137: The Book That Changed Your Life
A book can change your life in ways that are deeply personal, irrational, and transformative—sometimes even when you never meant for it to. Alexa Young, inspired by her grandfather’s marginalia in Moss Hart’s autobiography *Act One*, didn’t just read the book—she fell in love with its author, imagined a romantic future with him, and structured her entire life around his story. She moved to New York, wrote plays, and even approached Hart’s widow, Kitty Carlisle, with the confession that Hart had changed her life—only to horrify her. Yet the book wasn’t just a fantasy; it was a bridge to her grandfather, a man she never knew. Meanwhile, David Sedaris’s family was unhinged by a single dirty book they found in the woods, turning their lives into a paranoid satire of moral decay. Jeremy Goldstein tells of Roger, a construction worker who amassed the largest private collection of Lewis and Clark books not to read them, but to own them—until the moment he finally read the journals and became a scholar. And Megan Daum moved to Nebraska to live in the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, only to find that the prairie town of De Smet was not a fantasy, but a living, breathing reenactment of the past. These stories reveal that books don’t just inform—they can become sacred texts, blueprints, or even love letters from the dead.
Books can become intimate companions when you’ve lost a connection to a real person—Alexa Young used Moss Hart’s autobiography as a stand-in for her grandfather.
A book can hijack a family’s reality: David Sedaris’s family misread a pornographic novel as a true exposé of their own lives, leading to paranoia and social collapse.
Obsession with a book’s physical form can transform a life: Roger, a construction worker, collected 1,100 Lewis and Clark books not to read them, but to own them.
The moment you start reading a book you’ve only collected is the moment your life changes: Roger only became a scholar after acquiring the 1814 first edition.
You can move to a place that only exists in a book—and find it’s real: Megan Daum relocated to De Smet, South Dakota, to live in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s world—and found a town that still lives the story.
…and 3 more takeaways available in PodZeus
The Book That Was a Love Letter to a Dead Man
“I think I said something along the lines of, your husband meant so much to me. And she just looked at me and she was so, she's so elegant and so classy. And she just said, I don't understand, darling. Did you know him?”
The Book That Broke a Family
“I felt uneasy implicating our parents, but Gretchen provided a wealth of frightening evidence. She noted the way our mother applied lipstick at the approach of the potato chip delivery man, whom she addressed by first name and often invited in to use the bathroom.”
The Book That Made a Laborer a Scholar
“The 1814 became Roger's calling card. It established him as an expert in all things written about Lewis and Clark.”
The Book That Built a Town
“It's best to be truthful and honest and make the best of what we have. Somehow it sounds revelatory. The prairie is the only place I've been to in my life where you can make the simplest, sweetest, even, I dare say, most cliched statement about the virtues of a simple life, and it sounds like anything but a cliche.”
“I think I said something along the lines of, your husband meant so much to me. And she just looked at me and she was so, she's so elegant and so classy. And she just said, I don't understand, darling. Did you know him?”
“The quote goes something like, It's best to be truthful and honest and make the best of what we have. Somehow it sounds revelatory. The prairie is the only place I've been to in my life where you can make the simplest, sweetest, even, I dare say, most cliched statement about the virtues of a simple life, and it sounds like anything but a cliche.”
“Doubtless, all of that sounds very gloomy. I do admit I could think of happier matters. For one thing, I don't at all approve of my own extinction. I don't like the idea of it one bit.”
Host
Guests
Moss Hart
person
Lewis and Clark
other
Act One
book
Roger
person
Laura Ingalls Wilder
person
De Smet
place
Alexa Young
person
David Sedaris
person
Megan Daum
person
Marvin Borowski
person
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