Person
Every book Libby Emmons recommended on podcasts
Libby Emmons’s most recommended books
- The Machine Stops by EM. FORSTER
- Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
- Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky
- Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier
- Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
- In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil
- Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
- Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus by John Gray, John Gray, John [Ph.D] Gray
Libby Emmons appeared on the Timcast IRL podcast to discuss current events, politics, and culture. Throughout her appearances, she recommended and mentioned several books and literary works. She brought up Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage to discuss the social aspects of the transgender trend among young girls, and recommended E.M. Forster's short story The Machine Stops to examine isolated lives dependent on technology. To a high schooler asking how to fight critical race theory, she recommended Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Emmons also mentioned Kobo Abe's Secret Rendezvous during a discussion on strange science and fiction in Japan, referenced Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 when talking about futuristic dystopias and screen-heavy isolation, and brought up Vicky Osterweil's In Defense of Looting during a conversation about riots and shoplifting. Additionally, she cited Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan when discussing the social contract and government protection of private property, and mentioned Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter while addressing historical methods of public execution as a deterrent.
Books recommended by Libby Emmons
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The Machine Stops
E.M.
Discussed“Foresters the machine stops is really about this everybody lives in a pod underground because the world has become uninhabitable and there's a machine that pairs everybody up for mating”
Where to get it
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Gender Queer
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe is an autobiographical graphic novel that details the author's journey of gender identity and self-discovery.
Discussed“and is just discovering that for the first time sounds a lot like that book that we bring up periodically the one that's in front of you yeah genderqueer yeah”
Where to get it
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Rules for Radicals
Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky is a notable political manual outlining strategies and tactics for community organizing and effecting social change.
Discussed“and sa Alinsky and Rules for Radicals um talked about how you can you know sew Discord and dissonance and and stuff”
Where to get it
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Bad Therapy
Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier is an insightful examination of modern mental health practices and the societal pressures affecting younger generations.
Discussed“Abigail Shrier wrote a whole book up about this bad therapy and there but there's amazing people like Lauren Delano and and Cooper Davis and stuff that are trying to create different models for mental health things”
Where to get it
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Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a classic dystopian novel depicting a future American society where books are outlawed and firemen burn any that are discovered.
Discussed“Our sci-fi authors told us about this already. You know, we have Fahrenheit 451.”
Where to get it
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Irreversible Damage
Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier is a 2020 nonfiction book that examines the sharp surge in adolescent girls adopting transgender identities, attributing the trend largely to social contagion and peer influence.
Recommended“There's a very good book um by Abigail Shrier. Um it's Irreversible Damage. The transgender craze seducing our daughters. Um came out in 2020.”
Where to get it
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Growth of the Soil
Discussed“I was obsessed with Norwegian literature for a while and there was this book a growth of the soil I believe was it growth of the soil Yeah by newtampson”
Where to get it
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In Defense of Looting
In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil is a controversial sociological and political book that argues property destruction and looting can function as valid, radical protest tactics during moments of civil unrest.
Discussed“They say at the height of his the 2020 riots a book was published entitled In Defense of Looting. At the time, this I think this this is a Douglas Murray wrote this. At the time I asked a bookshop in New York which was prominently displaying the work whether I could walk out with the book without paying, I”
Where to get it
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Leviathan
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes is a foundational political treatise arguing that in the absence of a powerful central authority, human life would exist in a state of perpetual and violent conflict.
Discussed“Just going back though to this idea of that I mean the entire reason that we have government in the first place if you think back to Leviathan and some of these early political thought philosophers the only reason that we have a social contract with the government is to protect private property.”
Where to get it
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Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus
Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus by John Gray is a widely recognized relationship guide that explores perceived psychological and communicative differences between men and women.
Discussed“if you've read the book Men Are from Mars and women are from Venus John gray talks about the fact that women like men go to lunch to solve a problem like you go to talk about something”
Where to get it
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Secret Rendezvous
Discussed“anyway that's a different story Kobo Abbe had this uh story secret rendevu about how um the government is breeding human beings that can survive underwater.”
Where to get it
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The Gulag Archipelago
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a monumental historical exposé documenting the brutal realities of the Soviet forced labor camp system through personal testimony and archival research.
Discussed“also because I've been looking at the gulag archipelago which I know a lot of people have been talking about lately but um Soul nson talks about when he was in prison at the lubianka”
Where to get it
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The Madness of Crowds
The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray is a provocative contemporary commentary that investigates the cultural, social, and political shifts surrounding modern identity politics, intersectionality, and public discourse.
Discussed“Douglas Murray's Madness of crowds has a whole chapter about how when you type in like married couple it will show you like two men and a baby or something weird”
Where to get it
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The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka is a collection of surreal fiction best known for its opening novella where a traveling salesman named Gregor Samsa wakes up transformed into a giant insect.
Discussed“and it's very much like in metamorphosis where he becomes the bug right so the guy became this is probably easier to explain”
Where to get it
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The Room Where It Happened
The Room Where It Happened by John R.
Discussed“There were concerns early on in 2020, that when he released his book, perhaps he had used classified information to construct that book, which was called The Room Where It Happens, which I think it's funny because he basically ripped that off from Hamilton because that's, you know, that's Aaron Burr's song in the show.”
Where to get it
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The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a classic American novel about a woman forced to wear a scarlet letter after committing adultery in a Puritan community.
Discussed“Albert Kimu talks about witnessing a public hanging. Uh certainly in the colonies in Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne talks about public hanging as a means of execution, you know, and it's in the Scarlet Letter and it's it's it's brutal.”
Where to get it
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The Trial
Franz Kafka's renowned novel "The Trial" tells the chilling story of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is abruptly arrested on his birthday for an unspecified crime by an amorphous, incomprehensible judicial system.
Discussed“so i read this in high school um and i had to convince them to let me read it but whatever so this guy uh kaye ends up on trial”
Where to get it
Appearances
Other mentions (7: passing, ad reads, own books)
“Also, while we were on the show, Jack told me to tell you that he wants to give you a copy of his new book called Unhumans, a socialist revolution.”
“bringing up this the day after Biden drops his stupid memoir, Promise Me America, or whatever stupid thing he has.”
“why they want 50 Shades of Grey. Guys want to just be told I don't think all women want that.”
“On the subject of brave new world kind of stuff that is happening in the United States with Chinese billionaires.”
“there's this great book by kenbro OA I think it's kinbor OA um called the changeling and it has a very detailed um very detailed description of making turtle soup and it's a brutal process and it's apparently very greasy and kind of disgusting but he does it anyway”
“we're doing a whole dystopia thing right like he's reading 1984.”
“we're gonna do all of it Fahrenheit 451”