Living Vicariously Through Friends…
I won’t shill for money in this newsletter, but I will shill for friends. Especially if those friends give me money. (I jest.)
That said, there is a world of talented, creative and smart people out there, and I happen to know a few of them.
One such lad is Ashlee Vance, a very talented journalist and writer who I got to know during my professional life as a public relations guy.
Ashlee has written for the New York Times, Bloomberg (his current home, including a very fun TV show about cutting-edge technology called “Hello World”) and any number of technology publications over the past couple of decades.
You might also know him as the New York Times bestselling author of the definitive, authorized biography of Elon Musk. If you don’t know that book, you should. Especially given that Musk’s role in business, technology and public discourse has dramatically increased, for better or worse, since this awesome book was published in 2015.
Ashlee has a new book coming out about the commercial rocket industry and the many players who are scrambling to get a piece of that gazillion dollar pie.
It’s called “When the Heavens Went on Sale” and it is available for preorder now through a plethora of booksellers before its release in May. Go to Ashlee’s web site for more information and links to buy.
Here, in no particular order, are reasons you should buy at least one copy:
Ashlee is a fantastic writer, who does his homework and infuses his own brand of humor into his work that makes for very informative and entertaining reading.
As Dan Lyons once observed, Ashlee has lived his entire life with a girl’s name. As someone with a super manly name, I can’t imagine the psychological toll that has taken on him, but one would think that it could be assuaged by a few additional book sales.
He has kids to put through college. Buy a book.
He’s a Houston Astros fan. At one time, that meant supporting a team that couldn’t draw a crowd big enough to fill a Waffle House. Now, it means supporting a team that should be investigated and indicted by a grand jury. Either way, it hasn’t been easy.
If one person buys a book as a result of reading this newsletter, then Ashlee will be forced to admit that I have at least one reader.
I wish I could tell you how good the book is, but I don’t rank high enough in the Ashlee hierarchy to have received an advance copy.
No matter. And perhaps it is for the best. If it sucks, then I would have to travel back in time to when I wrote this (in other words, to right… now!) and not write it. Since Ashlee hasn’t yet written the definitive book on time machines, I would have no idea how to do that.
Just assume it’s stark-raving-awesome like every other thing Ashlee writes and buy a copy. And when you’re done, you can always sell it on eBay or fob it off on an unsuspecting neighbor through your local “Little Free Library” kiosk.
So run, don’t walk to your nearest bookstore or Internet cafe and preorder your copy today. Now more than ever, we need good journalism and for that we need good journalists.
Ashlee is one of the good guys. And he’s always game to dribble something on your shoes.