In this YouTube episode, the host walks through a diverse set of recent acquisitions for his personal library, ranging from classic psychology and self‑help works to avant‑garde AI‑generated photography books and vintage manuals. He begins with a 1966 text on the social psychology of social movements, linking it to an upcoming radical‑themed book club, and then reflects on Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People as a personal life‑changing favorite. The conversation shifts to Philip Toledano’s AI‑crafted photography books—Another America and a re‑imagined D‑Day roll—using a Duchamp‑style argument about context defining art. He then showcases a 1964 airline stewardess manual, noting historic gender and dress expectations, followed by a Great Depression‑era vegetarian cookbook, Kitchen Adventures, whose user‑annotated pages document a child’s therapeutic journey. A brief speed‑round mentions Bill Gurley’s Audible title, a 1949 Esquire Handbook for Hosts, and a quirky neighborhood lending‑library dilemma. The host then critiques a Vanity Fair issue featuring Christopher Anderson’s stark political portraits, before highlighting contemporary photographic books by Louise Connor, Jen Crower, and Joel Sternfeld, discussing their design, composition lessons, and the power of imagery to shape narratives. Throughout, he interweaves personal anecdotes, cultural observations, and enthusiasm for the material.
What do you think, we had like 100 a week? I have a problem.
Books, endless wells of knowledge, each its own cathedral of information. Like the Knights Templar of old searching for the Holy Grail, we embark on a quest to collect every book in the world. For the books that we collect, collect us in return.
Today I have an Additions to the Library episode for you. I have a problem that I buy a lot of books, so I'll start with this book right here. It's called The Social Psychology of Social Movements. The book was written in 1966. It's an in-depth look at what motivates people to become part of a radical social movement. That being said, at some point I'm going to invite people to be a part of a radical social movement that we're going to start is going to be a book club. And in the spirit of that, I've been collecting Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. I'm not quite sure how the book club's gonna work, but I do anticipate that I will send the book to everybody. You know, everybody's reading the same edition of the same book. Also, on our little series that we do called Books That Changed My Life, we just put out an episode with Rob Riggle, and this was his book that changed his life, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Which would also be my book that changed my life. Next one. So I have Philip Toledano's photography books. These are a little different. It's called Another America and it's a photography book. The text is by John Kenny, who I think writes for The New Yorker. The pictures are not real. They're created with AI. You got a couple things going on here, right? There's that kind of Duchamp way of thinking of like you go to an art gallery. If Duchamp puts a snow shovel in there, you are forced to see that snow shovel as art because you're in in an art gallery. The environment that you're in dictates how you see things. So even though the photographs are created with AI, they're in the format of a photography book, which then makes you see it as a photography book. Then another one of his, I guess you would call it a book. There was a photographer named Robert Capa that shot 4 rolls of film on D-Day in World War II. D-Day was the worst part of the war, just a complete massacre where we're trying to take the shore. And, and so only one roll of the four rolls ever got developed that he shot. And so this is called We Are at War. What Robert's doing here is he's reimagining what those other three rolls would've been. And so he has a contact sheet here. And I mean, AI creates incredible images. So like all of these images would be award-winning, right? So a contact sheet wouldn't really look that good because you'd have a few that weren't good. But then he did this little newspaper and there's an article in there that he wrote in the style of Hemingway because that photographer later photographed with Hemingway. He has ads in here, but these images are so powerful. I just love to like a pizza ad next to a shot like that. Like the juxtaposition is unsettling. We don't just make B-17s. He's kind of written a letter here. It starts, the very existence of AI has rendered both history and facts infinitely elastic. How to become an airline stewardess. And this was written in 1964. What I find fascinating about this is how picky they were back then. Like, you had to be a certain weight. Like, there were a bunch of criteria. I also just find it fascinating that back then, if sat in first class, you were expected to wear a suit and tie. We're missing a little bit of that for certain things. I think if you get dressed up for something, it just feels more special. Next one I have here is "Kitchen Adventures" by Christian McPhail. It was published during the Great Depression, and it's recipes that are vegetarian, which wasn't a common thing. And the idea was to cure people through food. And the person that ended up buying this book and that owned it literally followed along and kept a log. So their notes and their recipes are in here, trying to cure a 2-and-a-half-year-old kid of some different issues. I think neurological issues or something. I think that the premise of the book, trying different recipes that will heal people, and then somebody actually using the book and documenting their journey, makes this like really special and collectible. Speed round. A new book that I got that I'm listening to on Audible is Running Down a by Bill Gurley, the famous investor. This is the Esquire Handbook for Hosts, published in 1949. It has 3 sections: eat, drink, and be merry. Cocktail recipes, games, all kinds of different stuff. There is a little borrow-a-book thing in my neighborhood. Like, it looks like a big birdhouse. People put books in there, and then you can take one and put one back. And I saw 2 books in it I was interested in: The Science of Self-Realization and Sigmund Freud: An Outline of Psychoanalysis. I owe the lending library 2 books, which I'm trying to figure out. Just imagine, imagine having an exceptioner in the library to decide that one person doesn't have to bring books back, but another one does. Would this be fair? All right, I will. I got this magazine, the Vanity Fair. The photographer's name is Christopher Anderson. He basically is not a fan of the cabinet and was asked to do these photographs. He makes them look very very unattractive. I mean, just look at that picture of Marco Rubio. It's fascinating that they allowed this to happen and they didn't have any say in the creative control too. Oh, look at this guy, Stephen Miller. So this maybe was the most famous picture. A lot of people think that their role in something isn't that important, but you can be a photographer and completely change a narrative. Like, it doesn't even matter how the article reads. The pictures are so powerful. This is a book by Louise Connor. Can't show you the images in this book because it's naked pregnant women. It's two books. I love the design of this. In Plain Sight by Jen Crower, street photographer based in Switzerland. And I don't even know how to describe this. Everybody here in the office too looked at this and they're just like, what? It is so good. The pictures are are just incredible. I mean, just look at that. Absolutely incredible. Then the last 3 I have is my friend Dave, who has a YouTube channel on photography that I've learned a lot from. I sent him a text and I was like, hey, what are some good books on composition? Like, I want to work on my composition. And he recommended any books by Joel Sternfeld. So I got this one, Heart Island, and then this one, Landscapes as Longing, Queens, New York. And I get kind of why Dave recommended these for composition. And then Stranger Passing, same thing by Joel. Just a dude hanging out in a grocery store called Foodtown Parking Lot. And, uh—
