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If Books Could Kill

If Books Could Kill

By: Michael Hobbes & Peter Shamshiri
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 The airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds© 2025 If Books Could Kill Art Literary History & Criticism Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • How To Win Friends And Influence People

    How To Win Friends And Influence People
    Oct 2 2025

    Live like Dale Carnegie, neg like Calvin Coolidge.

    Where to find us:

    • Our Patreon
    • Our merch!
    • Peter's newsletter
    • Peter's other podcast, 5-4
    • Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

    Sources:

    • Self-help Messiah: Dale Carnegie and Success in Modern America
    • The Positive Thinkers
    • Age of industrial violence 1910-1915 : the activities and findings of the United States commission on industrial relations
    • Representation and Rebellion: The Rockefeller Plan at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1914–1942
    • Dale Carnegie and the Problem of Sincerity
      New York Times review from 1937


    Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Thomas Chatterton Williams' "Summer of Our Discontent"

    Thomas Chatterton Williams' "Summer of Our Discontent"
    Sep 11 2025

    Peter and Michael discuss a book that's light on facts and long on sentences.

    Where to find us:

    • Our Patreon
    • Our merch!
    • Peter's newsletter
    • Peter's other podcast, 5-4
    • Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

    Sources:

    • Book Review: ‘Summer of Our Discontent,’ by Thomas Chatterton Williams
    • Police shootings database 2015-2024
    • From the archive, 22 March 1991: President Bush sickened by Rodney King case
    • Barack Obama Public Approval
    • Letter To Christopher L. Eisgruber, President Princeton University
    • Police give additional details in beating of machete-wielding man amid Dallas protest
    • In City After City, Police Mishandled Black Lives Matter Protests
    • RIOTS IN LOS ANGELES: Challenger; Nation Needs Healing, Clinton Says
    • Median household income by race and ethnicity U.S. 1967-2023
    • Majority of college students support Israel/Gaza campus protests, 1 in 10 actually participate in them
    • Thomas Chatterton Williams on Race, Identity, and “Cancel Culture”


    Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 32 mins
  • He's Just Not That Into You

    He's Just Not That Into You
    Jul 31 2025

    How one comedian's offhand advice launched a decent TV episode, a mediocre book and a terrible movie.

    Where to find us:

    • Our Patreon
    • Our merch!
    • Peter's newsletter
    • Peter's other podcast, 5-4
    • Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

    Sources:

    • Susan Faludi's "Backlash"
    • For Women Who Count on Men to Be Jerks
    • Bridget Jones’s Legacy
    • Single Women in Popular Culture
    • A Decade of Advice for Women and Men in the Best-Selling Self-Help Literature
    • The gendered nature of self-help
    • Single Women in Popular Culture

    Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr
All stars
Most relevant
I listen to this while I'm bored or distracted. It's a total stress remover, just amazing.

I love this podcast.

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accessible but smart critique of culture, politics and sociology. Well worth the listen. Essentially a cut-through of books of misinformation that never got corrected in the public consciousness.

Want some political analysis with your breakfast?

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get rich quick, use child slave labor, run a scam. start of with a large fortune, don't pay tax, don't save but save everything.

great coverage

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I mean, I knew already men weren't from Mars, but I had no idea the author was only pretending to be a doctor!

An entertaining deep-dive into the dangerous agendas hiding inside non-fiction bestsellers

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funny and informative. I have read some of the books they critique and found their discussions about them very interesting and amusing

My favourite podcast

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