👀 Lethal weapons
#208 | Dumb books that captured our collective imagination
A couple of weeks ago, Proiti, Ria and I had a brief back-and-forth about Sapiens, that bestselling work of masterful storytelling masquerading as science and fact.
I am one of those unfortunates, who got swept up in the moment and bought the book only to regret all the time I wasted reading it.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Harari is quite the storyteller.
Harari is quite the bullshitter.
How do books rife with bad-faith conclusions and sweeping declarations become bestsellers?
Is there no one who can debunk these geniuses?
Only Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri, whose new-ish podcast, If Books Could Kill, is all about books - specifically, extremely dumb airport books.
In the opening segment of the first episode, which dives into Freakonomics, the uber-successful book by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, they outline their plan to examine "the airport bestsellers that captured our hearts and ruined our minds.” True to their word they've been savage in their takes, hilariously so.
So far they've done Outliers, The Secret, Bari Weiss' Substack, Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Population Bomb.
You had me at dumb books.
Now do Sapiens.
PS. It's been a while since I've written a thing. Didya miss me? Tell me how much in the comments.