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What is my new book about?

2021-04-27 · letter vlog · John · 3:33 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

Showing the finished copy of The Anthropocene Reviewed, John says books are rarely about what they are about and tries several elevator pitches for his book (being human in 2021 is weird; essays as Yelp-style reviews; a memoir; time, attention and the five-star scale), concluding he doesn't know.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The Anthropocene Reviewed book is here: endpapers from his circle drawings, a review of autographs, his three-and-a-half-star signature

00:00:29 — Books aren't about what they're about; John's attempts at an elevator pitch for The Anthropocene Reviewed

  • ★★★ Writers are told to distill a book into an elevator pitch, which John finds hard because books usually aren't about whatever they're about. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Turtles All the Way Down isn't really about a missing billionaire but about mental illness, free will and having your consciousness hijacked by intrusive thoughts. — 00:00:29 · Turtles All the Way Down, mental disorder
  • ★ An Absolutely Remarkable Thing isn't really about its plot either. — 00:00:29 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★★ We want to distill life into single data points or elevator pitches, but human experience is nuanced and multitudinous, one of the things TAR is about. — 00:00:58 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)

  • ★★★ John's pitch: being human in 2021 is very weird, as we are hugely powerful yet humbled by a strand of RNA, made of Earth, and shaped by how we pay attention. — 00:00:58

    “Being human in 2021 is very weird.”

  • ★★★ The Anthropocene Reviewed is essays in the form of in-depth Yelp reviews, reviewing things like viral meningitis, a photograph and the first five minutes of Penguins of Madagascar. — 00:01:27 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book), The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)

  • ★★ It is John's first nonfiction book; most reviews are adapted from his podcast, some are new. — 00:01:27 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)
  • ★★ John quotes a blurb from his podcast hero Anna Sale of Death, Sex and Money, who said the book satisfies all her contradictory demands for a book right now, and calls it lovely. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ The book is meant as a memoir, from seeing Halley's Comet as a child, through his internet-fascinated adolescence and his 20s at a children's hospital and a mental health crisis, to parenthood. — 00:01:56 · mental disorder
  • ★★ It is a very personal book but also about Canada geese, the Black Death and the wintry precipitation called graupel. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ John doesn't know what the book is about; perhaps whether E. E. Cummings was right about snow's indifference, and Mary Oliver's one shared world where everything becomes part of everything else. (unsure) — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ It is about the terror of time passing, the silliness and indispensability of the five-star scale, and how this last year (2020) changed all the past and future ones. — 00:02:55
  • ★ That makes it sound serious, but hopefully it is often funny. (hedged) — 00:02:55
  • ★★ John asks podcast listeners who know what the book is about to tell him in comments, since he can't figure out how to talk about it. — 00:02:55 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)
  • ★★ Signed copies of The Anthropocene Reviewed are available for pre-order now. — 00:02:55 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book), The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)

00:03:24 — Signed pre-orders, Grace Han's cover, sign-off

  • ★ Grace Han's cover is so lovely. — 00:03:24

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)

Also: People: Anna Sale · E. E. Cummings · Mary Oliver

Projects: The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)

Works: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing · Death, Sex and Money · Penguins of Madagascar · Turtles All the Way Down

Organizations: Yelp

Concepts: Canada goose · free will · graupel · memoir · meningitis · mental disorder · obsessive-compulsive disorder

Places: Halley's Comet

Events: Black Death

Only in the description or credits: AFC Wimbledon · Anthropocene · audiobook · FiveThirtyEight · Grace Han · Rochdale A.F.C. · Sarah Urist Green · smallpox

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