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Books podcasts were talking about in February 2024
In February 2024, several podcasts featured notable literary discussions. On The Daily Stoic, the host talked about Casey N. Cep's "Furious Hours," describing it as a true crime narrative that also explores the life of Harper Lee. Pod Save America featured Mehdi Hasan promoting the paperback release of his book "Win Every Argument." The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast included Andrew Klavan discussing Raymond Chandler's works, specifically mentioning the influence of the film "The Big Sleep" and praising the novel "The Long Goodbye." My First Million featured a discussion referencing Ezekiel J. Emanuel's "Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family." On No Stupid Questions, Angela discussed Thomas Curran's "The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough." StarTalk Radio featured Heather Berlin mentioning a book in development. Finally, Stuff You Should Know included a listener email highlighting Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle" from an eighth-grade reading list. These discussions collectively touched on true crime, biographies, personal development, classic mysteries, and educational literature across various shows.
The Daily Stoic
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Furious Hours
Discussed“I just read this book called 'Furious Hours,' which is both a true crime account and about Harper Lee, who wrote 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'”
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Off the Books
Discussed“Like I would do the books; if I was the only audience, it would be very different.”
Pod Save America
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Win Every Argument
Discussed“And you're so right to remind me of the ad, and I'm going to do a pitch for my book now; I pitch my company, Win Every Argument, which is out in paperback this week, and I quote a line in there: Peter Mandelson, John, you may remember him—very famous British politician, one of Tony Blair's top communications advisers—he used”
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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Discussed“One other detail I thought was interesting in here: Webster defines fraud.”
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The Conscience of a Liberal
Discussed“He's an inspiring guy; everyone should read his book, 'Conscience of a Liberal.'”
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What Would Reagan Do?
Discussed“Joining us now, he is the former Governor of New Jersey, GOP presidential candidate, and author of a newly released book, which I believe is called "What Would Reagan Do?"”
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The Reagan I Knew
Discussed“Remember back in the mid-60s, early to mid-'60s, the John Birch Society, which was, as you know, greatly racist and anti-Semitic, was a big force in the Republican Party, and Reagan was one of two people who publicly stood up against it: it was Reagan and William Buckley, and I write about that in the book.”
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Claiming Her Place in Congress
Discussed“But first, political congressional reporter and author of Inside Congress, Daniela Diaz, on Republican infighting in Congress and the failed vote to impeach Biden's Homeland Security Secretary.”
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
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The Big Sleep
Discussed“He is also the instigator of several great movies, like 'The Big Sleep'.”
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The Long Goodbye
Discussed“I mean, that's a great movie. 'The Long Goodbye' is a great novel.”
My First Million
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Brothers Emanuel
Discussed“There's a book that I read years ago called, 'Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family.' Ari Emanuel is probably a billionaire.”
Speaker Decoding The Extreme Personalities of The Top 1% (Savage Mindset) 2024-02-26 Listen at 16:37
No Stupid Questions
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The Perfection Trap
Discussed“He's a professor at the London School of Economics, and he's kind of this world expert on perfectionism. His book is called The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough! I mean, it tells you where he stands right there!”
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Determined
Discussed“He most recently wrote a book, quite prolific, called 'Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will.'”
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The Meritocracy Trap
Discussed“So Patrick says I'm a big fan of the podcast It would be insightful if the two of you could talk about the potential failures of a meritocracy like the one discussed in the Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits Are you familiar with this book I haven't read the Meritocracy Trap, but I'm pretty familiar with these arguments against meritocracy”
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Justice
Discussed“There is another book on this topic of merit and meritocracy This one was written by one of the professors I took a course with at Harvard named Michael Sandel It was called Justice At the time, it was the largest lecture class at Harvard”
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The Big Test
Discussed“Yeah I mean, if you go back, I don't know how many decades, but I think it was Nicholas Lemann's book The Big Test, which gives you a little history of these Ivy League admissions Lemann says, you know, there was a time in the history of these elite universities that the way you got in was what your last”
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Success and Luck
Discussed“So Mike, there’s an economist named Robert Frank, and he wrote a book called Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy Okay And I would say the through line in a lot of these arguments, including Sandel's, is that when you get into Harvard, you think you earned it”
StarTalk Radio
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Berlin
Discussed“There is also a book in the works, which is like a 'to be continued,' and I will talk more about it soon, but keep a lookout.”
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The Spirit of St. Louis
Discussed“I was given a book by a dear friend Greg Marinac, The Spirit of St. Louis, and I’m reading the book. He gave it to me to encourage me to finish my pilot's license.”
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Death by black hole : and other cosmic quandaries
Discussed“In fact, it's a chapter in my Death by Black Hole book!”
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Look Up with Me : Neil deGrasse Tyson
Discussed“Alright, there's a book called Look Up With Me, right? Which is for you're just barely learning how to read.”
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Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry
Discussed“Awesome, and that's called Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry. So there it is, there you go.”
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The Sky Is Not The Limit
Discussed“So Bryn, this question better be true about mushrooms being the largest organism because I wrote about that in my book I put out a couple years ago, so I’m listening!”
Stuff You Should Know
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The Jungle
Discussed“But my reading teacher was also the social studies teacher, and I guess that explains why all of our reading lists included Animal Farm, Hiroshima, All Quiet on the Western Front, and you know it. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a powerful book.”
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Cosmic View
Discussed“It was based on a book by a Dutch teacher named Kees Boeke, called Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps.”
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Pygmalion in the classroom
Discussed“So they published a study in 1968 called Pygmalion in the Classroom, and again they named it after Pygmalion because in that story from Ovid, the sculptor Pygmalion sculpts a beautiful woman, falls in love with her, and loves the statue so much that the goddess Venus says, "I'm going to make you a real-life person."”
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How Come the Best Clues Are Always in the Garbage?
Discussed“There was a book—a series of young adult mystery books.”
Lex Fridman Podcast
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The intelligent investor
Discussed“In your lecture on the basics of finance and investing, you mention the book 'The Intelligent Investor' by Benjamin Graham as being formative in your life.”
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America's Cultural Revolution
Discussed“I had someone—a friend of mine—send me Christopher Rufo’s book 'America's Cultural Revolution,' which is sort of a sociological study of the origins of the DEI movement and critical race theory.”
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Martin & Malcolm & America
Discussed“James Cone wrote a book called 'Malcolm and Martin: Dreams and Nightmares.'”
Behind the Bastards
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Nixonland
Discussed“It's just, it's one of those things I'm reading right now the book Nixonland again, which covers like this massive period, this, this very undercover period in US history where all there was this unbelievable wave of violence towards the anti-war movement, people assassinated and murdered for handing out pamphlets against the Vietnam War in the streets.”
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Robert E. Lee
Discussed“I quote from 'Robert E. Lee: A Life' here: a trust fund that was to remain securely in Anne's name, free from the claim, demand, hindrance, or molestation of her husband, General Henry Lee, or his creditors.”
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Discussed“Uh, the founding text or at least one of them of rationalism is a 66,000-word Harry Potter fanfic that is just nonsense.”
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Fifty Shades of Grey
Discussed“It's like the, uh, what was it? 50 Shades of Grey, how it was originally a Twilight fanfic?”
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Cloud Atlas
Discussed“And there's going to be like a, uh, Cloud Atlas-esque, you know?”
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All About Love
Discussed“But I just finished All About Love by bell hooks, and you know, she often talks about the wandering life with lovelessness and that searching for it and not having it, and I feel like that goes hand in hand with what you’re saying, right?”
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
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The Power of Intention
Discussed“He goes, 'There’s a great...' —he was writing a book at the time called The Power of Intention but I didn’t know that.”
Speaker Ed Mylett: Set Yourself Up For Success With These DAILY ROUTINES! 2024-02-19 Listen at 16:45 -
Power of One More
Discussed“And books—I mean, no, no, no new books right now, just Power One More was the book we discussed last time. Power One More—to help anybody any way I can, man, Ed.”
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Jerusalem
Discussed“That's the only, that's the only thing that I look at and I think, ah, because it got reviewed well, it's written by, I think, the best living playwright at the moment, you know, or certainly young living playwright called Jez Butterworth, who wrote Jerusalem and The Ferryman and Mojo, but then also wrote Skyfall and Spectre and Indiana Jones.”
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Mojo
Discussed“That's the only, that's the only thing that I look at and I think, ah, because it got reviewed well, it's written by, I think, the best living playwright at the moment, you know, or certainly young living playwright called Jez Butterworth, who wrote Jerusalem and The Ferryman and Mojo, but then also wrote Skyfall and Spectre and Indiana Jones.”
People I (Mostly) Admire
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The Power of Habit
Discussed“He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the author of the blockbuster bestseller The Power of Habit, and he's back now with a new book on the science behind having better conversations.”
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Eve
Discussed“My guest will be Cat Bohannan, who has written an absolutely stunning book; it's called "Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution."”
The Jordan Harbinger Show
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War at the top of the world
Discussed“But, you know, as I write in the book, what they accomplish is something other companies can do. And now there are public face search engines.”
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The Big Sort
Discussed“I’m trying to think of the book called 'The Big Sort' that came out a few years ago; I’m trying to think of the author now.”
Speaker How to Persuade a Stubborn, Emotional Loved One | Michael McQueen 2024-02-08 Listen at 31:34 -
Vingt mille lieues sous les mers
Discussed“The closest analog, sometimes uses submarines and we actually did we read some submarine books and we found a case of a guy who at least claimed he tuned the oxygen up or down to like adjust mood in the submarine.”
Speaker Confronting Elon Musk's Delusional Mars Colony | Zach Weinersmith 2024-02-06 Listen at 27:31
SmartLess
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American Buffalo
Discussed“I went to him with American Buffalo, and I was like I was losing my saliva, literally.”
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Everyone Poops
Discussed“There's a book called that, right? Everybody Poops! Yeah, remember that book?”
Freakonomics Radio
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The Math Book
Discussed“At some point, the guy said something like, 'You should try reading a math book,' and I can just imagine my dad sort of holding it all in, and then at that point, he just couldn't.”
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Genius
Discussed“Special thanks to Richard Tai and Alisa Pico from the Altech Archives; to Christopher Sykes and the BBC for the audio from their Feynman documentaries; to the Library and University Archives at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for their recording of Feynman's Los Alamos From Below lecture; to The Esalen Institute for audio from Feynman's Tiny Machines talk; and”
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
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Flowers in the Attic
Discussed“Just thinking culturally too, it was like VC Andrews, Flowers in the Attic. Flowers in the Attic, reading those on like the beach at the Jersey Shore, or like on the trolley to work.”
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Wild and Crazy Guys
Discussed“I read this book, I think it's called like Wild and Crazy Guys! And it's just a little nonfiction book about this, that span of time where like, it's like Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Dan, it's like all of when they all were blowing up and what movies got made and whatever!”
Huberman Lab
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A World Without Email
Discussed“We have a future guest on this podcast named Cal Newport; he wrote the book Deep Work, and he has another book called The World Without Email. He's a computer science professor at Georgetown where he talks extensively about the tremendous career, but also relationship and life value of doing essentially what you're describing.”
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Advice for a Young Investigator
Discussed“As a graduate student, I had a little book titled 'Advice for Young Investigators' by Romonica Hall in my desk drawer. It offered whimsical anecdotes and pertinent insights but was also filled with misogynistic overtones that glamorously depicted workaholic tendencies.”