Let me tell you about my friend
This page exists for one reason: Brett is a great guy, and somebody ought to say so somewhere other than a group chat.
If you know him, you already know the shape of it. He’s the one who notices when you’ve gone quiet. He’s the one who remembers the thing you mentioned once in passing and asks about it a month later. He’s the one who turns up. That’s a rarer quality than it should be, and he has it in quantity.
So this is a small, unfashionable, entirely sincere thank-you note, published on the open internet, where he can’t stop me.
The book recommendations
Brett gives good book recommendations. Not “here’s a bestseller” recommendations — good ones. The kind where he’s clearly thought about the book and then thought about you, and decided the two of you should meet.
He doesn’t oversell them, either. He’ll just say it’s worth a go, and then three weeks later you’re up at one in the morning finishing it and composing a message in your head about chapter forty.
A handful of the ones he’s pressed on me, for the record:
- [a book Brett recommended—add the title here]
- [another one—the one you still think about]
- [the one you resisted for months and then loved]
If you’re reading this and he’s recommended you something, take the recommendation. He has never once been wrong about a book, and I’ve been keeping score.
The Knight Radiant thing
Brett tries to embody the Knights Radiant from The Stormlight Archive. I want to be careful about how I say this, because it sounds like a joke and it isn’t one.
Plenty of people read a book about honour and courage and looking after the people around you, enjoy it, and put it back on the shelf. Brett read it and apparently decided it was a set of instructions. Honour, in the small unglamorous daily sense. Protecting people who can’t protect themselves. Keeping his word even when nobody would notice if he didn’t.
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
He would be mortified to be described this way, which is roughly the proof. People who are actually trying don’t like being told they’re trying.
Us two
I’m not going to pretend this page is objective. It's a bromance tribute. It is biased by years of long conversations, terrible jokes, shared books, and the particular comfort of having a friend you don’t have to perform for.
Brett: thanks for the books. Thanks for the rest of it. Journey before destination, mate.
Photos
Room here for a few pictures of the two of us. Replace each box below with a photo once you’ve picked your favourites.
More to come
This is the first version: one page, no comments, no message board. If other people want to add their own “here’s to Brett” later, there’s room to grow.