1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,150 Hey everybody, it's Neil Pasricha and welcome or welcome back to chapter 149, 49, 49 of three books. 2 00:00:13,710 --> 00:00:15,970 Forgive the bizarre echo in this recording. 3 00:00:16,170 --> 00:00:28,350 I am walking around very slowly in an odd triangle shaped second floor boardroom that you can rent at the airport when your flight to Chicago gets delayed by high winds. 4 00:00:28,970 --> 00:00:31,110 Yeah, they call it the windy city for a reason. 5 00:00:31,110 --> 00:00:34,150 I have been blowing around like the wind the last few weeks. 6 00:00:34,230 --> 00:00:41,930 In the last few weeks, I have been in Nashville, hanging out with 5,000 of the funnest Marriott general managers ever. 7 00:00:42,250 --> 00:00:47,190 Over in Vancouver, hanging out with about 3,500 McDonald's store managers, which is a lot of fun. 8 00:00:47,250 --> 00:00:48,490 I've been in Vegas. 9 00:00:48,650 --> 00:00:49,510 I've been in Dallas. 10 00:00:49,650 --> 00:00:50,410 I've been in Chicago. 11 00:00:50,610 --> 00:00:53,590 I've been in Ottawa today, speaking to the federal government this morning. 12 00:00:54,070 --> 00:00:57,010 I was in Barcelona last week, speaking to a big bank out there. 13 00:00:57,330 --> 00:00:57,930 And you know what? 14 00:00:57,990 --> 00:01:00,110 A few weeks ago, I was down in San Diego. 15 00:01:00,730 --> 00:01:02,850 That's when I went birdwatching in the morning. 16 00:01:02,990 --> 00:01:04,870 I like to go birding before I speak. 17 00:01:05,290 --> 00:01:10,690 Grounds me physiologically, gives me a lot of good phytoncides, checks off my list maker tendency. 18 00:01:10,870 --> 00:01:17,390 So I was birding down in like Torrey Pines, seeing peregrine falcons, common ravens, California scrub jays. 19 00:01:17,750 --> 00:01:19,730 And then I walk up the coast, the Pacific Ocean. 20 00:01:19,870 --> 00:01:30,810 An hour later, I bump into John and Alison, the booksellers, wonderful 42-year-long booksellers who John, at age 67, just opened Camino Books for the road ahead. 21 00:01:31,390 --> 00:01:34,910 But before we get into John and Alison, as always, I want to kick things off with a letter. 22 00:01:34,990 --> 00:01:43,330 If you want to send me a letter, just mail it to 719 Bloor Street West, Suite 307, Toronto, Ontario, M6G1L5. 23 00:01:43,790 --> 00:01:45,230 I love getting your letters in the mail. 24 00:01:45,350 --> 00:01:48,630 And if you don't want to leave a letter, you can always call me at 1-833-READALOT. 25 00:01:48,690 --> 00:01:50,710 I play a voicemail at the end of every chapter. 26 00:01:51,170 --> 00:01:51,450 Okay. 27 00:01:51,450 --> 00:01:57,110 This chapter's letter comes from Timothy Abbatacola, who writes to us from Oak Park, Illinois. 28 00:01:57,990 --> 00:02:01,850 Dear Neil, he writes, I am an avid listener of three books. 29 00:02:01,930 --> 00:02:03,510 I think what you've hit on is such a gem. 30 00:02:03,590 --> 00:02:06,690 It's almost unbelievably perfect from a book lover's perspective. 31 00:02:07,090 --> 00:02:12,910 I'm reaching out because a friend and I are starting a bookstore in Oak Park, Illinois, where we both live. 32 00:02:13,170 --> 00:02:16,290 It's the birthplace of Hemingway, so we've got that going for us. 33 00:02:16,670 --> 00:02:25,710 We believe that the bookstore's naturally flexible form can be experimented with to expand its cultural and intellectual reach in order to address some of the cultural illnesses of our lonely, anxious time. 34 00:02:25,850 --> 00:02:33,730 Some things you've touched on in multiple chapters, isolation, anxiety, along with things like cultural illiteracy and just plain old regular illiteracy. 35 00:02:34,030 --> 00:02:45,530 We're thinking of our bookstore primarily as a place offering a convening ground for writers, artists, thinkers, those who aspire to such work, and those who aspire to simply live a life that is examined and good. 36 00:02:46,030 --> 00:03:00,670 To do this, our adjoining unit is going to feature a cocktail bar, where we hope to utilize a shared floor plan and continuity of design to bring the interiority and stillness of books to the verve and conviviality of the cocktail house. 37 00:03:01,270 --> 00:03:12,550 We believe, and I think you'd agree, that our interior lives ought to push us back out into friendship and the social realm, that stillness and conviviality are not in opposition, but equally vital organs of one full and precious life. 38 00:03:12,550 --> 00:03:17,230 I'm reaching out because our work is a convening ground for all the different types of people in the book world. 39 00:03:17,390 --> 00:03:20,650 I love your work, and I want our community to be formed in part by it. 40 00:03:20,730 --> 00:03:25,330 I'm making and sustaining friendships with the people we love and who we believe do great work in other worlds. 41 00:03:25,790 --> 00:03:28,950 We want to highlight what you do to our community, all the while strengthening our own culture. 42 00:03:29,070 --> 00:03:33,650 By being attentive to the work you put out, we would love to help that inform our bookstore. 43 00:03:33,810 --> 00:03:34,790 The letter goes on and on. 44 00:03:34,830 --> 00:03:36,730 I've had a really fun time going back and forth to Timothy. 45 00:03:36,830 --> 00:03:40,330 We basically established that three books can be used anywhere, and I say this to any bookseller. 46 00:03:40,450 --> 00:03:43,970 The three formative books of Quentin Tarantino, the three formative books of Brené Brown. 47 00:03:44,070 --> 00:03:45,030 Whatever you want to do. 48 00:03:45,150 --> 00:03:46,090 It's totally fine with me. 49 00:03:46,610 --> 00:03:53,850 And then I also just love verb and conviviality and community, so we're having fun conversations about other ways of organizing bookstores. 50 00:03:54,090 --> 00:03:55,910 How else might you organize a bookstore? 51 00:03:56,470 --> 00:04:01,070 1-833-READALOT, if you want to drop me a line, and you know the mailing address, I mentioned it at the beginning. 52 00:04:01,670 --> 00:04:02,150 All right. 53 00:04:02,870 --> 00:04:06,390 Why did I read a letter from an aspiring independent bookseller, Timothy? 54 00:04:06,390 --> 00:04:10,050 Well, because we're going to talk to a veteran independent bookseller today. 55 00:04:10,390 --> 00:04:23,110 After I went birdwatching at Torrey Pines before my speech in San Diego a couple weeks ago, holding, by the way, these gigantic pine cones that are bigger than the size of your hand from the endangered Torrey Pine, seeing all these wonderful, cool, interesting birds. 56 00:04:23,390 --> 00:04:24,250 I walk up the coast. 57 00:04:24,350 --> 00:04:25,230 I bump into Del Mar. 58 00:04:25,950 --> 00:04:28,530 I ask a couple people in town, hey, is there a local bookstore here? 59 00:04:28,610 --> 00:04:29,230 Everyone says no. 60 00:04:29,650 --> 00:04:36,110 The locals tell me there is no bookstore, but then I see a bookstore, like a hobbit hole bookstore in the side of a brick wall. 61 00:04:36,610 --> 00:04:40,530 Big round entrance, Camino Books, it says, for the road ahead. 62 00:04:41,050 --> 00:04:44,370 I walk into the bookstore, and it's like a Biblio paradise. 63 00:04:44,890 --> 00:04:47,950 Staff pics, walls everywhere, handwritten signs, bustling people everywhere. 64 00:04:48,190 --> 00:04:49,450 These interesting kids' corners. 65 00:04:49,710 --> 00:04:50,970 I checked the Lord of the Rings section. 66 00:04:51,230 --> 00:04:54,490 They've got like big print and small print and a fancy version and a cloth version. 67 00:04:54,790 --> 00:04:55,690 This is just Lord of the Rings. 68 00:04:55,970 --> 00:04:57,710 It's just like a 1500 group of bookstores. 69 00:04:57,970 --> 00:04:59,770 There's autographs from Dave Eggers on the wall. 70 00:04:59,870 --> 00:05:01,710 He was just there for Independent Bookstore Day. 71 00:05:01,710 --> 00:05:03,830 They've got all kinds of sign books at the front. 72 00:05:04,130 --> 00:05:05,470 It's got pizazz. 73 00:05:06,030 --> 00:05:10,350 I asked them, hey, I started to say, hey, sorry to ask you, but like my phone just died. 74 00:05:10,570 --> 00:05:11,790 I'm visiting from Canada. 75 00:05:11,970 --> 00:05:12,930 Can I plug it in somewhere? 76 00:05:13,130 --> 00:05:14,130 And the guy looks at me. 77 00:05:14,750 --> 00:05:17,510 Guy, late 60s, he's got white hair combed over his head. 78 00:05:17,570 --> 00:05:20,150 He's got like dark glasses, a really nice, he's nicely dressed. 79 00:05:20,210 --> 00:05:21,150 He's got like tight pants. 80 00:05:21,270 --> 00:05:23,790 He's got a, he's, he's a, he's a handsome man. 81 00:05:23,850 --> 00:05:30,010 He's wearing like a, not a Hawaiian shirt, but like a, like a silk dress shirt coming out kind of just hanging out there. 82 00:05:30,050 --> 00:05:31,470 He's a, he's a handsome man. 83 00:05:31,470 --> 00:05:32,790 And he gives me like a quirky smile. 84 00:05:32,830 --> 00:05:38,130 And he says, oh, from Canada, how many tariffs should I add to your free charge? 85 00:05:38,810 --> 00:05:40,670 And he smiles at me with this kind of funny way. 86 00:05:40,750 --> 00:05:42,870 And I look at him and I'm like, I start laughing. 87 00:05:43,070 --> 00:05:50,370 We end up connecting over this funny joke and we start talking politics, which you probably shouldn't do just randomly, but we just did it. 88 00:05:50,550 --> 00:05:59,050 And I made the comment, I said, you know, I wonder if the most right-wing guy in Canada is left of the most left-wing guy in the U.S. And he says, oh yeah, absolutely. 89 00:05:59,430 --> 00:06:01,510 He says, we don't have a left wing. 90 00:06:01,890 --> 00:06:07,570 We're like a, we're like an eagle slowly spiraling to the ground with just one right wing. 91 00:06:09,460 --> 00:06:13,220 And I look at him and I'm like, uh, whoa, did you just make that up? 92 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:15,540 He's like, yeah, yeah. 93 00:06:16,260 --> 00:06:18,260 I was like, do you think like this all the time? 94 00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:20,480 He's like, yeah, yeah. 95 00:06:21,300 --> 00:06:22,320 I was like, wow. 96 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:23,480 I said, you know what? 97 00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:26,820 The way you're speaking and the way you look, you kind of remind me of George Saunders. 98 00:06:26,820 --> 00:06:29,860 He says, George, great guy. 99 00:06:30,260 --> 00:06:33,100 Had lunch with him at a bookseller convention recently. 100 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:33,760 Yeah. 101 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:35,580 He said, yeah, we have the same aura, don't we? 102 00:06:35,760 --> 00:06:39,600 We have the same warm gnarliness. 103 00:06:40,740 --> 00:06:41,460 That's what he said. 104 00:06:41,500 --> 00:06:43,300 He said, we have the same warm gnarliness. 105 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:47,740 Well, you guys know George, our guest in chapter 75, author of Lincoln and the Bardo. 106 00:06:48,060 --> 00:06:50,760 He's got a pretty cool warm gnarliness, doesn't he? 107 00:06:50,780 --> 00:06:57,960 And if you haven't checked out his recent op-ed in the New York Times about the firing of the librarian from the Library of Congress, I do implore you to check it out. 108 00:06:58,060 --> 00:06:58,840 We'll throw that in the show notes. 109 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:06,240 But anyway, this guy is like another George Saunders, and he's been a bookseller for 42 years since 1983 in Berkeley, California. 110 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:13,160 That's where he met his 30 plus year girlfriend, maybe 40 plus year, but now recent wife. 111 00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:17,460 They've just got married, so we can wish that newly happily married couple well. 112 00:07:17,860 --> 00:07:18,760 We're going to talk about that. 113 00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:19,860 We're going to talk about a lot of things. 114 00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:25,520 We're going to talk about building bookstores, about California independence, about fighting fascism and much, much more. 115 00:07:25,620 --> 00:07:31,100 I basically turned on the recorder right after we had that opening exchange. 116 00:07:31,100 --> 00:07:47,000 So what follows is the conversation I had live in Camino Books in Del Mar, California, 30, 40 feet away from the sandy edge of the water into the twinkling Pacific Ocean down a dusty, sandy main street in town with the fresh bookshop feeling. 117 00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:48,060 You can smell the paper. 118 00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:49,520 You can smell the binding glue. 119 00:07:49,620 --> 00:07:50,900 There's light coming in the front. 120 00:07:50,900 --> 00:07:54,860 There's people milling around, and we had this conversation. 121 00:07:55,040 --> 00:07:56,820 Let's flip the page into chapter 149. 122 00:08:09,270 --> 00:08:10,990 I guess it takes as long as you want. 123 00:08:10,990 --> 00:08:12,130 How long do you want it to take? 124 00:08:12,250 --> 00:08:13,210 Well, let's not start right now. 125 00:08:13,270 --> 00:08:13,970 Let's go outside. 126 00:08:14,070 --> 00:08:14,390 Outside? 127 00:08:14,490 --> 00:08:15,090 What's outside? 128 00:08:15,390 --> 00:08:16,390 It's beautiful. 129 00:08:17,690 --> 00:08:19,270 You don't want to do a podcast inside? 130 00:08:19,490 --> 00:08:19,810 No, no. 131 00:08:19,890 --> 00:08:21,450 I just don't want to distract my co-worker. 132 00:08:21,590 --> 00:08:22,530 I can't shoplift. 133 00:08:23,270 --> 00:08:24,770 I'll have to buy your book first. 134 00:08:25,390 --> 00:08:28,590 Can't just walk out of here with my next breath by Jeremy Renner. 135 00:08:30,950 --> 00:08:35,690 Although this is before, as we walk outside, John, we're walking from the back of your store to the front. 136 00:08:36,470 --> 00:08:38,130 Could you just give us a tour? 137 00:08:38,350 --> 00:08:39,330 What am I looking at here? 138 00:08:39,450 --> 00:08:40,350 You just moved here. 139 00:08:40,470 --> 00:08:41,190 You're looking at me. 140 00:08:41,850 --> 00:08:42,110 Yeah. 141 00:08:42,190 --> 00:08:48,270 And your beautiful pink striped shirt, your thin black glasses, the aura of George Saunders, the same warm gnarliness. 142 00:08:48,710 --> 00:08:49,250 That's right. 143 00:08:50,150 --> 00:08:52,610 We're right by the poetry section, my favorite section. 144 00:08:55,910 --> 00:08:57,490 All your signs are handwritten. 145 00:08:58,710 --> 00:08:59,570 You wrote handwritten. 146 00:08:59,870 --> 00:09:00,470 Some of them are. 147 00:09:00,650 --> 00:09:01,750 Mystery is handwritten. 148 00:09:01,970 --> 00:09:02,890 Fiction is handwritten. 149 00:09:03,350 --> 00:09:04,710 True crime is written. 150 00:09:05,130 --> 00:09:07,050 We've only been here three weeks in this location. 151 00:09:07,470 --> 00:09:08,730 Oh, mythology section. 152 00:09:09,330 --> 00:09:12,130 What other sections do you have here that most bookstores don't? 153 00:09:12,970 --> 00:09:13,950 Let's see. 154 00:09:14,170 --> 00:09:14,990 Do we have... 155 00:09:14,990 --> 00:09:15,830 What other sections? 156 00:09:16,930 --> 00:09:18,550 We have just a global section. 157 00:09:18,550 --> 00:09:20,350 We have a divination section. 158 00:09:23,210 --> 00:09:26,310 But we have most of the subject categories. 159 00:09:26,630 --> 00:09:26,770 Yeah. 160 00:09:27,430 --> 00:09:28,150 I'd say. 161 00:09:29,030 --> 00:09:29,430 I don't know. 162 00:09:29,510 --> 00:09:31,230 We have romance for all those. 163 00:09:31,370 --> 00:09:33,150 You have a Middle Eastern category. 164 00:09:33,270 --> 00:09:34,310 That's pretty rare. 165 00:09:34,930 --> 00:09:35,090 Yeah. 166 00:09:35,150 --> 00:09:37,070 We have all the different sort of regional studies. 167 00:09:37,270 --> 00:09:38,410 It's all done due... 168 00:09:38,410 --> 00:09:39,510 And it's a small bookstore. 169 00:09:40,170 --> 00:09:40,390 Yeah. 170 00:09:40,430 --> 00:09:42,370 It's only 1,300 square feet. 171 00:09:42,570 --> 00:09:43,030 Wow. 172 00:09:44,770 --> 00:09:47,090 And you've been in the bookselling business since 1989. 173 00:09:47,930 --> 00:09:51,290 1981, actually, but 89, we've had bookstores since then. 174 00:09:51,370 --> 00:09:54,850 Diesel, a bookstore, was our first bookstore. 175 00:09:54,950 --> 00:09:58,150 We just sold the LA store along with the name. 176 00:09:58,430 --> 00:10:02,170 And then six months ago, changed our names to Camino Books for the Road Ahead. 177 00:10:02,910 --> 00:10:03,910 For the Road Ahead? 178 00:10:04,370 --> 00:10:05,770 For your Road Ahead? 179 00:10:06,370 --> 00:10:06,850 And yours. 180 00:10:07,330 --> 00:10:07,810 Wow. 181 00:10:08,310 --> 00:10:09,410 May I ask how old you are? 182 00:10:09,970 --> 00:10:10,410 67. 183 00:10:10,850 --> 00:10:11,310 Wow. 184 00:10:11,530 --> 00:10:13,650 So you've been in the bookselling business since what age? 185 00:10:14,350 --> 00:10:14,710 I guess it's... 186 00:10:14,710 --> 00:10:15,070 81. 187 00:10:15,070 --> 00:10:15,190 81. 188 00:10:15,230 --> 00:10:16,290 That would have been 24. 189 00:10:16,610 --> 00:10:17,870 You were 24. 190 00:10:18,690 --> 00:10:19,050 Yeah. 191 00:10:19,250 --> 00:10:20,350 24 to 67. 192 00:10:21,130 --> 00:10:21,390 Yeah. 193 00:10:21,510 --> 00:10:22,170 That's a long time. 194 00:10:22,890 --> 00:10:23,130 Yeah. 195 00:10:23,270 --> 00:10:24,570 That's 43 years. 196 00:10:25,270 --> 00:10:25,530 Good. 197 00:10:25,650 --> 00:10:26,490 You're good with math. 198 00:10:26,810 --> 00:10:27,590 Well, I'm Indian. 199 00:10:27,710 --> 00:10:30,930 That's the low stakes in my, in my, you know, in our field. 200 00:10:31,110 --> 00:10:31,290 Yeah. 201 00:10:31,490 --> 00:10:32,150 You gotta be able to... 202 00:10:32,150 --> 00:10:33,570 Many mathematical geniuses. 203 00:10:33,630 --> 00:10:33,770 Yeah. 204 00:10:33,850 --> 00:10:36,430 No, it's just two-digit numbers, actually, my personal specialty. 205 00:10:39,860 --> 00:10:40,920 Don't get me on three. 206 00:10:41,040 --> 00:10:41,920 It's good enough for most things. 207 00:10:42,320 --> 00:10:44,500 John, and you run the store with your wife, Alison? 208 00:10:44,780 --> 00:10:45,100 Yes. 209 00:10:45,100 --> 00:10:48,800 And so when you were 24 in 1981, and you opened Diesel? 210 00:10:49,160 --> 00:10:50,500 No, we opened in 1989. 211 00:10:50,540 --> 00:10:51,520 We opened Diesel. 212 00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:53,620 But 1981, I first became a bookseller. 213 00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:54,480 Where was that? 214 00:10:54,980 --> 00:10:55,420 Berkeley. 215 00:10:57,400 --> 00:10:57,840 University. 216 00:10:58,140 --> 00:10:58,760 Berkeley and Oakland. 217 00:10:59,000 --> 00:10:59,100 Yeah. 218 00:10:59,160 --> 00:10:59,880 Near the university. 219 00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:00,180 Yeah. 220 00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:01,220 What was the name of that bookstore? 221 00:11:01,880 --> 00:11:09,380 One was called Talusadar, which is the center of the earth in Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels. 222 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:11,500 And the other one was called Pegasus. 223 00:11:12,180 --> 00:11:13,420 Oh, Pegasus books. 224 00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:14,780 Oh, Pendragon, actually. 225 00:11:14,780 --> 00:11:15,040 Okay. 226 00:11:15,040 --> 00:11:15,860 Pendragon was the other one. 227 00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:16,920 And then Pegasus opened. 228 00:11:17,060 --> 00:11:18,980 So all three of those were the same owner. 229 00:11:19,580 --> 00:11:19,940 Wow. 230 00:11:20,520 --> 00:11:21,740 Is that where you met Alison? 231 00:11:21,860 --> 00:11:22,000 Yeah. 232 00:11:22,620 --> 00:11:23,940 Oh, she was a bookseller as well. 233 00:11:24,060 --> 00:11:24,240 Yeah. 234 00:11:24,320 --> 00:11:26,120 I met her before she started working there. 235 00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:26,520 But yeah. 236 00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:27,480 Wow. 237 00:11:27,680 --> 00:11:28,340 You were 24. 238 00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:29,440 She was... 239 00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:29,860 Older. 240 00:11:30,380 --> 00:11:30,740 Wow. 241 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:31,940 A little bit. 242 00:11:32,300 --> 00:11:32,580 Yeah. 243 00:11:32,680 --> 00:11:33,640 Did you end up getting married? 244 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:34,500 Yeah. 245 00:11:34,780 --> 00:11:35,320 You're married. 246 00:11:35,460 --> 00:11:35,980 How long? 247 00:11:37,040 --> 00:11:38,400 Well, we haven't been married very long. 248 00:11:38,440 --> 00:11:42,060 But we've been together since 83 or something. 249 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:43,580 And what year did you get married? 250 00:11:43,580 --> 00:11:46,060 Mm, 2000... 251 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:49,460 I don't really remember. 252 00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:51,060 Maybe five years ago. 253 00:11:51,220 --> 00:11:51,740 So what is it? 254 00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:53,260 Like, no, it was before that. 255 00:11:54,300 --> 00:11:58,360 So what makes you, after being boyfriend and girlfriend for 37 years, decide to get hitched? 256 00:11:58,740 --> 00:11:59,760 That's a good question. 257 00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:04,240 You know, I think a couple of different things. 258 00:12:04,620 --> 00:12:05,400 It felt good. 259 00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:06,840 Wow. 260 00:12:07,460 --> 00:12:07,600 Wow. 261 00:12:08,180 --> 00:12:08,840 So it was that. 262 00:12:08,920 --> 00:12:10,960 But actually, I mean, the wedding was fantastic. 263 00:12:11,540 --> 00:12:11,800 Yeah. 264 00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:13,020 I mean, it wasn't a big wedding. 265 00:12:13,020 --> 00:12:15,480 It was only two, two people, three people were witnesses. 266 00:12:15,820 --> 00:12:18,120 But it was just felt so good. 267 00:12:18,420 --> 00:12:18,640 Yeah. 268 00:12:19,180 --> 00:12:20,060 Weddings are great. 269 00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:20,660 Yeah. 270 00:12:20,860 --> 00:12:21,300 Yes. 271 00:12:21,680 --> 00:12:21,860 Yeah. 272 00:12:21,920 --> 00:12:24,340 But you held off for, you know, quite a while. 273 00:12:24,420 --> 00:12:25,620 And you're like, put it... 274 00:12:25,620 --> 00:12:26,800 We wanted to be sure. 275 00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:33,080 37 years of making sure 276 00:12:35,260 --> 00:12:38,700 You know, there's a lot of ideas swirling around a bookstore. 277 00:12:38,860 --> 00:12:42,000 You're a natural skeptic and curious at the same time. 278 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:45,480 You're a believer and, you know, don't believe too much. 279 00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:53,780 You know, way back in, I think, Chapter 18 of this show, we interviewed a guy named Mitchell Kaplan, who runs a bookstore chain called Books and Books down in Coral Gables Florida. 280 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:54,240 Do you know Mitchell? 281 00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:55,100 I know him very well, yeah. 282 00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:56,500 Oh, how do you know him? 283 00:12:56,500 --> 00:12:56,880 He's a friend of mine. 284 00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:01,740 Well, he was on the American Booksellers Association board before I was. 285 00:13:02,300 --> 00:13:04,420 I've known him, I don't know, 40 years. 286 00:13:04,560 --> 00:13:07,020 So he also, I would say, has a warm gnarliness. 287 00:13:07,420 --> 00:13:07,660 Yeah. 288 00:13:08,140 --> 00:13:08,800 Yes, definitely. 289 00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:13,000 It comes with bookish, curious people, I think. 290 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:14,600 Why? 291 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:18,080 Because I think there's a lot of critical intelligence going on. 292 00:13:18,140 --> 00:13:18,800 That's the gnarliness. 293 00:13:19,140 --> 00:13:24,100 And then there's a lot of humanity and warmth with all the people you see. 294 00:13:24,180 --> 00:13:28,280 I mean, people coming in, you see a great swath of humanity, right, coming through the store. 295 00:13:28,460 --> 00:13:31,940 All ages, all types of people, interested in all types of things. 296 00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:34,760 But basically, they're pretty civil and kind in a bookstore. 297 00:13:35,340 --> 00:13:35,740 Wow. 298 00:13:36,620 --> 00:13:37,020 Wow. 299 00:13:37,020 --> 00:13:39,360 So it's pretty heartwarming. 300 00:13:39,960 --> 00:13:44,820 So then would you argue that, because the way we met was, you know, I've been recording this for five minutes. 301 00:13:45,040 --> 00:13:53,820 We met seven minutes ago when I asked you if you could plug in my phone as I walked into this bookstore, which two people on the street said, there is no bookstore in town. 302 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:56,020 I asked two people and they both said, there is no bookstore. 303 00:13:56,300 --> 00:14:00,460 Then I walk in and I was awestruck by the beauty of this place. 304 00:14:00,540 --> 00:14:01,300 It hit me right away. 305 00:14:01,380 --> 00:14:02,500 There's no chargers at the front. 306 00:14:02,500 --> 00:14:07,120 No, I walked to the back and you asked me, what kind of tariffs you should add to my free charge. 307 00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:08,640 Yeah, because you had said that you were Canadian. 308 00:14:09,680 --> 00:14:11,020 It's the first thing that came to mind. 309 00:14:11,020 --> 00:14:12,220 What do you make of the tariffs? 310 00:14:12,660 --> 00:14:13,340 Oh, no. 311 00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:15,380 It's just a bad idea. 312 00:14:16,300 --> 00:14:19,760 The most right wing guy in Canada is more left than your leftist wing guy. And you said, 313 00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:23,300 I said that there isn't really a left wing in America. 314 00:14:23,580 --> 00:14:27,980 It's like an eagle without a left wing and it's just spiraling to the ground. 315 00:14:29,400 --> 00:14:29,800 Wow. 316 00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:31,800 Yeah. 317 00:14:32,140 --> 00:14:33,020 So that's what I think. 318 00:14:33,820 --> 00:14:36,040 And the tariffs thing is just not friendly. 319 00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:36,960 It's not neighborly. 320 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:43,040 There's that old joke from Jimmy Fallon. 321 00:14:43,060 --> 00:14:53,200 I think right when it started, he said, you know, maybe it's the New Yorker in me, but when you got both your upstairs neighbor and your downstairs neighbor mad at you, it's not a good situation. 322 00:14:53,620 --> 00:14:54,180 That's right. 323 00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:54,940 Yeah. 324 00:14:55,380 --> 00:14:55,740 Yeah. 325 00:14:55,740 --> 00:14:57,380 It's just not, not good. 326 00:14:57,380 --> 00:15:00,340 Could we not solve this, though, if we became the 51st state? 327 00:15:01,860 --> 00:15:02,300 No. 328 00:15:02,580 --> 00:15:05,000 Do you think Alaska should be the 11th province? 329 00:15:05,120 --> 00:15:06,380 That's the joke you said to me. 330 00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:09,840 Alaska could be the 11th province or California. 331 00:15:10,460 --> 00:15:13,680 Oh, you would rather join us than us join you. 332 00:15:14,940 --> 00:15:15,220 Yeah. 333 00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:17,420 At this moment. 334 00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:19,800 But things change, you know. 335 00:15:20,980 --> 00:15:23,700 The only problem is California doesn't actually touch Canada. 336 00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:26,460 So we've got a couple of states in the middle there we have to talk to. 337 00:15:26,460 --> 00:15:26,800 Yeah. 338 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:27,580 Well, that's true. 339 00:15:27,740 --> 00:15:28,880 But look at Alaska. 340 00:15:29,380 --> 00:15:30,860 We've set an excellent example. 341 00:15:31,220 --> 00:15:32,480 Alaska doesn't touch any other part. 342 00:15:32,740 --> 00:15:33,440 Same with Hawaii. 343 00:15:34,740 --> 00:15:36,740 In fact, there's a country in the middle of Alaska. 344 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:38,000 Yeah, that's true. 345 00:15:38,260 --> 00:15:38,680 We do have an island. 346 00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:39,160 Yeah. 347 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:40,780 A couple islands there. 348 00:15:40,780 --> 00:15:40,880 Yeah. 349 00:15:40,980 --> 00:15:44,580 And, you know, Oregon and Washington, like, you know, they could be convinced. 350 00:15:44,820 --> 00:15:45,200 They might. 351 00:15:45,740 --> 00:15:48,220 Yeah, just one whole state. 352 00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:50,640 We could also just go independent because it is a big economy. 353 00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:53,860 You know, California, Oregon, Washington, Pacific. 354 00:15:54,940 --> 00:15:58,360 What do you think the likelihood of California seceding is? 355 00:15:58,500 --> 00:16:04,800 Because in Canada there's a province called Alberta, which is far more right wing than the rest of Canada. 356 00:16:05,100 --> 00:16:10,620 And they're very unhappy with the results of the recent federal election as well as the past three federal elections. 357 00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:19,560 So there's talk of succession where Alberta could leave and become, you know, maybe part of the states. 358 00:16:19,900 --> 00:16:20,060 Yeah. 359 00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:21,840 I mean, there is talk about that in California. 360 00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:28,640 In fact, historically, parts of California have seceded from attempted to secede from California. 361 00:16:29,100 --> 00:16:30,540 But it has to be approved by Congress. 362 00:16:30,740 --> 00:16:42,880 And so in both cases, the state of Jefferson, as it was going to be called up in northern California and southern southwestern Oregon, were going to become a state called Jefferson. 363 00:16:43,220 --> 00:16:44,160 They voted it. 364 00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:45,720 It went before Congress. 365 00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:52,540 And the I think the yeah, that was when World War Two broke out. 366 00:16:52,620 --> 00:16:54,480 So Congress never dealt with it. 367 00:16:54,800 --> 00:16:55,900 So it's actually still pending. 368 00:16:56,520 --> 00:17:09,440 And then earlier, southern California, just before the Civil War, voted to secede from northern California because of all the craziness around the settlement up there and around the gold. 369 00:17:09,579 --> 00:17:10,599 What year was that? 370 00:17:10,819 --> 00:17:14,660 That was like 19, I mean, 1859, something like that. 371 00:17:14,660 --> 00:17:18,180 And so they voted for the southern like third of the state. 372 00:17:18,420 --> 00:17:21,339 And then it went before Congress and the Civil War broke out. 373 00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:24,119 So it was never dealt with either. 374 00:17:24,359 --> 00:17:26,200 So there's that still pending as well. 375 00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:26,520 Yeah. 376 00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:29,820 They're both theoretically pending, but nobody takes it up again. 377 00:17:30,620 --> 00:17:32,680 But so there is talk about California seceding. 378 00:17:32,780 --> 00:17:34,480 Do I think what are the chances, you ask me? 379 00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:40,560 And I think pretty minuscule because because I don't think you'd get enough people to do it. 380 00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:41,580 It's a complicated thing. 381 00:17:41,580 --> 00:17:47,780 Like it's like when Scotland was thinking of separating from Britain, which it thinks about a lot. 382 00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:58,540 A lot of people were like, well, it'll take 20 years of, you know, chaos kind of to an extent to get things stabilized. 383 00:17:58,700 --> 00:17:59,740 May take less for. 384 00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:06,200 So therefore, you feel as as the as the eagle circles and the one downside of I see you stepping outside. 385 00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:07,680 The one side says the wind. 386 00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:09,360 I don't have a wind muffler on my phone. 387 00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:10,920 That's the one thing I know. 388 00:18:10,920 --> 00:18:12,840 I don't want to interrupt your your customers. 389 00:18:14,900 --> 00:18:15,640 Who do you call? 390 00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:16,920 They call them customers or guests. 391 00:18:17,580 --> 00:18:18,100 Well, that's interesting. 392 00:18:18,200 --> 00:18:21,280 We were just talking about that the other day about what I call them. 393 00:18:21,300 --> 00:18:21,680 Readers. 394 00:18:23,120 --> 00:18:23,260 Right. 395 00:18:24,020 --> 00:18:24,300 Yeah. 396 00:18:24,420 --> 00:18:27,060 J.K. Rowling was once challenged on Twitter because. 397 00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:31,960 Once? 398 00:18:36,420 --> 00:18:39,080 John, I walk in the front door of your beautiful bookstore. 399 00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:42,360 By the way, James Daunt was a past guest on our show, a CEO of Barnes and Noble. 400 00:18:42,480 --> 00:18:47,980 And he says a good bookstore is lots of weird corners, lots of weird posts, lots of weird ceilings, a lot of weird shapes. 401 00:18:47,980 --> 00:18:49,380 For some reason, that makes a good bookstore. 402 00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:51,560 And you have nailed it with this. 403 00:18:51,740 --> 00:18:52,180 That's right. 404 00:18:52,300 --> 00:18:53,720 It's 13, 14 hundred square feet. 405 00:18:53,720 --> 00:19:00,120 But it's on like I want to say like a seven sided room that has pillars everywhere, all these random walls. 406 00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:01,800 But you've painted a beautiful bright orange. 407 00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:07,500 You've got kind of like almost like a royal or a blue jay blue like kind of door and window. 408 00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:09,060 There's white ceilings. 409 00:19:09,060 --> 00:19:10,680 You've got the blue dot sail on the front cabin. 410 00:19:10,780 --> 00:19:12,360 You've got a big ladder right behind me. 411 00:19:12,540 --> 00:19:13,200 Nice cards. 412 00:19:13,540 --> 00:19:19,220 And the front display, you've got The Maid's Secret by Nita Prose, Who is Government by Michael Lewis, The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins. 413 00:19:19,520 --> 00:19:26,080 You've got Careless People, the Facebook book by Sarah Wynne Williams, On Tyranny, a small book by Timothy Snyder. 414 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:26,400 What else? 415 00:19:26,540 --> 00:19:27,240 He just moved to Canada. 416 00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:27,920 Really? 417 00:19:28,380 --> 00:19:28,780 Yeah. 418 00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:30,020 Because? 419 00:19:30,360 --> 00:19:31,480 Made a lot of people nervous. 420 00:19:33,300 --> 00:19:37,180 Because if there is a sort of left, he would be in it. 421 00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:46,620 And he and three other political critics of tyranny, fascism, things like that just moved to Canada. 422 00:19:47,060 --> 00:19:47,280 Wow. 423 00:19:47,380 --> 00:19:48,300 OK, I'm picking it up. 424 00:19:48,420 --> 00:19:52,100 It's called On Tyranny, 20 Lessons from the 20th Century by Timothy Snyder. 425 00:19:52,540 --> 00:19:57,400 It's a small little crown publishing like paperback for twelve dollars US, sixteen dollars Canadian. 426 00:19:57,820 --> 00:20:00,120 What else did you put in the front display here and why? 427 00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:01,320 This is all bestsellers. 428 00:20:01,420 --> 00:20:03,520 These are the books that people in Del Mar are reading. 429 00:20:04,300 --> 00:20:07,500 The Service Berry by Robin Wall Kimmerer you're picking up. 430 00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:09,720 Yeah, she wrote Braiding Sweetgrass. 431 00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:11,140 I have that book. 432 00:20:11,140 --> 00:20:11,940 Upstate New York, yeah. 433 00:20:12,220 --> 00:20:13,800 I read Martyr by Kaveh Akbar. 434 00:20:14,220 --> 00:20:17,140 I've picked up Abundance by Ezra Klein, but I have not read it. 435 00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:19,280 Pico Ayer is great and that started. 436 00:20:19,900 --> 00:20:20,380 Aflame. 437 00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:20,800 Yeah. 438 00:20:21,360 --> 00:20:23,420 OK, what's Aflame about by Pico Ayer? 439 00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:29,420 It's about the loss of his home by fire, which I mean, Californians, you know, just went. 440 00:20:29,420 --> 00:20:34,960 In fact, Alison and I lost a place up in Pacific Palisades in L.A. in January. 441 00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:35,620 Wow. 442 00:20:35,780 --> 00:20:36,700 As part of that huge fire. 443 00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:37,440 Wow. 444 00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:39,500 Beautiful store. 445 00:20:39,620 --> 00:20:40,540 Beautiful displays. 446 00:20:41,040 --> 00:20:41,440 Cards. 447 00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:42,700 You've got hats here. 448 00:20:43,300 --> 00:20:47,780 There's a smiling woman with red hair on the phone in the front left counter. 449 00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:49,500 It's one of your booksellers. 450 00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:53,640 There are customers picking books off the shelves. 451 00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:57,680 It's a busy store considering, you know, it must have just, you know, just opened. 452 00:20:57,800 --> 00:20:58,900 You got the door propped open. 453 00:20:58,900 --> 00:20:59,540 Three weeks ago. 454 00:20:59,660 --> 00:21:00,460 Three weeks ago. 455 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:01,140 Yeah. 456 00:21:01,980 --> 00:21:02,340 Wow. 457 00:21:02,780 --> 00:21:04,400 Yeah, we moved from a few miles away, so. 458 00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:08,040 So the sub headline of the store, why did you not make that the name of the store? 459 00:21:08,860 --> 00:21:11,320 You'd have to ask Alison that because she named it. 460 00:21:11,660 --> 00:21:15,700 We had to all of a sudden realize that when we sold our store, we would have to come up with another name. 461 00:21:15,760 --> 00:21:16,440 And you had Diesel? 462 00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:19,000 Diesel, a bookstore. 463 00:21:19,220 --> 00:21:21,580 So we're used to punctuated names for our. 464 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:22,300 Diesel. 465 00:21:22,420 --> 00:21:23,140 How do you spell diesel? 466 00:21:23,420 --> 00:21:24,940 D-I-E-S-E-L, like the gasoline. 467 00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:28,460 And it's the name of the bookstore for that many years you had that bookstore. 468 00:21:28,460 --> 00:21:29,360 You just sold it. 469 00:21:29,500 --> 00:21:32,640 Yeah, from 1989 until last August. 470 00:21:32,940 --> 00:21:34,100 Wow, where was that? 471 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:46,200 We started in Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, then down to Malibu, Brentwood in L.A. We had a store in Larkspur in Marin. 472 00:21:47,180 --> 00:21:49,640 And then we had one just three miles away from here. 473 00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:50,860 And now we're here. 474 00:21:51,020 --> 00:21:53,220 So how many stores did you have when you sold it? 475 00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:54,680 Two. 476 00:21:55,380 --> 00:21:56,920 Oh, but it sounds like you had about eight. 477 00:21:56,920 --> 00:22:00,480 We had four total, but we moved around a little bit. 478 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:04,440 And when you sold two bookstores, is selling bookstores a common thing? 479 00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:06,020 And then opening your own new one? 480 00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:09,020 We sold one and kept one. 481 00:22:09,220 --> 00:22:10,600 So we just had to rename it. 482 00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:11,860 And that's how Camino happened. 483 00:22:13,220 --> 00:22:14,340 So this is the one you kept. 484 00:22:14,780 --> 00:22:17,300 But you had to change the name because you sold the name. 485 00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,760 Wow, and is there a good market for people buying bookstores these days? 486 00:22:21,540 --> 00:22:25,080 Well, you know, you were talking about secession. 487 00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:26,460 This is like succession. 488 00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:32,300 Like how do you keep a bookstore going in a community past the original owner's intent, right? 489 00:22:32,360 --> 00:22:36,280 Like when you mentioned Mitch Kaplan, he's like around my age. 490 00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:38,800 And what's he going to do in 20 years? 491 00:22:38,900 --> 00:22:40,740 Is one of his kids going to take over it? 492 00:22:40,760 --> 00:22:42,280 Or is it the people that are working there? 493 00:22:42,540 --> 00:22:43,520 Or Judy Blume? 494 00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:44,840 Judy Blume, yeah. 495 00:22:45,100 --> 00:22:46,480 She could expand. 496 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:51,420 I interviewed her in her bookstore, Books and Books in Key West, which of course is a books and books bookstore. 497 00:22:51,500 --> 00:22:52,880 But it's a nonprofit bookstore. 498 00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:55,520 So who knows? 499 00:22:55,720 --> 00:23:00,400 But, you know, so people are, yes, people are buying bookstores right now as well as opening them. 500 00:23:00,580 --> 00:23:02,800 I mean independent bookstores are doing okay. 501 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:05,360 Not as good as they should do. 502 00:23:05,460 --> 00:23:07,300 But I'm kind of an evangelist for that. 503 00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:14,760 Yeah, but when you think about succession, one idea is you sell the chain, you sell the name, you open a smaller one that you can run for the next road. 504 00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:17,740 Yeah, if you're continuing on. 505 00:23:17,980 --> 00:23:23,380 I mean it didn't make sense really for someone in L.A. to buy both stores, right? 506 00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:29,680 And so we got a very nice offer to move here from the landlord here who wanted a bookstore. 507 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:30,880 They had had one before. 508 00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,160 And our lease was up in the other space. 509 00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:37,220 So we decided to move the store at the same time as change the name. 510 00:23:37,380 --> 00:23:38,260 It was a busy year. 511 00:23:38,500 --> 00:23:39,140 And where are we? 512 00:23:39,260 --> 00:23:40,060 We're in Del Mar. 513 00:23:40,740 --> 00:23:41,540 Which is where? 514 00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:42,200 Where is Del Mar? 515 00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:47,100 It's in North County, just north of San Diego, just over the border, just north of UC San Diego. 516 00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:56,160 And it's right next to the Del Mar Racetrack, which is where the surf meets the turf, a sort of storied racetrack, horse racing. 517 00:23:56,560 --> 00:24:00,080 They have a county fair for a couple months every year and then horse races. 518 00:24:00,420 --> 00:24:02,480 And what's Del Mar, California, known for? 519 00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:08,060 I know George Saunders and Dave Eggers are amongst the at least passing through customers. 520 00:24:08,060 --> 00:24:12,220 I saw a huge display of signed Dave Eggers books at the back and he was just here. 521 00:24:12,300 --> 00:24:13,640 He made a big poster for you. 522 00:24:14,220 --> 00:24:16,300 So what else is the town about? 523 00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:23,080 The town is also known as one of the places where humanistic psychology started in the 60s. 524 00:24:23,260 --> 00:24:30,920 And so if you have to go back to I'd say the 60s and 40s and 50s, it was more known for the track and that kind of thing. 525 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:38,080 And then later on, sort of overflow from UCSD with professors living here and people who graduated from there. 526 00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:40,620 And it's a beautiful, beautiful place. 527 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:46,460 A learned professorial, academic, well-read, left-leaning surf town. 528 00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:52,040 Yeah, it's a mix of left and right, I'm sure, to the extent there's a left, as we talked about. 529 00:24:52,300 --> 00:24:54,780 But yeah, and it's beautiful. 530 00:24:54,920 --> 00:25:00,340 I mean, we're three blocks from the beach and the weather's great and it's lovely. 531 00:25:00,340 --> 00:25:01,160 Wow. 532 00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:07,560 Signed Dave Eggers shelf behind you with what is the what, the every, you shall know our velocity, and it was a tone. 533 00:25:08,100 --> 00:25:13,340 Author of the month is Kate DiCamillo, which is his author of all the Mercy Watson books. 534 00:25:13,580 --> 00:25:19,500 And because of Winn-Dixie, there's all these staff picks notes and your next great read. 535 00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:21,140 And you're really well tagged and well read. 536 00:25:21,180 --> 00:25:23,140 It's a really fulsome, hearty store. 537 00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:28,020 Now if you're 67, does that mean you were born in 1958? 538 00:25:28,580 --> 00:25:29,060 57. 539 00:25:29,060 --> 00:25:29,580 1957. 540 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:32,160 And so that means you grew up in the 60s? 541 00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:32,860 Yeah. 542 00:25:33,100 --> 00:25:36,260 And isn't that old adage that if you remember the 60s, you weren't there? 543 00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:39,420 Yeah, I remember them pretty well, though, because I was younger. 544 00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:40,800 Where were you? 545 00:25:41,700 --> 00:25:42,680 I've been places. 546 00:25:43,300 --> 00:25:44,180 Where were you born? 547 00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,900 I was born in Pennsylvania, in coal mining area. 548 00:25:48,660 --> 00:25:49,660 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. 549 00:25:50,020 --> 00:25:53,940 And then lived in Kansas for the wonder years, from 3 to 10. 550 00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:56,360 The wonder years. 551 00:25:56,360 --> 00:26:01,120 And then went to Massachusetts for one year, and then Delaware. 552 00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:02,860 My father worked for DuPont. 553 00:26:03,860 --> 00:26:06,280 And that's where DuPont is centered. 554 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:25,360 So tracing back the roots, back behind Delaware through Pennsylvania and Massachusetts and Kansas, was there a book or two that pops out in your early memory as somewhat shaping your warm gnarliness and general personality? 555 00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:27,060 It's funny. 556 00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:36,020 I didn't think about my, for a while there, as a young adult, and for quite a while, I didn't really think about my childhood all that much. 557 00:26:36,380 --> 00:26:41,720 And then all of a sudden I thought, Ferdinand, that book Ferdinand. 558 00:26:42,420 --> 00:26:53,320 And I looked at it, and it all came back to me, how much I loved that book when I was a little kid, and that I had a little Ferdinand stuffed animal that was made with velvet or something like velvet. 559 00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:55,220 Do you have it in the store? 560 00:26:55,300 --> 00:26:57,400 Can you take us to it as you tell us about the book? 561 00:26:57,620 --> 00:26:59,200 And do tell us about this book. 562 00:26:59,420 --> 00:27:02,660 So Ferdinand was written during the Spanish Civil War. 563 00:27:03,740 --> 00:27:07,500 We're walking to the back, past the red shelf, past the blue display of all the places you'll go. 564 00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:09,940 Two white metal wicker chairs here. 565 00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:11,480 We're in the kids' section now. 566 00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:15,420 We're in the back nook, a corner, lots of brown shelves, lots of board books. 567 00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:21,340 John is scanning floor-to-ceiling walls of picture books, kids' poetry, sleepy time, kids' music. 568 00:27:21,860 --> 00:27:22,780 He's found it. 569 00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:24,020 He's pulled off the board book. 570 00:27:24,140 --> 00:27:26,240 He's found his own book like a needle in a haystack. 571 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:36,680 He's holding the story of Ferdinand by Monroe Leaf, a big square red book with a black drawing of a bull on the front, published in 1936. 572 00:27:36,940 --> 00:27:38,960 This is the 17th printing of the board book. 573 00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:43,200 Once upon a time in Spain, there was a little bull, and his name was Ferdinand. 574 00:27:43,420 --> 00:27:49,180 All the other little bulls he lived with would run and jump and butt their heads together, but not Ferdinand. 575 00:27:49,180 --> 00:27:49,660 That's right. 576 00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:50,700 So he's a dreamer. 577 00:27:50,900 --> 00:27:52,480 He doesn't really want to be a fighter. 578 00:27:52,600 --> 00:28:02,300 He doesn't really want to have that kind of position in the world, and he's a beautiful guy. 579 00:28:02,740 --> 00:28:03,700 How old were you when you read it? 580 00:28:03,820 --> 00:28:04,800 Was this Pennsylvania days? 581 00:28:06,360 --> 00:28:07,820 Probably Kansas, I would think. 582 00:28:08,020 --> 00:28:08,580 Wonder years. 583 00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:09,660 Maybe Pennsylvania, yeah. 584 00:28:09,700 --> 00:28:10,380 Three to ten. 585 00:28:10,580 --> 00:28:11,920 Yeah, somewhere in there. 586 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:17,060 And I had that little Ferdinand stuffed animal. 587 00:28:17,060 --> 00:28:19,580 I mean, I could hold it in my hand, so it must have been not very big. 588 00:28:20,660 --> 00:28:25,600 So it was red, even though this is black and white, and has always been black and white. 589 00:28:25,980 --> 00:28:31,600 It was a red bull with black ears, all of it velvet. 590 00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,880 Because the cover's red, even though the bull potentially is not. 591 00:28:34,940 --> 00:28:37,840 It was a similar kind of red like that, and black ears. 592 00:28:39,420 --> 00:28:40,820 So what about it? 593 00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:42,120 Warm hearted and gnarly? 594 00:28:42,900 --> 00:28:45,020 A bull who's a dreamer? 595 00:28:45,020 --> 00:28:46,140 You know what I'm saying? 596 00:28:46,420 --> 00:28:47,740 A bull who's a dreamer? 597 00:28:47,860 --> 00:28:48,060 Yeah. 598 00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,140 Would you describe yourself as a bull who's a dreamer? 599 00:28:50,300 --> 00:28:51,720 Yeah, I would today. 600 00:28:53,340 --> 00:28:54,260 At age 67. 601 00:28:54,420 --> 00:28:56,060 My friend Susan Cain is in her 50s. 602 00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:59,060 She wrote the book Quiet, and the book Bittersweet. 603 00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:03,680 And I interviewed her before the pandemic at the 92nd Street Y. 604 00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:09,440 We didn't release the conversation until after the pandemic, because we were waiting for Bittersweet to come out. 605 00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:11,920 And Bittersweet kept getting delayed a year, about five years. 606 00:29:11,980 --> 00:29:13,020 Worth the wait, though. 607 00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:13,620 That was brutal. 608 00:29:13,620 --> 00:29:14,560 As Oprah agrees. 609 00:29:14,700 --> 00:29:18,400 Anyway, one of Susan Cain's most formative books is Ferdinand. 610 00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:19,200 Oh, really? 611 00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:19,780 That's funny. 612 00:29:20,780 --> 00:29:27,020 Yeah, so it is that kind of, like on one hand, my sister said, you're so much more social than I am. 613 00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,880 And I said, I'm so much more social than I am. 614 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:31,480 Right? 615 00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:33,960 Because I am kind of an introverted person. 616 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:39,460 But then at the same time, I've just, I realize I'm too much outside myself. 617 00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:42,020 Like I just turn myself inside out. 618 00:29:42,020 --> 00:29:45,320 So that's when earlier you said, do you always talk like this? 619 00:29:45,420 --> 00:29:48,440 I said, yeah, that's just the way it is. 620 00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:51,260 Say that sentence again. 621 00:29:51,380 --> 00:29:54,540 I'm so much more social than I am. 622 00:29:54,620 --> 00:29:57,440 I'm so much more social than I am. 623 00:29:58,180 --> 00:29:59,600 Because you're, because Susan. 624 00:29:59,860 --> 00:30:01,480 I really assume that much. 625 00:30:01,500 --> 00:30:01,940 Yeah. 626 00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,940 So Susan wrote the book about introverts, Quiet. 627 00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:05,320 Yeah. 628 00:30:05,660 --> 00:30:09,140 This is her first recalled most formative book. 629 00:30:09,340 --> 00:30:09,540 Yeah. 630 00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:11,460 So we've got that in common. 631 00:30:11,460 --> 00:30:12,500 Do you want to know her second? 632 00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:13,500 Yeah. 633 00:30:13,700 --> 00:30:15,260 I wonder if it's the same as yours. 634 00:30:15,540 --> 00:30:16,680 Is yours Colette? 635 00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:17,560 No. 636 00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:19,820 No, but it could have been. 637 00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:20,800 But no, no. 638 00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:23,680 Oh, yeah. 639 00:30:23,860 --> 00:30:25,300 See, I'm being called back to work now. 640 00:30:25,860 --> 00:30:27,540 Do you have a second book in the wonder years? 641 00:30:28,420 --> 00:30:29,000 Second book? 642 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:29,520 Yes. 643 00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:34,520 What was it called, though? 644 00:30:34,940 --> 00:30:36,780 It's I know exactly what it's about. 645 00:30:36,860 --> 00:30:37,580 I can see the cover. 646 00:30:38,140 --> 00:30:39,160 Yeah, I'll be right there. 647 00:30:39,860 --> 00:30:40,840 Alison, sorry. 648 00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:43,000 We're going to cut this off soon. 649 00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:43,960 How much more time do I have? 650 00:30:43,980 --> 00:30:44,460 A couple minutes? 651 00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:47,340 That's your better half, right? 652 00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,760 Now that you're married, we can't mess this up. 653 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,020 Yeah, it's Wow. 654 00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:54,520 Secret Treasure, it's called. 655 00:30:54,820 --> 00:30:55,720 And it was a kid's book. 656 00:30:55,860 --> 00:31:02,420 And it's about the kids in Sweden who got the gold of Sweden out before the Nazis could get it. 657 00:31:02,900 --> 00:31:08,580 Underneath them on sleds and took it down into fjords and loaded it on ships. 658 00:31:08,580 --> 00:31:18,360 So it's a true story, but told from a little kid's point of view, you know, and so you're sledding down, getting the gold onto the ships before the Nazis get it. 659 00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,980 I mean, so both of these are anti-fascist books. 660 00:31:21,980 --> 00:31:24,100 Not that I was conscious of that at the time. 661 00:31:25,420 --> 00:31:30,900 I understand why Secret Treasure is anti-fascist, stealing the gold before the Nazis could steal it from you. 662 00:31:31,700 --> 00:31:33,580 It's got James Bond type imagery. 663 00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,760 But how is Ferdinand anti-fascist? 664 00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:51,740 Because it was all leading up into the Spanish Civil War, which was the test of Hitler and Mussolini joining Franco and suppressing the democratic government of Spain. 665 00:31:52,220 --> 00:31:55,840 So this book being written in 1936, when was the Spanish Civil War? 666 00:31:56,220 --> 00:31:57,720 36, 7, 8, 9. 667 00:31:57,960 --> 00:31:58,500 Wow. 668 00:31:58,500 --> 00:32:12,720 So when we talk about Trump and in the U.S., not to bring it back to this, but tag teaming with other dictators to suppress local populations is echoed throughout history, something that you've seen. 669 00:32:12,860 --> 00:32:17,760 For example, El Salvador's president or Russia's president to take a chunk of the Ukraine. 670 00:32:17,860 --> 00:32:22,300 You might argue that these are, you know, tag teaming behaviors. 671 00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:25,580 Autocracy Inc., as Ann Applebaum would say. 672 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:26,340 Yeah. 673 00:32:26,340 --> 00:32:27,500 Yeah, all that seems real. 674 00:32:28,140 --> 00:32:39,220 In fact, you know, the other book I would say that influenced me later in life that Alison recommended is that Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, which is set in the Spanish Civil War. 675 00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:39,940 He volunteered. 676 00:32:40,140 --> 00:32:41,700 He gets shot in the neck after a year. 677 00:32:41,820 --> 00:32:42,800 So what's the name of the book? 678 00:32:42,980 --> 00:32:44,020 Homage to Catalonia. 679 00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:45,620 Can you spell that? 680 00:32:45,820 --> 00:32:47,140 H-O-M-A-G-E. 681 00:32:47,420 --> 00:32:48,480 Homage or homage. 682 00:32:49,260 --> 00:32:50,060 Oh, homage. 683 00:32:50,140 --> 00:32:50,300 OK. 684 00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:51,200 Homage to? 685 00:32:51,380 --> 00:32:52,280 To Catalonia. 686 00:32:52,660 --> 00:32:54,540 Catalonia by George Orwell. 687 00:32:54,660 --> 00:32:54,840 Yeah. 688 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:56,960 And that was read during the Wonder Years. 689 00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,840 That was written— No, this was read later in my 20s. 690 00:33:01,020 --> 00:33:03,960 But that war never ended in a way, right? 691 00:33:04,140 --> 00:33:12,180 That sort of balance between democracy and fascism has been bouncing back and forth ever since who knows when. 692 00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:13,600 Certainly World War II. 693 00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,640 And I'm so dumb and ignorant that I— No, you aren't. 694 00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:20,460 Well, I would love a little—can you give me two more minutes of context around that book? 695 00:33:20,620 --> 00:33:21,900 I got to get back to work now. 696 00:33:21,940 --> 00:33:22,160 Yeah. 697 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:22,920 OK, OK. 698 00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:29,340 So he goes and volunteers in Spain and then he gets assigned to an anarchist regiment. 699 00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:30,200 He being George Orwell? 700 00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:31,620 Yeah, George Orwell and his wife. 701 00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:39,600 And so they both go, as a lot of people did, like Hemingway did, and volunteered to fight against Franco, who had taken over the country. 702 00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:41,760 And then he gets shot in the neck and then comes back. 703 00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:47,280 And out of that is what comes 1984, Animal Farm, as he said himself. 704 00:33:47,280 --> 00:34:02,240 So that's where he got his true like global on-the-ground political understanding of the forces of mid-century global culture, the attempts of power to subvert democracy. 705 00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:04,080 Oh, my gosh. 706 00:34:04,340 --> 00:34:10,880 So 44 years ago at age 23, when you're working at a bookstore in Berkeley and you read Homage to— Catalonia. 707 00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:18,460 By George Orwell, this as the third of your formative books and also— 708 00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,600 None of them were like intentional reading in that sense. They were just great books, great reads. 709 00:34:21,699 --> 00:34:23,460 But it was like took root. 710 00:34:24,739 --> 00:34:25,320 What took root? 711 00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:35,820 Those ideas, those like liberatory ideas, it's just as far as war as oppression, which it always is. 712 00:34:35,900 --> 00:34:37,699 War as destruction, as it always is. 713 00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,639 Power over others used and abused is bad. 714 00:34:41,980 --> 00:34:44,239 It's pretty simple stuff, right? 715 00:34:44,739 --> 00:34:46,280 And everybody kind of knows it. 716 00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,480 They just don't see it necessarily sometimes. 717 00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:50,400 So we all have to keep looking. 718 00:34:51,060 --> 00:34:51,580 Stay awake. 719 00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:52,940 Stay awake. 720 00:34:52,940 --> 00:34:54,780 What are three ways to run a profitable bookstore? 721 00:34:55,820 --> 00:35:00,980 Be passionate, be curious, and listen and take care of everybody that's in here. 722 00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:01,920 Wow. 723 00:35:02,380 --> 00:35:03,420 John, what's your last name? 724 00:35:03,580 --> 00:35:03,880 Evans. 725 00:35:04,140 --> 00:35:04,620 John Evans. 726 00:35:04,740 --> 00:35:05,700 And is it Alison Evans? 727 00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:06,460 No. 728 00:35:06,620 --> 00:35:07,720 What's Alison's last name? 729 00:35:07,900 --> 00:35:08,120 Reid. 730 00:35:08,340 --> 00:35:08,920 R-E-I-D. 731 00:35:09,060 --> 00:35:21,980 John Evans, Alison Reid, bookseller since 1981, bookstore owner since 1989, and now the new proprietors of Del Mar's local Camino Books for the Road Ahead. 732 00:35:22,740 --> 00:35:24,280 Thank you so much for coming on Three Books. 733 00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:25,360 That was a real joy, John. 734 00:35:25,420 --> 00:35:25,860 Thank you. 735 00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:26,640 That was fun. 736 00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:28,400 Thanks. 737 00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:33,140 Is there anything else you want to say before I turn this off? 738 00:35:33,500 --> 00:35:34,060 Okay, thanks. 739 00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:36,780 I was just going to say that sounded so much fun. 740 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:38,140 I didn't know you were recording. 741 00:35:38,740 --> 00:35:40,080 Oh, oh, oh, oh. 742 00:35:40,260 --> 00:35:40,880 I'm still recording. 743 00:35:40,900 --> 00:35:41,700 I can turn this off. 744 00:35:41,860 --> 00:35:48,440 But Alison, would you like to say – would you have one for – you know, because his first formative book is Ferdinand, which overlaps with Susan Cain. So if Alison has one formative book to throw in – 745 00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:56,160 And I did mention The Homage to Catalonia that I always think everybody should read 746 00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:56,700 Yeah. 747 00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:56,900 Yeah. 748 00:35:57,560 --> 00:35:59,240 But what's your formative book? 749 00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:01,020 When you were little. 750 00:36:01,340 --> 00:36:02,240 I have no mind. 751 00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:02,540 Heidi? 752 00:36:03,140 --> 00:36:04,180 Oh, I loved Heidi. 753 00:36:04,580 --> 00:36:06,180 Oh, we don't have Heidi on the list. 754 00:36:06,460 --> 00:36:07,700 And I've read Heidi, too. 755 00:36:07,740 --> 00:36:08,280 It was popular. 756 00:36:08,380 --> 00:36:11,920 I was a kid in Oshawa, Ontario, our east of Toronto. 757 00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,520 Mom from Nairobi, dad from Amritsar, India, arranged marriage in England. 758 00:36:15,620 --> 00:36:19,300 I was born in the suburbs, 1979, and we were read Heidi in school. 759 00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:19,720 Uh-huh. 760 00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:21,240 No, I read Heidi on my own. 761 00:36:21,240 --> 00:36:24,400 I just loved the idea of going up a mountain in the summer. 762 00:36:25,720 --> 00:36:26,040 Yeah. 763 00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:28,180 You know, getting out of the city. 764 00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:29,900 Were you living in a city? 765 00:36:30,300 --> 00:36:31,440 Yeah, I grew up in Glasgow. 766 00:36:31,980 --> 00:36:33,460 Oh, and how old were you when you read Heidi? 767 00:36:34,220 --> 00:36:36,440 I don't know, maybe six or seven or something. 768 00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:38,060 Wow, and you came over to Berkeley from there. 769 00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:40,260 Oh, I came over a lot later, yeah. 770 00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:43,380 Yeah, I came through New York and then Berkeley. 771 00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:50,940 And, you know, now that you're on the coast of Delmar, right on the edge of the Pacific Ocean with the mountains up above you, you kind of have played the role of Heidi in your life a bit. 772 00:36:50,940 --> 00:36:52,720 This is true, but I don't have a cowbell. 773 00:36:55,140 --> 00:36:57,220 Alison, John, thank you so much for coming on 3 Books. 774 00:36:57,280 --> 00:36:58,140 I really appreciate it. 775 00:37:05,690 --> 00:37:07,910 Hey, everybody, it's just me, just Neil again. 776 00:37:08,010 --> 00:37:10,810 I'm not hanging out in my basement with my backpack full of wires. 777 00:37:11,170 --> 00:37:19,150 I'm holding a tiny lapel microphone with the receiver plugged into my iPhone in the Bellagio in Vegas. 778 00:37:19,290 --> 00:37:23,170 A bit of a turnabout, but hopefully the sound quality is good enough. 779 00:37:23,170 --> 00:37:38,310 As we listen to John and Alison, the 40-plus-year booksellers with their incredible wisdom, taking us back through their lives through the power of their own formative books, which include an asterisk. 780 00:37:38,370 --> 00:37:39,350 That's what we're going to start with. 781 00:37:39,350 --> 00:37:42,350 We're going to start with an asterisk on number 836. 782 00:37:42,570 --> 00:37:45,250 That would be The Story of Ferdinand by Munroe Leaf. 783 00:37:45,250 --> 00:37:53,490 I said it was Susan Cain, but I totally screwed up because, yes, it's one of Susan Cain's formative books. 784 00:37:53,890 --> 00:37:58,930 Yes, she actually talks and writes about that book in quiet, but no, she did not give it to me on the podcast. 785 00:37:59,110 --> 00:38:03,230 She did give me Collette, but I totally screwed up. 786 00:38:03,330 --> 00:38:03,970 She gave it to Rumi. 787 00:38:04,090 --> 00:38:04,790 She gave it to Collette. 788 00:38:05,270 --> 00:38:11,490 Actually, it is on the podcast from Kate the Therapist in Chapter 56. 789 00:38:12,710 --> 00:38:13,270 Oh, my gosh. 790 00:38:13,270 --> 00:38:14,290 I totally messed that up. 791 00:38:14,290 --> 00:38:16,110 Anyway, we move on. 792 00:38:16,250 --> 00:38:17,630 That's all we can do is move on. 793 00:38:17,950 --> 00:38:26,070 Then we've got number 566, Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan, M-C-S-W-I-G-A-N. 794 00:38:26,310 --> 00:38:33,670 Number 565, Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, which I've decided to pick up and read. 795 00:38:33,750 --> 00:38:35,210 I really want to get that and read that. 796 00:38:35,290 --> 00:38:41,110 It sounds like an incredible basis for Animal Farm in 1984, which I love both but never heard of this other one. 797 00:38:42,390 --> 00:38:52,710 Number 564, this is Alison kind of kindly sweeping in at the end to give us three, and that would be Heidi by Joanna Spyri, S-P-Y-R-I. 798 00:38:52,950 --> 00:38:56,650 Thank you so much to John and Alison for their formative books. 799 00:38:56,730 --> 00:38:58,510 I did pull in a few quotes here. 800 00:38:58,910 --> 00:38:59,450 How about this one? 801 00:39:00,150 --> 00:39:05,730 You see a great swath of humanity coming through the store, all ages, all types of people interested in all types of things. 802 00:39:06,010 --> 00:39:08,670 They're pretty civil in the bookstore, and it's pretty heartwarming. 803 00:39:09,510 --> 00:39:11,690 Two, there isn't really a left wing in America. 804 00:39:11,830 --> 00:39:14,930 It's like an eagle without a left wing, and it's just spiraling to the ground. 805 00:39:16,350 --> 00:39:20,810 Three, be passionate, be curious, listen and take care of everyone. 806 00:39:21,030 --> 00:39:24,070 That was John's wisdom on opening and running a profitable bookstore. 807 00:39:24,650 --> 00:39:28,790 Then he gave me a quote right after he recorded because we kept chatting for a few minutes. 808 00:39:28,850 --> 00:39:33,430 He said, gradually you become okay with whatever strange beast you've become. 809 00:39:34,170 --> 00:39:36,010 I thought that was a really beautiful way to put it. 810 00:39:36,010 --> 00:39:39,170 I remarked that he was sort of settled into his skin. 811 00:39:39,270 --> 00:39:46,130 He said, gradually you become okay with whatever strange beast you've become, which I love, which wasn't in the podcast, but I'm throwing it in there as an Easter egg. 812 00:39:46,870 --> 00:39:51,150 John, Alison, Camino Books, Del Mar community, support these people. 813 00:39:51,690 --> 00:39:52,290 Get out there. 814 00:39:52,410 --> 00:39:53,570 Get to your local bookstore. 815 00:39:54,210 --> 00:39:55,950 Thank you so much for coming on Three Books. 816 00:39:58,630 --> 00:40:04,010 Now, if you made it to the end of the podcast, I want to welcome you back to the end of the podcast club. 817 00:40:04,230 --> 00:40:06,590 To kick it off, as we always do, let's go to the phones. 818 00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:10,960 Hey, Neil. 819 00:40:11,100 --> 00:40:12,380 It's Dave from Des Moines. 820 00:40:13,260 --> 00:40:14,220 Love your show. 821 00:40:14,720 --> 00:40:15,960 Very informative. 822 00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:20,660 I'm driving now, and I especially love listening to it when I'm walking in the morning or driving. 823 00:40:21,260 --> 00:40:24,320 Wanted to share three books with you. 824 00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,760 The first is When You Give a Mouse a Cookie. 825 00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,000 It's an awesome metaphor. 826 00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:39,300 I've used it for 30 years at work when people aren't thinking forward on the implications of their decisions and the associated costs. 827 00:40:39,540 --> 00:40:42,420 I give them the child book, When You Give a Mouse a Cookie. 828 00:40:42,420 --> 00:40:43,900 It's a great reminder of that. 829 00:40:44,460 --> 00:40:49,400 The second book is I just read, and it is The Ultimate Coach. 830 00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:57,280 It's a book that's similar to Seth Godin's book Est, where he read it and it impacted him. 831 00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:02,540 Didn't say it was a great literary piece of work, but it had a big impact on him. 832 00:41:02,540 --> 00:41:12,840 The Ultimate Coach had similar to me in that I really ingested what it meant to me, not what it meant to The Ultimate Coach as it was written. 833 00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:20,240 The third book I would say I also recently read was The Happiness Equation by yourself. 834 00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:33,900 I think as I read and digested all of those books in a recent retreat, it really had a huge impact on how I want to think about my own life, its reinvention, and what it means to me. 835 00:41:34,580 --> 00:41:36,400 Keep doing what you're doing, Neil. 836 00:41:36,500 --> 00:41:36,940 It's great. 837 00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:39,220 Love listening to your show. 838 00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:39,660 Thanks. 839 00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:03,240 Very kind of you to mention my book. 840 00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:04,100 I really appreciate that. 841 00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:05,340 Also, thank you for listening. 842 00:42:05,460 --> 00:42:06,280 Thank you for calling in. 843 00:42:06,620 --> 00:42:07,660 That's a great way to do it, guys. 844 00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:12,540 Call 1-833-READ-ALOT anytime, 1-833-R-E-A-D-A-L-O-T. 845 00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:18,120 Just leave me a form in a book, feedback, a dream guest, any reflection, any challenge, any debate. 846 00:42:18,240 --> 00:42:19,320 We just love listening to you. 847 00:42:19,780 --> 00:42:20,680 Call us, 3bookers. 848 00:42:20,720 --> 00:42:21,440 It's always fun. 849 00:42:21,780 --> 00:42:28,460 I won't go into another letter because I opened with a letter, but instead let's do a word of the chapter. 850 00:42:28,460 --> 00:42:31,460 For this chapter's word, let's go back to John. 851 00:42:33,140 --> 00:42:34,640 You were talking about secession. 852 00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:35,980 This is like succession. 853 00:42:37,240 --> 00:42:37,960 Yes, indeed. 854 00:42:38,220 --> 00:42:39,700 It is secession. 855 00:42:40,180 --> 00:42:40,760 Secession. 856 00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:44,120 S-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N. 857 00:42:44,180 --> 00:42:47,200 Note that this is a very different word than succession. 858 00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:51,960 Succession is S-U-C-C-E-S-S-I-O-N. 859 00:42:52,420 --> 00:42:55,820 Secession is S-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N. 860 00:42:55,820 --> 00:43:05,140 They sound, they look like they would be very, very similar words, but that one letter difference, the S-E instead of the S-U, completely changes it, right? 861 00:43:05,180 --> 00:43:10,280 Because succession means the order in which someone or something takes over a position or role. 862 00:43:10,380 --> 00:43:13,680 Like at a big company, like when I worked at Walmart, we had a succession plan. 863 00:43:13,940 --> 00:43:16,000 Who's going to be the CEO if this guy leaves? 864 00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:16,600 Whatever, right? 865 00:43:17,100 --> 00:43:19,960 But then secession is very different. 866 00:43:21,180 --> 00:43:37,740 Secession means the separation or withdrawal from a larger entity, like the secession of states from a union, like the secession of southern states from the U.S. states, or the secession of a region from a country, the secession of a group from an organization. 867 00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:50,760 Secession is from the Latin word seceder, S-E-C-E-D-E-R, which means to go apart, to go apart, which you can kind of see where succession came from there, too. 868 00:43:51,220 --> 00:43:59,600 But secession is really from the mid-16th century, which denotes the withdrawal of plebeians from ancient Rome in order to compel the patricians to redress their grievances. 869 00:43:59,720 --> 00:44:00,760 We all remember that, right? 870 00:44:01,020 --> 00:44:10,100 No, the point is, secession is a softer sound, but it has a big meaning, to leave the thing that you're a part of, to secede. 871 00:44:10,220 --> 00:44:19,200 Well, Camino Books, in a way, has seceded from Diesel Books, and now it's off on its own, a sprightly little offshoot in a hobble hole in down north California. 872 00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:32,820 And if you go in, you will probably bump into John, or you'll probably bump into Alison, you'll bump into their lovely booksellers, and you will have a grand old time just soaking into the Biblio paradise that is Camino Books for the road ahead. 873 00:44:33,220 --> 00:44:43,260 Look, for all of your roads ahead, I hope you enjoyed this conversation of three books, and remember until next time that you are what you eat, and you are what you read. 874 00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:45,900 Keep turning the page, everybody, and I'll talk to you soon. 875 00:44:45,900 --> 00:44:46,460 Take care.