Bill’s 5 Book Recommendations
- Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison
- Michaels’ father died when he was 14: Michaels often invokes William Maxwell’s novel So Long, See You Tomorrow, in which the narrator, reflecting on losing his mother as a child, says, “The worst that could happen had happened, and the shine went out of everything.”
- This reminds me of a lot of scripts including Ted Lasso: Bob Schiller, the middle-aged Lucy writer, had also become a close friend. Michaels memorized the comedy rules Schiller dispensed: In every script, there has to be a joke every three lines. Also: The audience has to see a performer’s eyes.
- He thinks nothing of scheduling a meeting at 1:30 a.m. on a Wednesday.
- There wasn’t time to overthink or get too precious. “I realized that to get better, you’ve got to get up to bat,” he said. The show was hammy, the sketches ticking along to Catskills rhythms; Teri Garr was a regular, just before her breakout role in Young Frankenstein. The pay was $500 a week.
- The book alternates chapters as in a chapter from a week on the show in which Jonah Hill is the host. It’s the Monday meeting with the host. And then the next chapter is from early in Lorne’s life.
- Click here for our Amazon link to check out the book.
- True and False Magic by Phil Stutz
- When my coach was bearing down on me, I got the idea to use a mantra, though I didn’t know that word at the time. I would silently say heart to connect to my courage, and I would repeat it over and over again.
- Do Something Creative: It doesn’t matter what type of activity you choose; anything creative will wake the unconscious up really nicely. It doesn’t matter if what comes out is shit—keep going. It’s like activating a certain muscle.
- So writing about what you think is going wrong with you is good, even if you’re wrong.
- Click here for affiliate link.
- Dickens and Prince by Nick Hornby
- Both artists were incredibly prolific: Sign o’ the Times included sixty-three songs that weren’t on the original album.
- It was the two men’s production that linked them for Hornby: When I read about the boxed set, I thought, Who else ever produced this much? Who else ever worked that way? It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but then I realized there was an answer: Dickens. Dickens did. Dickens worked that way.
- Dickens had to pay the bills and sometimes wrote and finished two novels at once. Shakespeare had the same situation: In 1599, Shakespeare wrote Henry V, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It. Oh, and Hamlet. In the twentieth or twenty-first century, the creation of any one of those might have resulted in a great deal of self-consciousness and second-guessing. Jesus Christ, how the hell do I follow up Hamlet? But Shakespeare had a theater company to pay for.
- Click here for the affiliate link.
- Heartland by Keith O’Brien
- The intermittent time between Indiana and Indiana State: In late February, just two weeks after his father’s death, he returned to the basketball court and began playing for a new team: Hancock Construction. The team was out of Mitchell,
- The writer doesn’t tip toe around Bob Knight: John Wooden, a good guy, won his last championship in 1975 and rode off into that great basketball sunset at age 64 with 10 NCAA titles to his name and with three standing ovations from the crowd. Bobby Knight, a bad guy, won in 1976 with an undefeated Hoosiers team that could have included Larry Bird, if Bird hadn’t hitchhiked home from Bloomington a year and a half earlier.
- A note from John Wooden to Coach Hodges after the loss to Michigan State: “I am sure that you are disappointed,” Wooden told Hodges, “but you conducted yourself most admirably. Disappointment may be quite painful, but it is only a temporary thing and as the great statesman, Winston Churchill, said, ‘Victory is never final and defeat is never fatal.’ ”
- Click here for the affiliate link.
- The Uncool, A Memoir by Cameron Crowe
- There are lots of quotes from Crowe’s mom in this story: Watching the evening news, she would study Richard Nixon with squinting eyes and a deep sense of history. To her, American politics had become a Shakespearean play still in search of its tragic ending. “ ‘Envy no man until he is safely dead,’ ” she might cry out. “Herodotus said that!” (huh-RAH-duh-us) The Father of History! He wrote The Histories, an account of Greco Persian Wars from late 400’s BC.
- Mom: Sometimes the thing you most worry about doesn’t come about.
- Mom: Don’t let your actions be based on your fears.
- Frank Sinatra’s drummer wanted to meet Frank: One night the drummer finally asked his road manager if he could be introduced to Sinatra. The road manager declined his request. “Frank,” he said, “has met enough people.”
- Crowe’s dad gave an interview to a local paper the night before he died of heart attack: Success, he explained in an interview I discovered years later, given to his hometown paper on the eve of his own death by heart attack, was defined by something he learned from his own dad. Did you bring joy to your community? Did you put something back into the world?
- Click here for affiliate link.
Anne’s 5 Book Recommendations
- American Predator by Maureen Callahan
- Israel Keys, a serial killer. Grew up in a religious community, remote plot of land in Washington
- How shame and sin, living off the land, isolation, all combined to shape him
- A planner who would bury murder kits across the country for his use in the future. Would fly to city, rent a car and drive long distance before finding someone/some people to kill
- Click here for affiliate link.
- La Belle Sauvage by Phillip Pullman
- Part of a series of books, started with His Dark Materials, this is a pre-equal. I enjoy the setting/world, theocracy rules and heresy is illegal, many worlds you can cut into. People all have “daemons” animals who are connected to them
- It reads like a good mystery, fantasy thriller
- Click here for affiliate link.
- All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner
- About an American woman (Mildred Fish Harnack) married to a German living in Germany who spies on Nazi Germany and is executed by them. She and her husband helped Jews escape and organized against Nazis.
- Her husband Arvid also agreed to spy for Russia.
- They often acted the part of followers of Nazis, they had to be secretive all the time, heartbreaking book as many suspected them and didn’t ever know how they acted against Hitler’s power.
- I think it was very interesting to realize how some people did not seek it out but the circumstances of life led them to be the type of people to resist.
- From a boot review on artsfuse “Arvid and Mildred were arrested on September 6, 1942, as they were trying to flee Germany. On February 16, 1943, Mildred was beheaded, after copying out and translating into English the line of the Goethe poem that is the title of this book. Arvid had been hanged two months earlier.”
- Click here for affiliate link.
- Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
- Story down to its basics is 2 people who are antagonistic to each other have to join forces as they go on a series of trials. Set in fantasy world that I found interesting, but the main thin is the 2 people are interesting and have a nice chemistry.
- I think of a scene in this book from time to time, and I find that in some books I can recall the memory my brian made of the written scene for years after – do you think of books you read like this? They are in an old crazy mansion doing trials and I have that image in my head when I think of this book series.
- Click here for affiliate link.
- Louis XIV by Josephine Wilkerson
- Biography of the Sun King, who at age of 4 (1643) became King of France in (His mother was regent until he came of age) Ruler of France for 72 years
- Known for his love of the arts and sciences, Versaille, an absolutist and micromanager.
- Bios can be slogs sometimes but this is very entertaining, leans more into his personal life than world events
- Click here for affiliate link.
If someone would pay you $500 to read one of my book recommendations, which would you pick?
If someone would pay you $25 to read each of my books, would you read any of them?
Next week, we’re doing 10 Books We Want to Read. Let us know what you’re reading!
Thanks for checking out this Torg Stories post!

