One More Thing (Novak)

One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories
B.J. Novak, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385353687


Summary
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 that 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 just might 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. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 31, 1979
• Where—Newton, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—
• Awards—
• Currently—


Benjamin Joseph Manaly "B. J." Novak is an American actor, stand-up comedian, screenwriter, author, and director. He is known for being a writer and co-executive producer of The Office, in which he also played Ryan Howard, as well as appearing in Inglourious Basterds and Saving Mr. Banks.

Novak was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Linda (nee Manaly) and author William Novak. Novak's family is Jewish. His father co-edited The Big Book of Jewish Humor, and has ghostwritten memoirs for Nancy Reagan, Lee Iacocca, and others; his parents also established a Jewish matchmaking service. Novak has two younger brothers, Jesse, a composer, and Lev, a graduate of Tufts University.

B.J. attended Newton South High School with future Office costar John Krasinski, and the two graduated in 1997. Novak attended Harvard University, where he was a member of the Harvard Lampoon and the Hasty Pudding Club. He majored in English and Spanish literature and wrote his honors thesis on the films of Shakespeare's Hamlet. In addition to the Lampoon, he occasionally staged and performed in a variety show called The B.J. Show with fellow Harvard student B. J. Averell. Novak graduated from Harvard University in 2001.

Career
Following graduation, Novak moved to Los Angeles, California, and began working in clubs as a comedian. His first live stand-up performance took place in 2001, at the Hollywood Youth Hostel. He was named one of Variety's "Ten Comedians To Watch" in 2003. He has also performed on Comedy Central's Premium Blend and on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

He became a writer for the short-lived The WB sitcom Raising Dad. But his television acting career began on MTV's Punk'd. He was the lead accomplice to Ashton Kutcher on the show's second season in 2003, and has played pranks on Hilary Duff, Rachael Leigh Cook, Usher, and Mya.

After hearing Novak's opening joke at a comedy club, executive producer Greg Daniels immediately decided to include Novak in his upcoming project: a U.S. version of the hit British series The Office. Novak was cast as Ryan Howard, becoming the first cast member. On July 21, 2010, news reports indicated Novak had signed a contract to remain with the show for its seventh and eighth seasons; under the new terms, he would be made a full executive producer midway through Season 7 and also direct two episodes of the show, as well as becoming the latest cast member to also have a deal with NBC to develop other shows. In a June 2009 interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Novak spoke about sharing the success of The Office with his Newton South High School classmate John Krasinski:

Sometimes when this feels too good to be true, I think that if this were all a dream, that would be what should have tipped me off. I'd wake up saying, "I was in this incredible TV show and it was a big hit and the star was John Krasinski from high school. Isn't that weird?"

In addition to his television credits, Novak has appeared in the films Unaccompanied Minors, Reign Over Me, The Internship, Knocked Up and Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. He appeared in the 2013 film Saving Mr. Banks, and as the villain role of Alistair Smythe in 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

His book of 22 stories titled, One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories, was published in 2014 to high praise by the New York Times, Washington Post, Hollywood Reporter, and Publishers Weekly.

Novak has a close friendship with Mindy Kaling, whom he met through writing for The Office. The two dated on and off while writing and acting on the show, sometimes mirroring the on-again, off-again nature of the relationship between their characters, Ryan Howard and Kelly Kapoor. Novak also served as a consulting producer for Season 1 of Kaling's show, The Mindy Project. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
In one of the longer entries in his very funny debut collection of stories, B. J. Novak describes a writer and translator named J. C. Audetat, who has a gift for “the off-the-cuff vernacular of his day” — or what might be called “the poetry of everyday conversations.” The same might be said of Mr. Novak, whose athletic imagination and ear for “the language of his own time and place” (that is, the vernacular of that 21st-century genus of young, hip Americans, known to frequent urban habitats on the East and West Coasts) are showcased in this volume.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times



It isn’t easy to make a reader laugh out loud. Even when confronted with the sharpest, funniest prose, many people will respond with nothing more than a quiet chuckle.... Whatever the reason, all I can say is good luck chuckling quietly during One More Thing, the wonderfully cockeyed, consistently hilarious debut from B.J. Novak.... Given his background in TV comedy writing as well as stand-up, it’s not surprising that Novak knows how to stick a great line or milk a funny premise with the right amount of squeeze. What’s more striking is the wild imagination he brings to these pages, taking familiar narrative constructs — a woman and a man on a blind date—and infusing them with the unexpected.... A gifted observer of the human condition and a very funny writer capable of winning that rare thing: unselfconscious, insuppressible laughter.
Jen Chaney - Washington Post


B.J. Novak meets—no, exceeds—expectations in One More Thing, firmly establishing him as one of the best humor writers around.... The varied length of the stories adds to the pleasure—it's like sampling a multicourse meal instead of gorging just on pizza.... Novak's writing mirrors his acting in that both rely on dry wit and dead-pan delivery. His influences run from celebrated New Yorker humorist James Thurber to Steve Martin to the Harvard Lampoon style of comedy (no wonder, as Novak was a member of the publication in college) to stand-up comedian Steven Wright. But he synthesizes those influences and has delivered something wholly original.... The longer stories avoid easy laugh-out-loud punch lines in favor of quirky, offbeat twists that showcase his skill as a storyteller.... Novak has found success as an actor, screenwriter and producer, but it turns out that the “one more thing” he added to his resume—author—might be where his greatest talent lies.
Andy Lewis - Hollywood Reporter


Novak’s debut contains a buckshot 64 fun and funny short stories crammed into a single volume. Part Etgar Keret, part McSweeney’s, these tidy tales from the alum of TV’s The Office depart from the ‘how I became famous’ comedian’s biography for a decidedly more literary turn... The bulk of Novak’s stories are comedic, and more than a few are surprisingly tender.... Written by an author in complete control of his craf
Publishers Weekly


Novak excels at topsy-turvy improvisations on a dizzying array of subjects, from Aesop’s fables to tabloid Elvis to our oracular enthrallment to the stock market.... Baseline clever and fresh, at best spectacularly perceptive, and always commanding, Novak’s ingeniously ambushing stories...reveal the quintessential absurdities and transcendent beauty of our catch-as-catch-can lives.
Booklist

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for: One More Thing:

1. Consider all the stories; which did you find especially humorous—and what makes them funny? What does Novak take aim at, or critique, in his humor?

2. Talk about the ways Novak is able to channel the voices of contemporary young hipsters—the way they think and talk? Has he caught the tenor of today's youth?

3. Do you recognize your own life situations in any of the stories? For instance, in "The Rematch," have you ever experienced something like the hare's depression after having failed to attain what should have been an easy victory?

4. Other stories surpass humor to show us life's absurdity, and Novak, obviously, has an eye for the absurd. Which stories do you find especially zany...or that touch on something particularly ridiculous in our culture? Perhaps "Quantum Nonlocality and the Death of Elvis Presley"?

5. In  "Kellogg’s," talk about the unraveling of the family and its underlying cause, as well as the inherent irony of a windfall that causes loss.

5. Favorite story? Least favorite?

6. What are the three lines of "Romance, Chapter One" about?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks. If you've developed your own, we'd love to include them and give you credit.)

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