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

Hello! This is the official substack of me, Daniel O'Brien, six-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), and co-host of the popular hang out podcast Quick Question with Soren and Daniel (now on YouTube). 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.

Every month I will send an email with a list of what I'm reading, updates on whatever I'm working on if applicable and that's really it!

In case you missed it, I published my first longform comedy article in like 7 years on 1-900-hotdog.com, the best and only comedy website that publishes this kind of thing anymore. If you don't know Hotdog, it's an exclusively patreon-funded comedy promised land run by Seanbaby and Robert Brockway, two of my friends and former coworkers from Cracked.

They let me write about the very real safety video that Virgin America ran for several years, and which was a bit of an obsession of mine. Writing is fun. Obviously I do a lot of writing for Last Week Tonight, but writing in my own voice-- and writing to be read versus said-- flexes a different muscle that I wasn't sure I still had in me. (Turns out I do still have that muscle, it’s one of the ones I will apparently never lose, like my calves, butt and end of list.) I had a good time and I hope you give it a read, it's free unless you think your time has value, in which case it's about 4000 words too expensive.

Onwards to some things that I didn't write.

Furious Hours (Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee): (Casey Cep)

True story. So, a guy allegedly (definitely) goes on a little murder spree, killing various wives and friends to collect the insurance money, everyone knows he's doing it but no one can stop him or put him away because he's represented by a hot shot lawyer who keeps getting him off. Then the murderer is shot in the head and killed in broad daylight with dozens and dozens of witnesses. Who will defend the shooter? That's right, the same hot shot lawyer who suddenly has time on his calendar! Obviously the trial's going to be insane and dramatic, and who should be there to cover it all? Harper Lee!

That's, like the setup of this true crime book, I'm not even giving anything away, but even if I had it wouldn't spoil anything because the book is so non-stop-entertaining. The writing is no-nonsense and efficient, as is the tendency with journalists, but when sudden poetry does sneak in it really sings.

"Ghost bells, war cries, the clanging of slave chains: if ever a land came by its haunting honestly, it is eastern Alabama."

"'I know exactly why she did it,' (Harper Lee) explained in 1976 of Lizzie Borden: 'Anyone burdened with long petticoats and having had mutton soup for breakfast on a day like that was bound to have murdered somebody before sundown."

The Midnight Assassin: (Skip Hollandsworth)

I must have been on some kind of murder/true crime kick, which is extremely unlike me. The book follows what is possibly the first serial killer in American history, a creep who went on a rampage in 19th century Austin, Texas. Again, I'm not typically drawn to murder/dark stories but I like the just-the-facts writing style. It’s all hits. When you're telling the story that's just about a series of murders one after the other, it's almost impossible for the writing to NOT feel propulsive. SPOILER: I was let down because I read the whole fucking book and at the end the author is like "Oh by the way we still don't know who this murderer was and we never will. Wait, were you reading this whole book and taking little notes about every minor character trying to figure out who the murderer was? Lol, wow, sucks, how sad for you." I would have appreciated a head's up.

Shirley Estar Goes to Heaven: (Winston Rowntree)

This book-- written by the incomparable genius Winston Rowntree who illustrated both of my books-- is incredible. It's the real deal. It's about an assassin in the future future future, but it's actually about a million things. I don't have a summary in my notes, just a series of quotes I loved.

-"God is all the things you don't know, and if all you know is all the stuff that's freaking wrong with you then god knows the rest, and maybe they'll reveal all that to you someday. God wants you to be happy, because it helps you help the world-- not to go to heaven or whatever, but to create a universe that is heaven."

Simpsons Confidential: (Mike Reiss)

Great for Simpsons fans obviously, and great and occasionally frustrating for writers. If you read this like I did-- searching for writing tips and tricks to figure out 'how the Simpsons writers did it'-- I've got bad news for you: the trick is the funniest people in the world just sat down in front of a piece of paper and wrote and rewrote until they arrived at the funniest thing. They weren't trying to be anything other than funny, so that's exactly what happened.

46% Better than Dave: (Alastair Puddick)

Once again took a gamble on a random book described as "hilarious" that probably should've been described as "hilarious for, like, a book, you know?" I didn't hate this novel about a middle-aged guy who induces his own doom spiral when someone with his exact same name moves into his neighborhood and seems to enjoy a life that is, roughly, 46% better than his own in every way. I think I just expected something sillier? It's a quick read and there are definitely some real laughs in it and I do love how propulsive it is, I guess I just can't get too excited for a book that is at the end of the day a well-articulated dramatization of a mopey, privileged white dude's mid-life crisis. Mopey white guy complaining about his mostly fine life worked gangbusters for me when it was High Fidelity, but this treatment just didn’t do it for me.

That's it! This is the last substack I'll send in 2024, a year that saw me read 44 books, which is not the 52 I was hoping for but not the 0 that I was dreading. Nothing to do in 2025 but try again for 52.

For the very few people that subscribe to this book club, first of all I'm grateful. Thanks, idiots. Second of all, if there's anything you'd like to see me/this newsletter do in the future, let me know in the comments. I'll keep doing book recs forever, but I'm open to the idea of answering questions about writing/reading as well as picking a book for us all to read and discuss together.

Happy New Year!