Great Reads for February (and a Plea)

My 130K subscriber newsletter went belly up. I need some help.

Ahoy,

I need your help.

As I’m sure you know I run a startup newsletter called Keep Going. It has a massive following - maxing out at 130K on Substack - and recently Substack has locked down my account, forcing me to stop publishing. This is frustrating to say the least.

I’m going to have to rebuild my newsletter system from scratch. It is now running on Ghost which is an open source service designed for newsletters. That said, it will cost me about $300 a month to run the service, if not more - I can’t tell yet because I’m still moving to a new email provider. I’ve never monetized any of my projects - much to my detriment - but I love doing Keep Going and the Startup Show and I’d like to keep it going.

Please consider subscribing at KeepGoingPod.com. If you are a business and would like to advertise, please let me know. A monthly sponsorship would be amazing and I’d be happy to crow about your company on my podcast and in each email. I produce at least two podcasts a week, sometimes four, and focus on success, startups, and psychedelics.

To buy a paid subscription please click the red button in the top corner of KeepGoingPod.com. It would mean the world to me.

NOTE: If you’re already a subscriber you’ve been given a free subscription for life.

Thanks for listening. Now onto the Great Reads.

---

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton

Honestly, this book was too much of a good thing. Well-written and clever, the book discusses the DJ scene from its beginnings in Post-War America and England all the way up to Acid House and the like. My love of EDM is growing again for various reasons and it was nice to read this detailed if LONG history of the genre.

The Companion Guide to Rome

by Georgina Masson, John Fort, Tim Jepson

I’m headed to Rome in April and I like to read books about the places I’m about to visit. This is a doozy. It’s novelistic in its scope and there is so much detail that you’ll be lost in the first few pages, thinking about the many things that you’ll probably miss on your visit. Only read this if you’re a bit obsessive.

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World

by Anthony Doerr

It’s frustrating to read Doerr because he writes so beautifully with just a touch of vapidity. A guy like him - a guy who rewrites constantly - makes all of us hack writers look bad. That said, this is a beautiful book about his year in Rome and I only wish I could have written some of his lines. As I said, it’s a bit vapid - he’s waxing poetic about fountains and the Pope and his kids, fodder for so many bad books - but his writing saves it. Read it even if you’re not going to Rome.