The Books of Evil

For the summer of 2005, I dedicated myself to reading the top ten most harmful books of the last two hundred years (as identified by conservative academics) to see what terrible effects they will have upon me. Like Charley in Flowers for Algernon, I chronicled my descent into evil here.

Of course, since my conservative friends believe that people kill people instead of guns, surely they also believe that readers kill people instead of books, right?

Buying the Books of Evil

I have to admit I was nervous about buying some of these books. When I selected a bunch of them on Amazon and prepared to check out, it occurred to me that there could be two negative effects of such a mass purchase:

  • My "Recommended Reading List" would be forever soiled with the periodic suggestion, "People who have purchased your crackpot books have also purchased The Satanic Bible and Little Timmy Visits His First Concentration Camp."
  • Some database trigger would almost certainly forward my list to the Department of Homeland Security, who would then offer me the opportunity to read my books in my new kennel at Guantanamo Bay. They'd probably dunk some of them in the toilet first.

I decided buying them used would be the way to go, though the idea that some screwball revolutionary had read them before was a bit disconcerting. I headed over to Chamblin's Bookmine, found several, and sauntered up to the front counter. I worried the stack of books could be construed as a cry for help, and that the clerk behind the counter who knows me would no longer want to know me afterwards.

Fortunately, the other clerk tallied my order and my reputation remains secure--at least until I bring them back.

Rocking to the Books of Evil

When one descends into evil, the proper soundtrack is key. Fortunately, my friends Matt and Deena Warner know this, and they were kind enough to compile the soundtrack to the Summer of Evil.

The Summer of Evil rocks!

The CD includes such family favorites as Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy," Megadeth's "Go to Hell," Cake's "Satan is my Motor," and the perennial classics "Horst Wessel Lied" (the official Nazi anthem) and "Internationale" (the official anthem of the Soviet Union from 1918 - 1943). Also included are snippets of "Stairway to Heaven" played backwards.

Let's just say any CD that starts out with the phrase, "I am the god of hellfire!" is awesome from the get-go.

The CD will be available soon from K-Tel on cassette, record, and 8-track.

Calling the Books of Evil What They Are

You'll probably notice that the Human Events Online list refers to these as "harmful" books instead of "evil" ones, and I'll confess to some hyperbole in changing from the former to the latter.

"Harmful" still indicates a moral judgment, and I think those judgments are better reserved for the people who read the books than for the books themselves.

Harmful is as harmful does, I suppose.

Reviewing the Books of Evil

To read my insightful reviews of the Books of Evil, choose one of the selections below.

Suffering the Effects of the Books of Evil

It's probably best to let images speak for themselves.

Will, before and after

What conclusions have I reached reading these "harmful" books?

  • None of these books show any humor. They all seem so self-righteous and serious.
  • Few of these books are human (except for the Feminine Mystique). They're all full of abstractions and simplications and laws applied clumsily to cases they don't fit. Only Friedan tells stories of specific people with specific problems, associating her concepts with concrete examples.
  • Almost all of these books (again, skipping Friedan's) refuse to entertain the possibility of their own fallibility, much less account for it.
  • Almost all of these books are terribly written: tangled sentences, weird metaphors, rambling paragraphs.
  • Most of these books rely upon extremes of language that rarely apply in the real world. Ours is not a universe of "always," "never," and "every" but of "sometimes," "often," and "some."
  • The reputations attached to these books clearly come from people who have not read them.
  • Few of these books are convincing by themselves: they reinforce pre-existing impressions and beliefs through rationalization.

Of course, the issue that inspired me to read these books in the first place was the very notion they could be harmful in themselves. It's amusing that people so interested in human responsibility are willing to blame a book instead of a reader for "harm."

I'm also perplexed at one glaring omission from the list of harmful books: the Bible. Indeed, one can say that the Bible inspires many of these conservative academics to oppose these books in the first place, and that the Bible has bred more intolerance and bloodshed through the ages than any of these books.

But then, it isn't the book that causes all of that trouble but the extremists who use it to reinforce their own fears and neuroses.

Just like with these books.

If these books are harmful because they contradict yours (the Bible), then aren't you abdicating your personal responsibility in the same way that followers of Hitler and Mao and Marx did? Harmful is as harmful does.

And, indeed, what is more harmful than, say, taking an Amazon affiliate program kickback for every book linked in the article?

I'm glad someone is profiting from the Books of Evil.

Why Read the Books of Evil?

Truth be told, this isn't my first run-in with evil books. During the summer of 1997, my then-wife, friends, and family at the time tried desperately to figure out why I decided to make some radical changes in my life toward a new identity. I deviated from their expectations and chose a new path, and they couldn't figure out why.

So they spent the summer reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Illusions to figure it out. They wondered if I wasn't falling into the pit of mushy, New Age self-help weirdness. They pondered the issues and assumptions raised by my reading to figure out just where I'd gone wrong.

Unfortunately, I'd "gone wrong" long before I ever met them by reading books in the first place, by being open to new ideas.

I've discovered that the only people who fear books are those who don't understand that every book has to be read with a critical intelligence and applied to our own experiences. Some are the ramblings of theory at a late-night bar session, and others are the soaring insights of the human heart.

The only way to know for sure is to have the courage to measure them against your life.

For people who believe in a single insight or single book, every other insight and book is a threat. So are the people who read them.

Really knowing is good. Really seeing is good. Really experiencing is good.