start dating after becoming a widower?
Why is the grief of divorce or breakups underestimated?
Why is it so important to convey the humanity of experiences vs the absurdity?
How do you turn the mundane into the interesting?
How can we curb digital self harm?
What is the value of effort?
What is digital enlightenment?
Why is categorization counterproductive?
You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/91
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3 Books is a completely insane and totally epic 15-year-long quest to uncover and discuss the 1000 most formative books in the world. Each chapter discusses the 3 most formative books of one of the world's most inspiring people. Sample guests include: Brené Brown, David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, Angie Thomas, Cheryl Strayed, Rich Roll, Soyoung the Variety Store Owner, Derek the Hype Man, Kevin the Bookseller, Vishwas the Uber Driver, Roxane Gay, David Mitchell, Vivek Murthy, Mark Manson, Seth Godin, Judy Blume and Quentin Tarantino. 3 Books is published on the lunar calendar with each of the 333 chapters dropped on the exact minute of every single new moon and every single full moon all the way up to 5:21 am on September 1, 2031. 3 Books is an Apple "Best Of" award-winning show and is 100% non-profit with no ads, no sponsors, no commercials, and no interruptions. 3 Books has 3 clubs including the End of the Podcast Club, the Cover to Cover Club, and the Secret Club, which operates entirely through the mail and is only accessible by calling 1-833-READ-A-LOT. Each chapter is hosted by Neil Pasricha, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Awesome, The Happiness Equation, Two-Minute Mornings, etc. For more info check out: https://www.3books.co
Page 122: Can audiobooks lodge meaning more deeply in your head?
Page 121: How the Internet makes it harder to read books
Chapter 136: 3 St. Louis Uber drivers on bullets, bruises, and babies
Page 114: A tip from an editor to editors-to-be
Page 113: Beauty standards, slut-shaming, and suicide...
Page 112: A diary to help imbue gratitude
Page 111: A book for kids who want to rule the universe
Chapter 135: Cal Newport severs cell subservience to steep slow success
Page 105: What makes an author an author?
Page 104: A book recommendation for fans of X-Men
Page 103: You are what you do
Page 102: One way to land a million-dollar book deal for your first book
Page 101: How do you find your writing voice?
Chapter 134: Susan Orlean on lusty ledes and literary lessons for life
Page 93: The most original voice in American comedy writing
Page 92: What to do before you start writing a story
Page 91: Dave Barry's advice on writing comedy
Chapter 133: Celine Song stitches sumptuous stories from Seoul to soul
Page 83: A book that tells us why people enjoy publicly shaming others
Page 82: A book to help you embrace your amateurness
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