"This podcast is a hoot. The concept is clever and simple. Popular and bestselling books that basically ruined humanity. Michael and Peter have great chemistry and their analysis and dissection have consistently given me a pause for thought."

- Imriel Morgan, Content is Queen

If Books Could Kill is a sharp, sly podcast that strolls through the self-help aisle with a raised eyebrow and a red pen. Hosted by Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri, it revisits the bestselling books that shaped public opinion and policy—The Tipping Point, Freakonomics, Men Are from Mars—and asks, with disarming charm and considerable research: did these books really deserve their cultural staying power? What follows is a kind of cheerful inquisition, where Hobbes and Shamshiri, equal parts pop-culture nerd and policy wonk, unravel the assumptions and storytelling tricks behind the biggest “ideas books” of the past few decades. It's not mean-spirited so much as mischievous, like a smart friend flipping through a dog-eared paperback and saying, “Wait—this doesn’t make any sense.” In the tradition of Pauline Kael’s own gleeful takedowns, it’s criticism as entertainment: fast, funny, and occasionally furious, but never boring.