Announcing Our New Daily Premium Feature: 'The Book of the Day' Starts Tomorrow

In Celebration of Being Able to Read Again

One of the most exciting things that I’ve regained since starting my Ketamine Infusion Therapy this week has been my ability to read books. For almost a year now the hyperarousal and hyper-vigilance of my PTSD has prevented me from having the concentration to read more than a few paragraphs at a time. This has been so devastating to me as a professional researcher, publisher, and aspiring author myself. It’s made me doubt if I could even continue in my profession and intensified the suicidal ideation that I’ve struggled with for over 20 years.

But after two ketamine infusions at Dr. Ko’s Reset Ketamine clinic in Palm Springs, I finally regained my ability to focus and managed to finish my first book of the year, specifically a galley copy of the new Douglas Rushkoff book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, which is being released on Tuesday.

I’ll be talking about this book on Tuesday in a podcast which will be part of our new “The Book of the Day” feature. This new daily installment at God of the Desert Books will spotlight a favorite book of mine, or managing editor Sally Shideler’s, or selected by one of our contributors. It will feature an image of the cover of the book and then offer either a brief blog post, longer essay, audio podcast, or perhaps even a video podcast.

What kinds of books will be featured? All sorts! Novels, history, faith-based titles, polemics - just as GOTD Substack features a broad range of types of content, so too will our book recommendations.

However, while the recommendations will be free to all readers and all subscribers, the actual content explaining the book’s choice will be being our paywall, reserved for our premium subscribers, of which there are already more than I expected we would get this soon. If you have not become an annual or monthly premium subscriber I would strongly encourage you to do so. We are still relaunching as a publishing company and deeply appreciate your support in doing so.

Most of our content will continue to be free. The primary purpose of this Substack is to promote God of the Desert Books and the authors whose books we’re planning to begin publishing very soon. If you are especially supportive of that goal then upgrading to a premium subscription would help tremendously and is very encouraging to Sally and myself as we figure out our new life together.

I understand, though, that a lot of people are struggling right now. So if you’d like a premium subscription there is a way to get one without paying: join us as a contributor. Everyone who contributes their writing to God of the Desert Books’ substack gains a permanent premium subscription to our content and will also be invited to participate in upcoming editorial meetings. Our team of contributors is growing and we’re looking to bring together a broad range of voices to collaborate.

We’ve got lots of great books to talk about, please either join our team or upgrade to a premium subscription now so you don’t miss this new premium feature.