On Podcasting, Productivity and Reading Lists
I’ve completed what’s approximating a draft of my novel — please let me know if you’d like to read it — and I’m thinking seriously about a second one right away.
The first is a roman a clef about growing up in the shadow of three men in the political arena. The second will likely be about Mormon history and the original dissenters with a twist of a search engine that’s quite adept at finding people over time and space.
For the Mormon novel I’m reading a lot about Lyman Johnson and Joseph Smith, especially American Zion: A New History of Mormonism, John Turner’s Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, and Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight for American Religious Freedom. I’m reading and thinking a lot about this period and sampling from both anti-Mormon and Mormon apologist sources. Now it’s extremely tempting to write a novel which imagines an America where Joseph Smith actually won the presidency in 1844 but I don’t think that this book.
I’ve learned in the last few years that I have a lot of Mormon and ex-Mormon fans. If you’re one of those people, please write in to me. I’m curious at getting to know how you think about these topics.
From where exactly does my productivity flow? I can’t say, really. It could well be because it’s my birthday month — I turn 37 on October 22 — or it could be because I’m fairly content these days, notwithstanding my various challenges. I don’t know precisely why it is but I have been the happiest I have been in probably a decade. I keep having these somewhat wild visions and I write them down and they pass. This phenomena happened to me once before — in my early twenties — and I’m trying to grab a hold of it before it passes from me once again.
To some extent I have to credit my work schedule for this turn of events. I wake up and I work from early morning all the way until dinner and then after dinner, I work another two hours or so before bed. I have things I have to do and the recognition that I don’t have much time to do them.
I think, though, another possibility for my productivity is that I have a great many friends and they’ve revealed themselves to me, especially as I take on some of the bigger challenges in my life. I think you’d describe it as “locked in,” if you were a Zoomer but I think a more apt description would be just plain “on.”
We are finally launching the podcast this week and I’m thinking seriously about what topics the show should be on. What do you think? Please write in and let me know.
I want to give you a little bit of a sense of what I am thinking. I am not terribly interested in showing my mug — I want you to focus on what I’m talking about — but the format could well be subject to change.
Please be patient with me.
I have had a few house guests this summer and into the Fall. I gave one of them a reading list which I pass on to you now with a one sentence summary about each book written by him.
As an aside I’m somewhat philosophical opposed to generalized reading lists on principle. A reading list should be well tailored to the person to whom it is addressed so here is one that I did for my young charge.
Spyfail: The failure and corruption of the FBI, primarily, followed to a lesser degree by the CIA and NSA.
Puzzle Palace: The history of the NSA from WWI leading up to the 1980s.
A Patriot’s History: A history of the United States from Columbus to the War on Terror, written as a response to Howard Zinn.
East of Eden: A story of American families and the foolishness of the American Dream.
Thoughts and Adventures: Churchill’s narrative essays written before he was back in office prior to World War II.
My Early Life: Churchill’s family upbringing and early career in the military.
Albion’s Seed: The founding American WASP stocks of Puritan, Quaker, Scotch-Irish, and Cavalier.
America’s Constitution: An originalist interpretation of the Constitution from Yale by Akhil Amar.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom: 300 lines of worldly advice from a 17th century Jesuit.
Citizen Hughes: The story of Howard Hughes from Las Vegas to his death, how he influenced U.S. presidents and caused Watergate.
The Gambler: The biography of Kirk Kerkorian, an Armenian-American billionaire developer of Las Vegas.
Assume Nothing: The memoirs of Edward Epstein, from his investigation of the Warren Commission to Jeffrey Epstein.
The Wasp: A British spy’s roman à clef about a special ops executive sent to terrorize a foreign planet.
Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: A Ukrainian-British-Jewish media producer’s survey of post-Soviet Russia.
Cowboy and Yankee War: An explanation of the political instability of the 1960s and 1970s framed as a conflict between Eastern elites and Southern nouveau-riche.
Is there any book I’m missing here?
what's the name of your podcast if I could ask?