Daniel O'Brien's Newsletter: April '24!

Hello!  This is the official substack of me, Daniel O'Brien, five-time Emmy-winning Senior Writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents and its adaptation Your Presidential Fantasy Dream Team, Head Writer for the Cracked De-textbook and editor and contributing author for You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News (a New York Times Bestseller), co-host of the popular nothing podcast Quick Question with Soren and Daniel and sole host of the less popular podcast Dead Presidents. I co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in Cracked After Hours, which is easily the most popular thing I've ever done, but that's in the past. This is the latest issue of my substack, a thing you signed up for on purpose. 

Once a month I will send an email with three-to-five book recommendations to-- 

Hold on "once a month" you fucking liar?

I know I'm sorry.

Would you believe I've been slacking off on writing this newsletter because I've been reading more? It sounds extremely "I can't do my chores because I'm doing too much homework," but that's the partial truth. I'm simultaneously reading more and trying to not spend time sitting in front of a computer unless I absolutely have to.

(The other reason I've been derelict in my duties is-- as completists well know-- I've been planning a wedding. Mine, specifically or, you know, ours. If we're keeping score, I'm at two time-consuming full-time jobs [Wedding Planner, occasionally Last Week Tonight Senior Writer], two part-time jobs [podcaster, musician-for-hire but we don't need to get into that], plus one little side project that pays nothing [this newsletter!]. It is in my opinion too many things. And yet? Here I am.)

Without further ado, let's get into the reading list which is a little bit different this time around. I typically like to have a theme for this newsletter, and the original planned theme for this one was "Authors My Favorite Authors Love." If you like someone's writing, find out who their favorite authors are and read them immediately. We are all of us doing impressions of our heroes; seek out your heroes' heroes and on and on until we can maybe once and for all track down the Only Good Writer that directly and indirectly inspired the rest of us.

That was, as I said, the plan. That plan got derailed as I spent the first quarter of 2024 absolutely consumed by one author and one series-- Donald Westlake's Dortmunder books.

Peter Gould, the showrunner for Better Call Saul-- which is a perfect television series-- mentioned Westlake's Dortmunder series in an interview several months ago, so I tracked down the first book in the series and have spent the last few months tracking down and reading all of them because-- if it wasn't clear-- that is what I'm like.

The Dortmunder novels are some of the funniest and most fun books I've ever read. I genuinely couldn't believe I'd lived this long (26-40 years) without hearing about these books. John Dortmunder is a crook, a long-suffering criminal whose speciality is putting together impossible plans to heist the unheistable. Described in one book THUSLY: "John Dortmunder was a man on whom the sun shown only when he needed darkness." Dortmunder is the most and least lucky crook imaginable; he'll never get caught but he'll never get "the big score" either. Every book is a new spin on a put-upon master thief planning the perfect heist that still goes wrong, featuring a somewhat recurring cast of regular accomplices, plus new side characters, all of whom are unique and funny and fully realized. It's possible this is recency bias, but Westlake might be my favorite writer?

The books are designed to be read in any order you want, although I will say it's rewarding to read them in order, as there are a few subtle set-ups and pay-offs for those of us who pay attention.

That said, if you still feel like jumping around and you've only got time for let's say three books:

The Hot Rock: This is the first in the series, and while it hasn't entirely settled into the groove that would define the books yet, it's a perfect introduction to Dortmunder and his world. The premise is Dortmunder and his team need to steal the same valuable rock five times from increasingly difficult locations.

Good Behavior: Less a heist and more of a rescue mission, this book teams Dortmunder up with a bunch of silent nuns who require his particular brand of expertise (breaking into places, taking things, breaking out of places). It's possibly the funniest and most fun book in the series, the author doesn't outline, he just follows where the story seems to want to go and that propulsive yes-and energy is really felt throughout this one.

What's the Worst that Could Happen?: Some real piece of shit steals something of Dortmunder's and he spends the rest of the book trying to get it back. Every Dortmunder book features a different team of crooks/cronies helping Dortmunder pull his heists, but this one brings all of them together, it's the Avengers of Dortmunder novels.

And that's it! That's the most recent episode(?) of this thing. Read books, run, volunteer at your local food pantry and call your parents. Bye.