This American Life

like how in Harry Potter, they're just like, you're a wizard, Ari.

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan.

Two bookshelves, science fiction, Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide, Fahrenheit 451, Orwell, Vonnegut.

After the murder of George Floyd, sales of Black books skyrocketed. Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, The New Jim Crow.

I think I had introduced her to Harry Potter just as I had started reading it.

Dave is a Christian, the leader of a local church's Chinese ministry. Dave gives my dad a Bible, the first English-language book he studies from cover to cover, and invites him to a weekly Bible study and Sunday service.

God revealed to us in the Bible and then everyone has to make a decision either to accept it or reject it.

The way Moneyball is a book about baseball.

In other words, to get the next word right, it had to become intelligent... It got that way from the collective writings of all of us. Yes, Moby Dick. But also some restaurant review you posted in 2004.

the opening lines of the divine comedy.

Have you heard he is doing a one-man show based on the children's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar? It opens this way.

When I asked what he knew about what it was like there, he said, have you seen The Shining?

Two bookshelves, science fiction, Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide, Fahrenheit 451, Orwell, Vonnegut.

when I tried to learn more by ordering books like The Menopause Manifesto, the prison denied the books for being sexually explicit.

The Menopause Manifesto is on the approved book list.

How to Win Friends and Influence People, first published in 1936. You know when you read this thing you can see why it is number one.

If you've ever seen the book, it's got this picture of Dale Carnegie on the front who is, you know, somewhere in his 60s or 70s wearing, you know, those Mr. Menace glasses that Dennis the Menace's dad used to wear.

And I went through these and, you know, principle number one was become genuinely interested in other people. Principle number two was smile. Principle number three was remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

The whole experience with Dale Carnegie actually left Paul with fewer friends and less influence over people.

He writes, in preparation for writing this book, he read everything he could find on the subject and then he lists all the stuff that he and his trained researcher read to figure out how the great leaders of all ages had dealt with people.

She was adapting the novel Little Women into a screenplay when she got hit on the head.

David Epstein. The book that he wrote that kicked all this off is called The Sports Gene... He wrote an update about Jill and Priscilla in his book, Range, Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

But she had managed to convince the local theater department of this college that she should direct a production of Peter Pan.

And Peter Pan comes flying in the window. And in this particular production, there's a big bed with all the three kids in it.

And then the little boy was sort of being flung around a little too... a little too hard. He had the least mass to resist whatever the machinery was doing to him.

And then the kid suddenly does just an enormous splat into the wardrobe. I mean, and it's clear that he's hurt, you know.

And the audience was still in this very forgiving mode and no one said a word. We just all sat there sort of holding our breath.

He asked me if I had read the greatest book ever written about car sales. I don't think so, I told him. What is it? The Art of War, he said, by Sun Tzu.

I went to the bookstore and bought a copy, and then headed back to town and country.

Lines like, draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion, seemed especially on point.

It's kind of like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, if that had been written in the 5th century B.C.

Jonathan tries to capture this in his book about Trump, Tired of Winning, which is actually the inspiration for today's show.

Stephanie Foo who produced this episode and did so many great stories for our show came out with a book a couple years ago after she left our show called What My Bones Know.

J. Marie, she used to be a producer here. These days, she is the host of the podcast The Dream, which is a book based on that show called Selling the Dream.