r/IfBooksCouldKill

I am hoping some like minded people can tell me what they thought about this book. I would love the boys to take it on. I'm halfway through and I genuinely can't decide if I like it or not. Some things the writer cited really well and others she does not. At times she seems to be making claims on vibes, but then will cite specific researchers who are experts. I'm specifically reading it as a parent who has a child who struggles in school so it's pretty important to me to get the correct information.

Falcone's channel is a treasure trove of comedy.

Enjoy. I think Michael and Peter would approve.

I wrote an absurdist short story many years ago and posted it on a blog.

It was meant to be a parody.

There was an article written by Thomas Chatterton Williams at the New York Times last year that is very similar.

Chatterton mostly writes about issues relating to race.

Many parts of it seem identical, to the point that they seem to be copied.

That is by coincidence, obviously.

Chatterton writes in the style that the short story was parodying.

I would like you to read the 2 pieces of writing and compare them.

His essay in the New York Times likely has a paywall. You could get around it by adding the title of the article and the name of the author, Chatterton, in Google, and then selecting the article in the Google News section.

I would like you to tell me whether you see the similarity.

The short story I wrote is called:

"Is it racist to notice that Michael Jordan is Black (because I've never noticed that)?"

https://theabsurdification.blogspot.com/2015/05/is-it-racist-to-notice-that-michael.html?m=1

The article by Thomas Chatterton Williams is called:

"The Grip That Race and Identity Have on My Students"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/opinion/race-students-teach.html

That is an excerpt from his article, for example:

"When my friend Coleman Hughes guest-lectured on his case for colorblindness, several of them were visibly unnerved, suggesting that the idea itself was a form of anti-Blackness."

I know Peter and Michael won’t be covering Communion, but in my petty heart of hearts I like to think that their commentary on Hillbilly Elegy lead to at least some of the suspicion of Vance’s new book. Of course there are so many reasons why people in Middletown don’t have a lot to say, but this article definitely made me think of the pod.

Excerpt:

My story about Hanania went viral, setting off a chain of disapproving op-eds in places like The Atlantic and The New York Times: But in the years since, I’ve watched many of these same elite media institutions rehabilitate Hanania over and over again, credulously accepting his claim to have left the alt-right behind. And they’ve allowed him to brand himself as perhaps America’s foremost “former” white nationalist— despite what I’d argue is plenty of easy-to-find evidence to the contrary. 
As the American right in 2026 continues to be so wholly enveloped by the absurdities of Trumpism, some centrists are increasingly desperate for conservatives who appear “reasonable.”

Only by pointing to such phantom right-wing figures can they rationalize their own conservative mode of politics and their distaste for the left (or morally justify their fecklessness in the face of rising fascism.) But such “respectable” conservatives, who can pretend to be above the MAGA fray, are in short supply; so in recent months we have been inundated with interviews and articles treating a murderer’s row of far-right clowns as interesting thinkers. This includes the likes of Laura Loomer, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ben Shapiro, and Chris Rufo. 

For his latest act, Hanania is presenting himself as someone who has turned against Trump, leading to a recent Atlantic profile titled “The Anti-Populist.” He says he regrets his vote for the president in 2024 and that, by elevating unqualified figures like Kash Patel and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump and his movement have abandoned the experts and “elite” consensus needed to govern. Hanania’s writing now revolves around the “need for a ruling class,” or what he calls “Elite Human Capital.” It's the argument that forms the foundation of his new book, “Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends In Disaster.” 
The Atlantic piece actually does a good job documenting how loathsome Hanania is—including his recent provocation that Jeffrey Epstein was not a pedophile because his victims were “post-pubescent”—but nevertheless allows Hanania to portray himself the way he is so desperate to be received: as a serious, “heterodox” thinker bravely “staking out lonely territory” between what he argues are the equivalent evils of MAGA populism and the populism of the left. 

The podcast will be a limited series examining “The Fire Next Time,” by James Baldwin; “Song of Solomon,” by Toni Morrison; “All the Pretty Horses,” by Cormac McCarthy; “Gilead,” by Marilynne Robinson; “All the King’s Men,” by Robert Penn Warren; and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” by John le Carré.