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How to Be Perfect (First Year Read, 2023)

A guide to the 2023 First Year Read Program pick, How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur (2022).

Michael Schur headshotMichael Schur

Michael Schur is a television writer and producer who has worked on shows like The OfficeMaster of NoneThe Comeback, and Hacks, and created or cocreated Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99, The Good Place, and Rutherford Falls. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer, and their two kids, William and Ivy.

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More From Michael Schur


More About Michael Schur


Todd May

Philosopher and the author of sixteen books of philosophy, most recently A Significant Life, A Fragile Life, and A Decent Life, all with University of Chicago Press.  

One of the original contributors to the New York Times philosophy blog, The Stone

Philosophical advisor to the television sitcom "The Good Place" and advisor to Mike Schur's book How to Be Perfect.

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Todd May in the Library Catalog


The Good Place

The Good Place, created and produced by Michael Schur, ran from 2016 to 2020. The show begins with the death of ordinary and somewhat terrible person Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) and her reawakening in the "Good Place," run by cheerful guide Michael (Ted Danson). Her education in moral philosophy as a means of staying in the Good Place turns into a larger understanding of, as T.M. Scanlon would say, what we owe to each other.

This clip from the first episode shows the Good Place's scoring system, which How to Be Perfect notes would be a simpler way of determining your goodness as a person: