I Toured 6 Austin Bookstores In 1 Day. Here's Every Book I Got

Honestly, one of the best days of my life

This is usually the article where I try to sound all smart by chatting about the books I'm reading.

Not this week.

My girlfriend Dani just surprised me with the best birthday gift ever: a book crawl through Austin.

Picture this: All the bookstores in the city team up for an event just for booklovers called the Austin Book Trail. You get a treasure map of bookstores and check them off as you visit. Each store offers prizes and special deals.

Dani’s birthday surprise? She let me pick out one book from each store on the Austin Book Trail – her treat.

It felt exactly like being a kid at Toys R Us, allowed to pick any Lego set because you cleaned mom's car.

Pure joy.

Here are all the books I got during our adventure.

1. We started at Bookpeople, where I picked Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. Maybe it’s because I’m Catholic, but reading about The Troubles always feels visceral. The book is about an unspeakably violent act committed in the name of political leverage. That’s the scary part about this conflict. Northern Ireland turned into a divided society rife with political dysfunction, extreme nationalism, and religious fundamentalism. Sound familiar? I believe The Troubles are the red herring for the US, which is why everyone should read this book… or you can watch Derry Girls on Netflix, which is also great.

2. Next, we made our way to Alienated Majesty Books, where I got In Praise of Floods by James C Scott. A book about rivers and floodplains by an anarchist writer. My parents are probably reading this and thinking, “He’s gone full anarchist!” I get it, but to be fair, that bookstore is all about anarchism and Marxism, so I didn't have much choice. Scott's book about rivers caught my attention because I recently learned why the Rio Grande becomes so shallow around Big Bend National Park—it's due to human engineering like floodplain suppression and dams. I'm curious to see where Scott takes this topic.

3. I picked up Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection by Charles Duhigg from First Light Books. His first book, "The Power of Habit," revolutionized the self-improvement genre by shifting the focus from strict time management to building simple habits that can make life better day by day. Duhigg walked so writers like James Clear and his book "Atomic Habits" could fly. Anyway, "Supercommunicators" is his latest work, and since I interact with a lot of people in my sales job and through my writing, this book feels particularly relevant to me.

4. At BookWoman, I discovered the author Juli Berwald. She’s a marine biologist from California who wrote Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and The Art of Growing a Backbone. I mean, just an amazing title! I love it when writers take a boring topic like Jellyfish and turn it into something interesting. I try to do that with running. Juli also wrote a book about coral reefs, which I will definitely read next.

5. After visiting BookWoman, we stopped by a small used bookstore called Livra, where I found a used copy of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I wanted at least one novel, and all my friends raved about this book, so we shall see.

6. We ended the day with a glass of wine at Vintage Books and Wine Bar in East Austin. While there, I chose The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson. During the Master's golf tournament, I had a fun time explaining to Dani why the tournament's narrator, talking about the spring azaleas and golf's holy ground, had also written a book about the murder of Emmett Till. Wright Thompson is from the Mississippi Delta; he grew up just a few farms away from where the murder took place. He is also considered one of the greatest sports writers of all time. In a way, it feels like he was destined to write about this subject.

That’s all I got! One of the best days of my life. What are you reading right now? Use the comment section to share with everyone.