Books featured on the podcast "If Books Could Kill" hosted by Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri. "The airport books that captured our hearts and ruined our minds."
If Books Could Kill Public
Created and curated by Phil in SF
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Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
4 stars
Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why …
Phil in SF says: Episode 1. In 2005, two men named Steven and Stephen published the quintessential airport book. In 2022, two men named Mike and Peter started a whole podcast just to make fun of it.
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5 stars
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and …
Phil in SF says: Episode 2. In "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell posited that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in something. Mike and Peter prove him wrong by mastering his dumb book over the span of about 50 minutes.
www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/11658428-malcolm-gladwell-s-outliers
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Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks
2 stars
It used to be pretty easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. The bourgeois …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 3. David Brooks became liberals' famous conservative by telling them what they wanted to hear. But ... why did they want to hear something that was lazy and wrong?
www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/11711429-david-brooks-s-bobos-in-paradise
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1 star
Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 4. Neil Strauss's "The Game" aimed to teach any man how to hook up with beautiful women. All he needed was a little bit of sociopathy, a lot of misogyny and a fanny pack full of props.
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The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich
The Population Bomb is a 1968 book co-authored by (currently) Stanford University Professor emeritus Paul R. Ehrlich and (currently) Stanford …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 6. How a Stanford lepidopterist convinced the world to fear the breeding habits of the poor. Again.
www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/11875391-the-population-bomb
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Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 7. Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret" sold millions of copies based on a simple premise: All of science is fake and the only reason anything ever happens is because people manifest it by communicating with the universe.
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Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus by John Gray
Popular marriage counselor and seminar leader John Gray provides a unique, practical and proven way for men and women to …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 8. In 1992 a yoga instructor with a distance-learning PhD had the courage to ask: "Are women not getting help around the house because they're using the wrong modal verb?"
www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/12115974-men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-venus
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The End of History and The Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
As the tumultuous twentieth century shudders toward its close — with the collapse of communism leading to a transformation of …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 10. Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" changed political discourse forever. Peter and Michael peel back his muddled history and fluffy rhetoric, revealing several more layers of muddled history and fluffy rhetoric.
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The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington
In the summer of 1993 the journal Foreign Affairs published an article entitled "The Clash of Civilizations?" by Samuel Huntington. …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 11. "If your thesis doesn't hold up to obvious criticisms, there's a chance that your thesis sucks."
www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/12306773-the-clash-of-civilizations
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The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff, Jonathan Haidt
Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 13. TRIGGER WARNING: if you're a SNOWFLAKE college professor afraid of how your students are expressing themselves, you might need a SAFE SPACE, because Michael and Peter are discussing "The Coddling of The American Mind," a book about campus culture that's light on facts and heavy on cherry-pic
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Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance
3 stars
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of …
Phil in SF says: Ep 14. In 2016, J.D. Vance informally launched his political career with "Hillbilly Elegy," a memoir that blames the relative poverty of Appalachian and Rust Belt populations on their own culture. Despite its reactionary premise, mainstream and liberal press outlets were so enamored by the book that
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Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki, Sharon L. Lechter
“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” chronicles the story of two dads, the author’s own father, who was the superintendent of education …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 16. In 1997, Robert Kiyosaki revealed the secret to lifelong success: Deliver grifty seminars and hire child slaves.
www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/12593204-rich-dad-poor-dad
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The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
Are you and your spouse speaking the same language? While love is a many splendored thing, it is sometimes a …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 18. What’s your love language? Is it gifts? Words of affirmation? Or is it podcasts about books with extremely weird, reactionary gender dynamics?
www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/12684857-the-5-love-languages
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Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
4 stars
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we …
Phil in SF says: Eps. 19 & 21. In 2008, an economist and a law professor proposed a radical new approach to politics: Telling people not to do bad stuff.
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The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to …
Phil in SF says: Ep. 22. Much has been said about globalization, but perhaps no one has said it worse than Thomas Friedman.
www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/12955923-the-world-is-flat
