What is it about airport bookstores that feels so compelling? Do they speak to our desperate need for entertainment during long flights, or do the books they display feel like an exceptional collection curated just for us? That is hardly the case, according to If Books Could Kill hosts Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri, who deconstruct (and often summarize down to a sentence) the books that adorn airport shelves. These publications, as the name of the show suggests, have accomplished the mysterious feat of “[capturing] our hearts and [ruining] our minds.” And Hobbes and Shamshiri have made it their mission to expose them for the mediocre literature that they are. For instance, their synopsis of international best-seller Atomic Habits is, quite simply: “A book about how to use science (and also some stuff that’s definitely not science) to train yourself to be a more functional person.” You get the idea.

The World is Flat has got to be one of the show’s best episodes. It takes a close look at the book by American commentator and awardwinning author Thomas Friedman. This episode also tells us that while a lot has been said and written about globalization, “perhaps no one has said it worse than Thomas Friedman.” They then go on to tell us exactly why that is over the course of an hour. And those 60 minutes, we assure you, will be filled with laugh-out-loud moments about Friedman’s “glaring factual inaccuracies” and “try hard comparisons.” The author, who calls the Earth flat as a cute metaphor for growing interconnectedness across the globe, is clearly not someone who understands shapes, one of the hosts argues.

WHERE TO LISTEN- You can tune in for a good laugh on any of the following platforms: Applepodcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts and more.

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