🌯 May wrap
I’m back!
After three weeks of Pret sandwiches, M&S biscuits, and proper Cadbury’s chocolate, I’m back in Australia and raring to go. Which is good because learning seems to be high on the agenda in organisations at the moment so I’ve got a big sprint of client work through to mid-August when I jump on another plane, this time to New York.
Fun fact, I don’t read a lot on planes. I get rrrrreally travel sick and despite taking tablets, I find that reading can still make me feel a bit wobbly. So long flights are the perfect way binge allofthe audiobooks, music, and podcasts I download in advance. I especially picked Elton John’s whopping 12+ hour book with my May Audible credit (keep scrolling for a mini review of that one), which was a great choice.
Here’s some things I’ve been enjoying since we last spoke:
Documentary - The Andy Warhol Diaries (Netflix): if I could go back in time for a few weeks, I would plop myself into late-1970s New York. I’d see punk bands at CBGB, go to art exhibitions, and generally live on the edge for a bit. This documentary is as close as I’ll get to a trip back to the 1960s-1980s New York art scene, and walks through Andy’s diaries from the time. It’s both a sad and fascinating look at how he tried so hard to create a persona to escape the reality of being himself, and a sobering insight into the shocking stigma and homophobia that existed, especially during the 1980s AIDS epidemic.
Podcast - 3 Books with Neil Pasricha featuring Daniels: I thoroughly enjoyed this animated conversation with the directors behind the film Everything Everywhere All At Once. Daniels talk about the books that influenced them, their creative process, what neurodiversity feels like, and what they noticed about each other before starting to work together. (Put the kettle on and enjoy).
Music - A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile: In the year 2000 Radiohead took a firm left-hand-turn away from the British indie sound of their classic OK Computer album and released the distinctively different Kid A (my personal favourite), quickly followed by Amnesiac. If they’d taken the blue pill instead of the red pill, I reckon they would have released something that sounded more like The Smile, the recent side project of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, along with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner. Instead, we had to wait 22 years for that alternative reality. It’s dark, brooding, spiky, and will stick in your head. I love the tracks Free in the Knowledge, The Smoke, and Speech Bubbles but the whole album is on heavy rotation. (Listen)
Learning - I’ve accidentally got three courses on the go at the moment. I’m four weeks into Priya Parker’s Art of Gathering course, one week into improv classes (brilliant), and this week is the start of the 30 day Casey Neistat filmmaking course. All the learning!
What are you into at the moment and wish everyone else knew about? Pop a comment to this post, or just tap the little heart button if you liked something you read.
Waving,
Steph
PS. To borrow from Austin Kleon (and everyone else who borrows this from Austin Kleon), this newsletter and the podcast are 'free but not cheap'. You can support their ongoing creation by buying me a coffee as a one off 'thank you', purchasing a card from the Good Press card store, or leaving giving the podcast a (five 😉) star rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Thanks!
What I read in May
Each month on Instagram, I summarise the books I’ve read that month with their star rating and a short, one sentence review. You, my lucky newsletter readers, get the longer-form reviews.
👀 BOOKS I READ WITH MY EYES 👀
Bittersweet by Susan Cain ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Beautifully written, and includes some very personal examples of the personality styles of bittersweet-ness but I'm not sure it really 'went' anywhere or what to do with the information.
(PS. You can read my full review of this book in the last bookmark newsletter)
I'm Not a Numbers Person by Dr Selena Fisk ⭐️⭐️💫
Great concept and content, and Selena’s passion for the content really comes through. It lost a couple of stars as I really felt it would have really benefited from being more visual given the nature of the content, which is sometimes hard to imagine when you read it, but would be instantly understandable as a picture.
(PS. I talk more about this book on this week’s podcast episode, check it out)
Fully Connected by Mel Kettle (preview copy) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Part-warm hug, part-friendly push in the right direction, Mel has done a great job pulling together the best thinking on leader effectiveness into one book. A succinct, funny, and practical read for any leader who knows they need to lead themselves before they can successfully lead others.
(PS. You can pre-order your own copy of this book here)
👂🏻 BOOKS I READ WITH MY EARS 👂🏻
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (read by Jake Gyllenhaal) ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Confession: I’ve never read or seen The Great Gatsby before, so I thought it was time to tick off another ‘classic’. It wasn’t really what I was expecting and found it equal parts engaging (the storyline), and irritating (the characters), but overall I quite liked it and enjoyed Jake’s voice acting.
Me by Elton John (read by Elton John and Taron Egerton, the actor who plays Elton in the film Rocketman) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Funny, open, and surprisingly self-aware; I liked Elton a lot more after listening to this. It was such a clever idea to use Taron to narrate the bulk of the book too, it was a really enjoyable listen and I found the stories and surrounding narrative much more in-depth compared to Acid for the Children by Flea and Storyteller by Dave Grohl.