Next Steps for the BBC!
Hello and welcome back to the BBC (Barstool Book Club)!
Dante and I are very excited by the positive response from the announcement of our attempt to establish a reading community here at Barstool (the Barstool Book Club) We’ve already received some great recommendations and I am very pumped for what this could grow into.
Our first move together as the freshmen class of the BBC is to select our inaugural book. As Dante mentioned in Blog 1, the plan for the BBC is as follows:
1- BOOK SELECTION - We select a book. What’s the best way to do this? Maybe Google sheets for submissions and then narrow that down and then twitter poll vote on it? That seems like assured chaos so I’m open to other suggestions too.
2 - READING SCHEDULE - We’ll break the book down into sections that we can aim to read by the end of each week, so that we are all on the same page, literally. We’ll do our best to set the schedule to one that toes the line between slightly challenging and still realistic.
3 - DISCUSSIONS - We’ll discuss the books with blogs and videos featuring guests and people in and around Barstool.
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BUT! before we do that, since some of you may only know me as the guy who asked Dave about the weather that one time on the Rundown, or not at all, just a few words about myself and my appreciation of words (in books).
Although over the years I did in fact dabble, I never kept up with a consistent reading schedule.
That changed after my first attempt at success in the entertainment industry. Armed with an overabundance of confidence from just barely managing to graduate from a good college, I moved to Hollywood thinking I could parlay my experience of managing a campus comedy website and making one relatively un-funny comedy sketch every 4-5 months into being a full time filmmaker.
After being bitch-slapped by the real world for the first real time, my Hollywood dreams went up in flames. But, frighteningly, so did my ability to maintain a positive attitude. That was really the first time that happened, and although it was a mess of my own creation, it was one that spiraled pretty quickly out of control. I moved back home and it took me like 4 or 5 months to get out of my first bout with depression and anxiety. BUT, THE REASON I MENTION ALL OF THIS, is because that was the first moment also that I realized the true power of reading.
The books about cognitive-behavior therapy, mindfulness, positive thinking, by people like Wayne Dyer, Ryan Holliday, Dan Harris, Eckhart Tolle, helped me get even just the tiny bit of spark that I needed to get myself out of that.
And, once I did, my newfound appreciation of reading led me back into novels and non-fiction where I find joy in trying to decipher the self-help nuggets of wisdom that are within those kinds of stories.
My favorite author is Kurt Vonnegut. I really enjoy the way he wrote about the biggest questions we all ask ourselves but in a simple, easily-accessible way. A lot of his stories leave you hoping that humans find a way to be better to each other. His writing makes you laugh about how ridiculous the world is but cry that one day you’ll have to leave it.
On the verge of beginning the BBC’s Inaugural Chosen Group Discussion Book, I am splitting my reading time between Kurt Vonnegut’s “Sirens of Titan” - a story about the relativity of the meaning of life, set within the drama of an attempted invasion of earth from a population of brainwashed earthlings for a rich megalomaniacal man’s own purposes- and Stu Feiner’s “Betcha I Can”.
I’ll have reviews of those books out soon on our social handles, that you should be following! (twitter - @barstoolreadingclub | instagram - @bookclubbarstool)
We got good traction so far, as Seth Rogen liked a tweet about someone liking his book,
and now I am followed by his dog.
Without further adieu, it’s time to figure out what the BBC’s first book is. Drop your recommendations here and we'll find a way to get them organized so we can all vote.
Best,
MA