💪Books & Biceps Issue 189

Your 5-Minute Brain and Body Flex

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BOOKS

My efforts to reach a 50/50 split between fiction and non-fiction continue this month with a book from Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian, which inspired the Matt Damon movie of the same name. Weir’s personal story is fascinating and his success as a writer is as much of a one-in-a-million shot as the characters in his novels.

Check this out:

After spending two decades as software engineer, he began publishing what would become The Martian as a free serial on his website. Eventually, a bunch of readers requested he make it available as a Kindle book, which he did and sold for 99 cents. Almost instantly, the novel made it to the Kindle bestsellers list. As readership and buzz grew, Weir was approached by a literary agent and sold the rights to Crown Publishing and the novel debuted on the New York Times bestseller list, became a hit movie and you know the rest. Well, the rest of The Martian.

Weir’s follow-up book, Hail Mary, came out in May of this year and here’s the premise:

As Ryland Grace awakens from a coma, he doesn’t know who he is or where he is, but a mix of calculations, deductions, and slowly returning memories enlightens him: He’s a junior high school science teacher on a small space ship. His mission? Save Earth.

I’ve just started it and it’s terrific. Give it a read here.

BICEPS

There is a new, odd training style that I’ve been seeing more and more of. It’s called ‘occlusion training’, and it’s basically lifting weights with a version of a tourniquet around the muscle group. I won’t bore you with the science but there’s something about pumping up muscles with restricted blood flow that leads to gains. It’s odd. Here’s a friend of Books & Biceps, Ben Barker, trying it out. Would you try it? I’m not sure yet, but wanted to share.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” - Carl Sagan

QUICK FLEXES

Had a lot of fun on Twitter this week recounting the greatness of Adam Sandler’s CD, “They’re All Gonna Laugh At You”. Here are a few of the best lines. Also enjoyed mocking one of the more famous photos of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan here. And you might enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime picture I got with Archie Manning and Roger Staubach.

NORM

It was a sad week for comedy with the passing of the brilliant Norm MacDonald. I’m sure many of you went down the Internet rabbit hole watching his bits and listening to stories of other comedians about him… This short video here, where he makes Seinfeld almost fall out of his chair, is one of my favorites.

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Have a great weekend! - Jon