I'm Rufus Griskem, and this this a special episode?

Well, today we're counting down the best nonfiction books of spring

and revealing the one that we're going to send to next big

idea club members just next week. I've got my colleague Pantio here to help. Hey Ponyo. Hey, Rufus.

So Pantio, you're in charge of this really rigorous process where we look at dozens of do books.

Hundreds. Hundreds of new books. What are we looking for? Well, we're looking for books

that really earn people's time.

That usually means they're grounded in solid research. They have a genuinely fresh idea,

and they're well written. Out of all those books, a handful rows to the top. Let's talk about

the ones that almost made it. Great. There's some really strong contenders. One of my favorites is

The Story of Stories by Kevin Ashton. He's some really strong contenders. One of my favorites is the story of

stories by Kevin Ashton. He's the technologist who coined the term the Internet of Things.

And his book has a mind-bending premise. He flips the whole language-created storytelling

idea around and argues quite persuasively that storytelling created language.

So interesting. Caleb had a great conversation with Kevin a couple weeks back. Then, of course, there's the meaning of your life by Arthur C. Brooks. Also on the show recently, Arthur, as you know, is a heavyweight. He's a professor at HBS, had a column on happiness

at the Atlantic for many years. You could make the case this is the culmination of decades of his

work. He argues that we've solved the boredom problem, and in the process, we've created

a meaning problem, which turns out to be a much bigger problem. We have to have meaning in our lives.

It turns out to be sane. Well, another book I've been recommending is How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay by Jenny Lawson. Oh, yeah. This one is a dark horse. It's the first humor book that's made it onto our list. But it's more than just funny essays. It's a self-help book. It's her first one. And she shares over a hundred

strategies on how to get unstuck when your brain is fighting you. Of course, another one that I

champion, Bonio, as you know, was revealing the underrated power of oversharing by Leslie John.

It's a surprisingly serious book, despite the title, from a leading psychologist and another

...