One More Thing

Stories and Other Stories

WITH SPECIAL APPEARANCES by Lena Dunham, Jenna Fischer, Mindy Kaling, Julianne Moore, Carey Mulligan, Katy Perry, Jason Schwartzman, Emma Thompson, and Rainn Wilson

B.J. Novak's One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut that signals the arrival of a brilliant new voice in American fiction.

A boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes—only to discover how claiming the winnings might unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins—turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A new arrival in Heaven, overwhelmed with options, procrastinates over a long-ago promise to visit his grandmother. We also meet Sophia, the first artificially intelligent being capable of love, who falls for a man who might not be ready for it himself; a vengeance-minded hare, obsessed with scoring a rematch against the tortoise who ruined his life; and post-college friends who try to figure out how to host an intervention in the era of Facebook. Along the way, we learn why wearing a red T-shirt every day is the key to finding love, how February got its name, and why the stock market is sometimes just . . . down.

Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, One More Thing has at its heart the most human of phenomena: love, fear, hope, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element that might just make a person complete. Across a dazzling range of subjects, themes, tones, and narrative voices, the many pieces in this collection are like nothing else, but they have one thing in common: they share the playful humor, deep heart, sharp eye, inquisitive mind, and altogether electrifying spirit of a writer with a fierce devotion to the entertainment of the reader.

bizarre but entertaining also

kind of makes me want to go listen to his other books. he certainly has a weird mind. and sometimes that's not always a bad thing. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Plenty of hits with a few misses.

First and foremost the cast is amazing and funny. Many of the stories are fantastic, some are ok and others are meh.

Just what I needed

I’ve been rereading Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s book Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory for months because I couldn’t find anything as entertaining or captivating, until I gave this book a try. I’m already excited to listen to it again, it was everything I needed

Quirky Bursts of Humor

One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is a collection of 60+ short stories, some just a line or two and some that you can really sink your teeth into. Novak is a stand up comic and performed these stories in front of an audience while he was working on the book. These stories are smart, literary pieces that showcase Novak’s quirky sense of humor. Novak definitely has some writing chops, and his stories are observant, clever, intellectual, and whimsical. There’s a range of stories and moods that keep you on your toes and entertained. Novak’s humor is offbeat and surprising and his stories thought provoking. There are even some discussion questions at the end of the book that made me laugh.

The book starts off with a story about a rematch between The Tortoise and The Hare that kicks off the book on a high note. I also really liked Missed Connection, No One Goes to Heaven to See Dan Fogelberg, and Julie and The Warlord. His humor is daring and bold, as you can also see in stories like The Comedy Central Roast of Nelson Mandela.

Though these stories are smart, witty and thoughtful, Novak makes them accessible. There’s something for everyone in these stories, and the short story format makes it easy to fit in whether you have time to read a little or a lot.

B.J. Novak performs most of the narration of this almost 7-hour audiobook. The stories lend themselves well to audio especially considering Novak perfected these stories before a live audience in the first place. His comic timing, energy and tone brought the stories to life and I think he was the best person to narrate this collection. Novak performs probably about 90% of the book, and there are some celebrity friends that also join in the fun. Mindy Kaling, Jenna Fischer, Emma Thompson, and Rainn Wilson perform some of the stories and made the book even more special. I don’t think I recognized Katy Perry’s voice in the book so I’ll have to go back and listen to her performances. There are audiobook credits at the end of the book so you can find out who reads each story.

The humor in One More Thing is fresh and different. It wasn’t haha lol funny for me personally, but more on the clever and insightful side. Keep in mind the humor is on the adult side – I don’t want you to be surprised by any choice words if you’re listening with any young and impressionable ones. On that note, B.J. Novak also has a children’s book coming out this fall called The Book with No Pictures.

And now for something completely different

I have to say, i was extremely sceptic when i started listening. when i was listening to the first few stories, the main impression was - come on - Alice Munro writes great literary short stories, The Curious case of Benjamin Button, is a brillian Novella, and F.S.F wrote more of those, why am i wasting my time on something that sounds like materials for a really funny, but still, at most a comic TV series?

When i reached a story about a dating war lord and a story about John Grisham, i started laughing out loud, and got other people to listen in with me.
As of the Artifical intelligence story, i started truely appreciating the writing (for more than some short sketch writing).

So for sceptic literature lovers - this is not F.S.F, or Alice Munro, or Raymond Carver, it's different, completely different.
Contemporary, i would say :-)
Touching, relevant, talks to the reader.
Most importantly - despite my reservations, i truely enjoyed the listen. (as the previous reviewer said, there's also a benfit of a brilliant performance, feels like it was written for an audio recording).

on a side note, the 3rd story - "no one goes to heaven to meet...." reminded me of a book i read by an Israeli Author - "The World of the End".