Books

Darkness at Noon

Former Soviet Party superstar languishes in prison while awaiting execution by the Soviets. 

Not recommended. 

These people are just the worst. The book is largely an assertion along the lines of “us old Bolsheviks were making good progress toward trying real communism and then these Stalinist thugs came and ruined it.”

Which is, of course, stupid on its face. 

Soviet thinking had all the worst vices of religious thinking and none of its virtues. It’s so exhausting to listen to the performative rhetoric competition. “How far can I distort my worldview? Did you distort your worldview enough to escape the KGB death squads?”

There’s pretty much nothing else to this book. 

Warning: I’m going to block anyone who shows up in the replies defending any flavor of Marxism, Bolshevism, Stalinism, etc.

The Courage to Be Disliked

Dialogue lays out the fundamentals of Adlerian psychology as the most effective self help strategy.

The title is so good, the book has tons of sales, the reviews were glowing, and the connection to Japanese culture was so tantalizing. But the book turned out to be just one of the many dime-a-dozen self help books that grab onto some specific mode of psychology and tell you to stop worrying because now you have their special insight. 

If you’re a troubled teenager, go for it. Or for any of its near clones. Otherwise, skip it.

Disagree!  This is such a great intro to Adlerian psychology which is a highly underrated philosophy IMHO.

Okay - it’s true the format is trite and there are probably way better resources to learn about Adler’s work, BUT this is the definitive intro so it’s worth a read if you aren’t a philo-cel