Episode Details

3 Books is a completely insane and totally epic 15-year-long quest to uncover the 1000 most formative books in the world. Each chapter is hosted live and in-person at the guest's preferred location by Neil Pasricha, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Awesome, The Happiness Equation, Two-Minute Mornings, etc. Each chapter of 3 Books uncovers and discusses the three most formative books from one of the world's most inspiring people. Sample guests include: Judy Blume, David Sedaris, Chris Anderson of TED, the founder of the world's largest feminist magazine, the world's greatest Uber driver, Pete Holmes, Angie Thomas, and Malcolm Gladwell. Each of the 333 chapters is dropped on the exact minute of every single new moon and full moon until September 1, 2031. 3 Books is an Apple "Best Of" award-winning show and 100% ad-free, commercial-free, sponsor-free, and interruption-free. For more info check out: https://www.3books.co

Chapter Description:

Provocative bestselling author. Prestigious editor. Prolific book reviewer. Passionate press founder. Prominent professor. Powerful speaker. Perceptive social commentator.

Phew!

Is it any wonder Roxane Gay has been dubbed by Playboy as the most important and most accessible feminist critic of our time?

Over 1,000,000 people follow Roxane across Twitter, Instagram, and GoodReads, where she is, no big deal, currently the #1 ranked best book reviewer on the entire platform. So she's an Internet junkie then, right? One of those social media "influencer" people? That kind of thing?

Oh no, no, no, no, no! Roxane Gay is not that. She writes the Work Friend column at The New York Times as well as regular Op-Eds. She is the author of numerous bestselling books including Ayiti, Bad Feminist, An Untamed State, Difficult Women and Hunger. She was an editor for The Rumpus, co founded PANK literary magazine, and is currently editor at Gay Mag. She launched Tiny Hardcore Press (in her words, publishing "books tiny in stature but grand in reach and spirit,") and has been a professor at Eastern Illinois, Purdue, and Yale.

Roxane's work is known for challenging mainstream narratives and deconstructing feminist and cultural issues through the lens of her personal experience as a Black queer writer. I spent weeks preparing for this conversation and felt like a ravenous wolf trying to read and listen to as much Roxane as I could find. I read and loved Bad Feminist, dug into her treasure trove of essays on Medium, and listened to her on many podcasts including two episodes on the wonderful Design Matters with her wife Debbie Millman. And still: I didn't scratch the surface. She is such a prolific voice.