# If Books Could Kill

If Books Could Kill is a podcast hosted by Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri, in which they critique bestselling nonfiction books of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Books featured on the podcast include Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama. First airing on November 2, 2022, the podcast has received largely positive reviews from critics.

## Summary

If Books Could Kill is hosted by Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri. Hobbes is a journalist known for hosting You're Wrong About with Sarah Marshall (until 2021) and Maintenance Phase with Aubrey Gordon. Shamshiri is known for his hosting of the podcast 5-4, along with Rhiannon Hamam and Michael Liroff.
The show targets "airport books", popular nonfiction books often marketed as pop science or smart thinking that might be found in airport bookshops, which Hobbes describes as "the superspreader events of American stupidity". Each episode is dedicated to the discussion of a single book, along with the book's wider cultural influence. The hosts focus on flawed arguments, poor uses of data, factual errors, and the drawing of unsound conclusions or overgeneralizations. They often take a comic tone and will poke fun at the books and their authors.

## Episodes

| No. | Book featured | Book author | Release date |
| 1 | Freakonomics | Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner | November 2, 2022 |
| 2 | Outliers | Malcolm Gladwell | November 10, 2022 |
| 3 | Bobos in Paradise | David Brooks | November 17, 2022 |
| 4 | The Game | Neil Strauss | December 1, 2022 |
| 5 | The Population Bomb | Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne Howland Ehrlich | December 15, 2022 |
| 6 | The Secret | Rhonda Byrne | January 12, 2023 |
| 7 | Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus | John Gray | January 26, 2023 |
| 8 | The End of History and the Last Man | Francis Fukuyama | February 9, 2023 |
| 9 | The Clash of Civilizations | Samuel P. Huntington | February 28, 2023 |
| 10 | The Coddling of the American Mind | Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt | March 9, 2023 |
| 11 | Hillbilly Elegy | J. D. Vance | March 23, 2023 |
| 12 | Rich Dad Poor Dad | Robert Kiyosaki | April 6, 2023 |
| 13 | The 5 Love Languages | Gary Chapman | April 20, 2023 |
| 14 | Nudge | Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein | May 4, 2023 |
| 15 | Nudge | Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein | May 19, 2023 |
| 16 | The World Is Flat | Thomas Friedman | June 1, 2023 |
| 17 | Atomic Habits | James Clear | June 15, 2023 |
| 18 | The Rules | Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider | June 29, 2023 |
| 19 | Liberal Fascism | Jonah Goldberg | July 27, 2023 |
| 20 | God and Man at Yale | William F. Buckley | September 7, 2023 |
| 21 | The 4-Hour Workweek | Tim Ferriss | September 21, 2023 |
| 22 | San Fransicko | Michael Shellenberger | October 19, 2023 |
| 23 | The 48 Laws of Power | Robert Greene | November 2, 2023 |
| 24 | The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck | Mark Manson | November 21, 2023 |
| 25 | The Identity Trap | Yascha Mounk | December 14, 2023 |
| 26 | Trump: The Art of the Deal | Donald J. Trump and Tony Schwartz | January 11, 2024 |
| 27 | The Better Angels of Our Nature (part 1) | Steven Pinker | February 22, 2024 |
| 28 | Lean In | Sheryl Sandberg and Nell Scovell | March 14, 2024 |
| 29 | The Better Angels of Our Nature (part 2) | Steven Pinker | April 11, 2024 |
| 30 | Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon | Michael Lewis | May 2, 2024 |
| 31 | The Origins of Woke | Richard Hanania | July 11, 2024 |
| 32 | The Anxious Generation | Jonathan Haidt | August 8, 2024 |
| 33 | Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother | Amy Chua | September 24, 2024 |
| 34 | Who Moved My Cheese? | Spencer Johnson | October 10, 2024 |
| 35 | The End of Faith | Sam Harris | November 4, 2024 |
| 36 | What's the Matter with Kansas? | Thomas Frank | December 6, 2024 |
| 37 | You Are a Badass | Jen Sincero | January 23, 2025 |
| 38 | Of Boys and Men | Richard Reeves | March 6, 2025 |
The podcast also features a number of bonus episodes, available to Patreon subscribers.

## Reception

If Books Could Kill was listed by Vulture as one of the best podcasts of 2023, described by the website as a "cutting and ambitious criticism of the nexus linking publishing, media, and elite power". Jessie Gaynor praised the podcast in a review on Literary Hub. Fiona McCann in The Irish Times described the podcast as "smart, intellectually engaged, left-leaning American men indulging in deliciously catty takedowns of popular and problematic 'big ideas' books" in a positive review, commenting that "your average left-leaner will have a field day, even as they face their own gullibility." In The Times, James Marriott gave the podcast a 4/5 star review, describing the show as satisfying but commenting that "after more than half an hour the hosts’ tone gets a bit smug". Hannah Giorgis in The Atlantic reviewed the podcast positively and praised the show for "resist[ing] the impulse to be satisfied with reaching into libraries past just to point and laugh", and instead exploring how such books have shaped public opinion and what they reveal about the historical moment in which they were published.