Fan Mail Corner #011: Talking about books

Three books that changed my life

Hey buds,

I want to talk about three books that changed my life.

Actually, I already talked about it.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Allentown, PA to give the keynote talk for the opening night of the Lehigh Valley Book Festival. I put on a suit and drove from Philly and talked for about 25 minutes about how and where and why I make the books that I do.

Here’s a photo, taken by my old friend, Patrick Montero:

The event was hosted by Let’s Play Books and Cedar Crest College

A big part of the reason I make books at all is due to the fact that I read these 3 books as a kid. I’m writing a book about my childhood now, and talking about this stuff is kind of practice for me.

So here we go, drumroll please ::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Book Number One: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

My childhood copy, sorry about my thumb

This book has gotten some press lately because Wes Anderson made it into a short film. I guess it’s like 40-minutes. I am an Anderson fan, but I didn’t like the movie. It’s the exact text of the book, but the actors seem to be speed-reading their lines. I thought it was just OK.

But I love the book. More than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, more than James and the Giant Peach, more than Matilda - and all of those books, I LOVE.

I like the Henry Sugar story, and I’ve read it many, many times. This is my childhood copy, which I reread every so often. But it’s the “Six More” that I was fascinated by as a kid. I didn’t read a ton of Chekhov as a ten year old, so these were some of the first short stories I ever read. They’re all great, and very different from one another, but the one that changed my life is called LUCKY BREAK.

Dahl talks about how he became a writer, and he talks about his process. How he’ll get an idea for a story and dash off a few lines and then later, maybe, they become classics. He even included some facsimiles of the lines that later became some of my favorite books:

OK, I might love Fantastic Mr. Fox even more than this one.

I was a kid who didn’t know any writers. I didn’t go to a school that had visiting authors, or even librarians sometimes. My parents didn’t go to bookstores, like, ever - we certainly didn’t go to book signings - so for me, this was a revelation.

The idea that being a writer was a job - an actual job - had never really occurred to me. This book changed that. It changed what I imagined I could do, and it showed me that books don’t start out as finished hardcover masterpieces - they start with a line. I’m really glad I read this book when I did.

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When I sat down to write this ‘stack - I had intended to write about all 3 books, but I think I will break this post into 3 parts, and it will give me a little bit of a roadmap for this newsletter that has felt aimless at times.

So stay tuned! Next update, BOOK 2 - the second book that changed Greg Pizzoli’s life. Any guesses? Hey, be nice.

Till next time, Keep reading!

PS - What’s your favorite book from when you were a kid?

xo

GP
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