Reading Stack for March 28th 2025 📚
cormac, faulkner, maas destruction, nate silver, david whyte
Lately, I’ve been thinking about:
Have you ever bought an option before? If conventional stocks are the London-Eye ferris wheel—ups and downs, but pretty slow—then stock options are the roller in New Jersey that coaster that goes from 0 to 128 in 3.5 seconds.1
There was a time where I was “playing” options, not because I’m a much of a gambler—I almost never bet on things—but because, when it comes to making money, I’m a terribly impatient, terribly imprudent (not so) youngish man.
It has paid off, and it has burned me. Bad.
This is the story of one of those times.
It’s summer. I’m at my parents house in Rhode Island. Summer in New England is a dream: junglishly green, that fused smell of trees and sea, glorious weather, bird songs and tree frogs and crickets, children off school. Suburbia carved into the woods.
It’s 9:30am. I string up my running shoes.2
I check my messages and see one group thread exploding. A friend, who I’ve known for more or less my entire life, has sent a screenshot. It’s the stock trading app Robinhood: He’s made $1,000 since the market opened at 9am.
Being the younger man I was, with fewer responsibilities and, somehow, less sense, I say:
What does that silly 27ish year old man do?
He throws $1,000 into a Tesla option.
Like the coaster in Jersey, stock options are FAST. Like, Las Vegas strip bankrupt you fast. They essentially change value at 100x of what a stock changes, that’s the allure. That’s the risk.
I still remember passing Humming Bird Farms—a neo-rustic wedding venue with a huge lush green field surrounding it—and glancing at my phone. I didn’t even mean to see Robinhood. But I’m up 1,000%. In the space of a six mile run, i’ve made:
At this point I can’t resist looking at the group chat to find it going absolutely nuts.
I don’t stop running. I can feel the juice, superstition overrides me. Bad luck if I stop.
“I’m getting out,” one friend says.
“No way,” says another. “I’m holding. Diamond hands, baby.“
I have approached my moment of reckoning: Do I sell and collect 9,000$ profit. Do I hold and threaten to lose it, but maybe make even more? Or… do I sell a small chunk ($1,000) and buy another?
Everyone approaches risk differently.
And I’d argue you can place each of us somewhere in these three categories.3
1) The 🐴 Eeyores - (The Risk-Averse)
Eeyore overthinks. Eeyore does not invest at all. He buries his cash in the haybail. Eeyores can be emotional and it leads to indecisiveness, and a reluctance to take any financial risks.
2) The 🐯 Tiggers - (The Reckless Risk-Taker)
Tigger is the YOLO-king. Tigger’s mind doesn’t even compute that a behavior is risky. He just acts. Tiggers are throwing their money into options and risky cryptocurrencies, and probably getting into trouble personally. Tiggers are also emotional, but impulsive rather than indecisive.
3) The 🐻 Poohs - (The Balanced Risk-Taker)
Pooh doesn’t fear risk, but he also doesn’t bounce into it blindly. He asks the right questions. Poohs are less emotional, they take calculated risks with long-term thinking.
(I’ll finish the Tesla story, but first: 📚)
The Books📚
Book #6 of 2025 - Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
How does one distill a 500 page masterpiece into a paragraph or two? I won’t try too hard. What I will say is that our protagonist is Cornelius Suttree, a brilliant, apathetic, lonely, wanderer, living in a self-imposed exile on his disintegrating houseboat, on the bad side of Knoxville’s Tennessee River. He keeps himself on the fringe of the fringe, part of an outcast community inhabited by eccentrics, criminals and homeless. His detached mind and wry sense of humor keep him on the dignified side of dereliction and desolation. Many members of that community are absolutely hilarious and endlessly interesting.
Suttree oozes authenticity. Each page is like the sand that takes days to wash off after the beach. Cormac always seems to do this to me: as I read, his words seep into the rest of my day, my thought processes. But also, it’s so linguistically bazarre and smeary that my attention cannot help but be sucked into the behemoth semantic veneer, just to realize that the more I read the more I uncover the depth lurking beneath that semi-unreachable verbiage. Always slightly reminiscent of Joyce and Faulkner, McCarthy is great more humorous than usual in this novel, even reminiscent of Charles Bukowski at moments, which was a delight to read. As usual, there’s no exact moral or theme; Cormac does not try to teach, he does so inadvertently via the humanity embodied in his characters. Suttree is more emotionally intricate than some of McCarthy’s other, more classic Southern Gothics; it’s a tableau of humanity’s “dregs:” the stone broke and tragic, the unnoticed and ignored, the vagrants who are just as deserving to be seen, yet are often forgotten.
One of my favorite authors does it again.
More about the book on the forthcoming episode of Good Scribes Only.
"No one cares. It's not important.
That's where you're wrong my friend. Everything's important. A man lives his life, he has to make that important. Whether he's a small town county sheriff or the president. Or a busted out bum. You might even understand that someday. I dont say you will. You might."
Suttree, Cormac McCarthy
#7 - Light In August by William Faulkner
I’ve been wanting to dip into the canon of Faulkner for years. I’ve heard from various sources that he was a crucial influence on many of my favorite authors. There’s no Cormac without Faulkner, no Faulkner or Cormac without Joyce.
August 1920’s, Jefferson, Mississippi. Light in August is the story of Lena Grove, a pregnant, dauntless woman searching for the father of her child in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower: a besmirched priest haunted by the south and the Confederacy; and the anti-hero Joe Christmas, an enigmatic and hapless drifter who is plagued by his mixed-race heritage.
Seen as one of William Faulkner’s most admired and accessible novels, Light in August reveals one of the great American authors at his peak. He masterfully entwines these three characters’ stories, vivifying this fictitious Southern county in the wake of Jim Crow, prohibition, and the Great Depression.
Reading Suttree and Light in August back to back made the connection between them entirely clear. While I certainly enjoyed and am impressed by William Faulkner, my personal preference remains with Mr. McCarthy. That said, Faulkner’s tone is certainly more down to earth than most of Cormac, and there are other Faulkner that may impress me more. Excited to read more of his work.
We’ll be discussing this one on the podcast in a few weeks.
#8 - A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas
We’re back for another episode of Jeremy-investigates-the-romantasy-phenomenon. Today, we continue with the same novelist who takes up whole walls at bookstores. Now a scrubbing of the second installment in the ACOTAR series:
Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart. Though she's now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is haunted by her time Under the Mountain and the terrible deeds she performed to save the lives of Tamlin and his people.
As her marriage to Tamlin approaches, Feyre's hollowness and nightmares consume her. She finds herself split into two different people: one who upholds her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court, and one who lives out her life in the Spring Court with Tamlin. While Feyre navigates a dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms. She might just be the key to stopping it, but only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future-and the future of a world in turmoil.
#9 - On the Edge by Nate Silver
Completely engrossing. On the Edge is nothing short of a study on the concept of “risk” in its broadest sense—and this is what has me considering my own risk-taking and risk-averse tendencies.
Nate Silver is/was a professional poker player and statistician who went on to found 538, which is now owned by ABC news. He gained fame for his election predictions and is also an avid, meticulous sports fan (and bettor). I am not much of a bettor, though I will dabble here and there, and still found Silver’s dissemination of his thought process around “betting”—whether that be stock market, sports bets, or in poker—to be provocative and useful. It’s a book that forces the most, and least, risk taking of us to meditate on what that very tendency means, and how much more of our life hinges on that very trait. Tigger, Pooh, Eeyore. Overly risk-taking, balanced, overly risk-averse. I can’t unsee it.
#10 - The Bell and the Blackbird by David Whyte
I don’t read a lot of modern poetry, but I am what the kids would call a David Whyte “stan.”
My first exposure to David Whyte was on a podcast. He reflected abundantly, presciently, like a common sage on some of the most pressing an delicate problems of our time. Then he read the poem below. And I was hooked.
The sound of a bell
Still reverberating,
or a blackbird calling
from a corner of the field,
asking you to wake
into this life,
or inviting you deeper
into the one that waits.
Either way
takes courage,
either way wants you
to be nothing
but that self that
is no self at all
David Whyte, an except from the Bell and the Blackbird
Whyte is a poet and the author of 11 poetry books, along with five books of prose: Consolations, Still Possible, David Whyte: Essentials and The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationships. Whyte studied Marine Zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands. From there he led anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes, Amazon, and Himalaya. Whyte is the male Mary Oliver4, bringing a wealth of natural wisdom and experience to his poetry and essays. This is my second reading of the collection and it’s still one of my favorite.
At this point, I’m sweating but elated. I’ve been running for an hour, and I feel like a rich man. Probably good practice not to make bets while your endorphins are raging. What did I do?
I acted like a Tigger. I doubled down. Tigger has fun, but he crashes a lot. Eeyore never moves.
But Pooh? The key to being a Pooh, I’ve come to realize, is taking strategic, calculated risks and approaching them with both curiosity and a clear goal.
Pooh gets the honey.
To quote our yellow friend directly:
“How can you get very far,
If you don't know who you are?
How can you do what you ought,
If you don't know what you've got?
And if you don't know which to do
Of all the things in front of you,
Then what you'll have when you are through
Is just a mess without a clue
Of all the best that can come true
If you know What and Which and Who.”
I’ve fluctuated between Eeyore, Tigger, and Pooh for my whole life. I’ve had some wins, and some losses.
Usually, I learn more from the L’s. Like that day, on that run, when I decided to double down.
A half hour has passes. It’s hot. My sweat is collecting in layers. It’s not just from the miles, but from the horrific decision i’ve made. The sun is baking the perspiration away and I can feel the salt hardening on my skin. My $9,000 is evaporating too. First down to $6,000 then $3,000 then $2,000. I don’t sell, because I’m hopeful it’ll shoot up again, and I’m afraid to admit my mistake
By the end of the run, I’ve lost it all, even the original $1,000.
Tough.
I’ve learned a lot from my myriad Tiggerish mistakes, and sporadic Poohish wins.
What’s your tendency? Do you fall on the Eeyore side of the spectrum? Tigger? Pooh?
If I’m correctly reading Pooh’s lines above, being a good risk taker means:
Identifying what you’ve got to risk
Setting a clear goal or intention: which honey pot are you chasing?
Seeking out who—who can give you what it takes to, eventually, get you up in the tree?
If this post had a title, it would be The Pooh in You.
See y’all next month with more books
— Jeremy✌️
Next time:
Click here and GO BUY MY PODCAST COHOST’S BOOK?!
It’s really, really good 😎
All the President’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
Be Love Now by Ram Dass
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
I have been on this roller coaster as a kid and it is as wild as it sounds. Also, Nate Silver makes this comparison in his book On the Edge, which is discussed in this post and is part of the reason i’m thinking about risk.
I think I was in the white and teal Brooks Ghost runners at the time.
Now please excuse me while I put my Dad hat on
Though perhaps a little less prolific
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