ITT: Books that people read just to feel smart

[gangweedfan]

The New York times bestselling list is full of books like this. Like for example the book white fragility which has been on the list for 20 FUCKING WEEKS. So uh yeah post them lads.

 

[Rodent]

communist manifesto -Karl Marx

 

[Fuck!]

The magic schoolbus books make me feel smart : )

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

1984.

 

[Grim_Autismo]

I was part of a book club and we went to Zoom since the pandemic started.

July was the month of racial struggle sessions. How to Be an Antiracist and White Fragility are big on the NYT best seller list right now so of course we had to read them. Critical Race Theory is just Original Sin dressed up in a way that makes the fancy people feel like they're doing something without doing something. Both books are written in a way that narrowly appeals to upper class borderline woke liberals that are susceptible to this horseshit.

Some people felt like their eyes had been opened to the evils of whiteness, though most thought it was heavy handed horseshit. After the books were read they basically got put back on the shelf and no one mentioned it again, total waste of time and paper.

 

[ANF]

Siege

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

The dictionary.

 

[Some Manajerk]

Atlas shrugged. read it once, and now i can't figure out what to do with it.

 

[Arminius]

War & Peace, got halfway through it and had to return it to the library. Picked up another copy and the translation was completely different and it didn't flow, never finished it.

 

[Kosher Dill]

"Ulysses".

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

I had a world war II fact book in my car that I always intended to read but never did.
Shoved right in the little cubby area behind the read window, so super visible.
All my friends used to make fun of me for it actually, lol.

 

[gangweedfan]

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
And other books with swear words in the title

 

[Miss Misery]

Atlas shrugged. read it once, and now i can't figure out what to do with it.

I'll see your Atlas Shrugged and I'll raise you The Fountainhead.

And I'll counter that these are books people read to make them SEEM smart. AND FAIL.

 

[The Wizard]

Any Sagan or Hawking book that you can readily find in Barnes & Noble.
The God Delusion
Marie Kondo's books

 

[gangweedfan]

anything by a celebrity like hillary clinton or bill nye

 

[SIGSEGV]

How To Be SuperSmart: 7 Must-Do Habits Of Highly Intelligent People (Improving Your IQ For High Performance And More Productivity)

 

[Kosher Dill]

Any Sagan or Hawking book that you can readily find in Barnes & Noble.

I'll add Michio Kaku to that list.

 

[Maskull]

Go to the /lit/ board of 4chan if you want a comprehensive look at what the pseuds are reading.

 

[Hylics]

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

High school-ish me went through a phase where I made a point of seeking out classics and other very smart-looking books to stimulate my mind and basically flex on everybody how I could read very, very, long books. There were kids in my class whining about reading 200 page young adult novels (this was 9th grade or so, so that is pretty damn pathetic) while I was trying very hard to absorb the 1400+ pages of Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. My library had all of Ian Fleming's Bond novels and I could have been reading those, but no, gotta read Moby fuckin' Dick instead. I do want to give that one another go since a few of my teachers said they loved it, but I didn't make it through. I also only made it 60 pages into Finnegan's Wake before deciding that some of the classics are actually just shit.

War & Peace, got halfway through it and had to return it to the library. Picked up another copy and the translation was completely different and it didn't flow, never finished it.

I made it through that one, but I barely remember anything about what happened other than a few random details. That was actually the book that made me re-think my interest in the classics. Yes they're literarily important (for some reason) but in the time I read that I could have been reading some cool-ass sci-fi books and actually enjoying myself.