Why YOU Need to Read One More Thing by B.J. Novak

You’ll be hard pressed to find any of our social media channels that don’t mention B.J. Novak’s One More Thing. You might even say that we’re a tad obsessed, but in our defense, we all work here, because we love books and we all LOVED B.J.’s book. We don’t think we’ll need to twist your arm too much, but just in case you need further convincing, here are 5 reasons why you need to read this stunning book!

1. First up, we’re sharing a link to great interview that the CBC’s Q conducted with B.J. Novak on the books on sale date. He chats about storytelling and writing for the kid beside you.

2. His book trailer is pretty epic.

3. If you share your enthusiasm online, he might write back. As you can see, we shared our love on Instagram. We think B.J. Novak thought it was weird (see his tweet response below).

4. The Random House of Canada staff shared their favourite story in the collection:

Jessica, Manager, Online Marketing — I loved all these stories but one of the ones that stayed with me was ‘Kellogg’s (or: The Last Wholesome Fantasy of the Middle-School Boy)’ It was smart, funny and surprisingly poignant. I couldn’t get over how much emotion he crammed into this short story and how much he developed the characters. Plus, there are a couple of twists I didn’t see coming. Pretty impressive for 22 and a half pages.

Shona, Manager, Publicity– ‘The Literalist’s Love Poem’. It is good.

Paul, Manager, eBook Sales — My favourite story in the collection is, without a doubt, ‘The Bravest Thing I Ever Did’. It spoke to me because it works perfectly on more than one level; not just as a short story, but as a well-structured, fully-executed mature piece of humour. Oh and the title itself becomes hilarious once you’ve read the story.

Lindsey, Coordinator, Online Marketing — Choosing just one story from this collection was really hard, but I’m going to have to go with ‘The Something by John Grisham’. The main character of this story is none other than John Grisham who wakes up one morning, puts on a pot of coffee and then discovers a HUGE mistake in the newspaper. I can’t tell you what the error is, but I can tell you that I laughed out loud for seven pages straight.

Monique, Production Coordinator, eBooks — BJ Novak does really incredible, amazing things with and in the last lines of his stories. I dare you to go back and read the last lines of every story and find one that didn’t surprise you or make you curious. (Seriously. Dare you. Double dog dare you.) And then think about how the discussion questions work as the last lines of the book, and subvert all of your expectations for what book-club-discussion questions should be, and sent you back to think about it in a new way – the same way the last lines of the stories send you back to think about them in a new way, too. Genius. I fell in love with the book all over again. (And come on. Keep talking quantum locality to me, you brainy rapscallion.)

Adria, Publicity Manager — As a reader of the Missed Connections sections in various publications, I couldn’t help but pick B.J. Novak’s fantastic spin: ‘Missed Connection: Grocery spill at 21^st and 6^th 2:30pm on Wednesday’. It had me by line three, “I’m 29 but people sometimes guess I’m anywhere from 28 to 30.” Need I say more?

Ainsley, Specialist, Online Marketing — Trying to pick a favourite story in this stellar collection is hard. Do I go with the story about Encyclopedia Brown updated for the new generation called “Wikipedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Bicycle?” Do I choose “The Man Who Invented the Calendar?” that explains why the months aren’t of standard length and just what happened to the rest of the 13 months that were planned. They were both great, but I think my true favourite was the first story in the collection “The Rematch.” You’ve heard of the tortoise and the hare, right? This story picks up where that one left off and it’s hilarious. You might never think about “slow and steady wins the race” the same way ever again. Read that story and you’ll be hooked!

5. Mindy Kaling loves it too!

@MindyKaling on Instagram