Books That Read Like a Podcast

I can admit it: I’m slow to adopt new trends, but I have recently (finally?) become enthralled with podcasts. I have always just had so many books I wanted to read that it was really hard for podcasts to break through to my awareness. Although, in my defense, I was actually listening to podcasts before they were called podcasts on NPR with shows like “This American Life,” “Radiolab” and “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” A lot of podcasts remind me of my favorite books of conversational essays. The podcasts I have recently found have been highly entertaining and engaging — like sitting with a friend and enjoying a cup of coffee while catching up on interesting tidbits. Some of the podcasts follow true crime cases. Some take a deeper look at cultural moments or things we may not remember fully (or correctly) from history. And some just talk of random things.

Of course, the podcast episode that finally caught my attention was about a book discussed on the podcast “You’re Wrong About.” Do you remember the book “Go Ask Alice”? If you were a young girl in the ’70s and ’80s it was hard to avoid it. It was published in 1971 and became an instant bestseller. It was ever-present at all of the Scholastic Book fairs. The author is listed as anonymous and it is supposedly the true personal diary of a young girl who develops a drug addiction at the age of 15 and runs away from home — obviously a morality tale. And, of course, things don’t end well for poor Alice. The problem is — none of it was true. In his book, “Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries,” Rick Emerson debunks the story and exposes the author and the agenda that was behind the book. Emerson was also a guest on the podcast, “You’re Wrong About” in a two-part episode.

“The Anthropocene Reviewed” by John Green is another book that reads like a podcast. That’s because it actually was a podcast by the same name. In this book, John Green talks about the Anthropocene: the epoch of time dating from the beginning of human impact on the geology and ecology of the planet. Based on that description, you would think that it would be all doom and gloom, but Green rates various aspects of modern human life on a five-star scale and it’s not all bad. He rates things like hot dog eating contests, Dr. Pepper, and Covid.

We seem to be able to only hold on to one really big story at any particular time in our collective conscience which means that there are lots of major things that get lost in the noise. One of those things was the bribery scandal perpetrated by the Vice President of the United States where actual bags of money changed hands in the West Wing. “Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House” is another book that began life as a podcast and that I found absolutely fascinating. I remember something about Spiro Agnew resigning for… tax evasion? Something to do with taxes? Rachel Maddow walks you through the scandal that was overshadowed by Watergate. It’s much more than we remember.

In “Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism” by Amanda Montell, you will learn all about how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power. One of the most interesting facts Montell repeats, again and again, is that cults do not attract the stupid! She has a lot to say about the most obvious instances of such manipulation, from the Jonestown murder/suicide of over 900 hundred people to the aggressively threatening tactics of Scientologists. But she also argues effectively that the linguistic activities of commercial ventures like SoulCycle and 3HO are just less lethal forms of the same techniques. She says, “From the crafty redefinition of existing words (and the invention of new ones) to powerful euphemisms, secret codes, renamings, buzzwords, chants and mantras, ‘speaking in tongues,’ forced silence, even hashtags, language is the key means by which all degrees of cultlike influence occur.” She also assures us that “Once you understand what the language of ‘Cultish’ sounds like, you won’t be able to unhear it” Yes, but will we be able to resist it?