What we’re about
A book club for everyone, from passionate readers to people looking for a new topic to talk about. Books of the month are usually about some weird quirk of human behaviour, paradigms, culture, and thinking. Suggestions welcome!
Upcoming events (2)
See all- Short Reads Social: "Is Everyone Mentally Ill Now?" (May 14th)The Harbord House, Toronto, ON
Sick of making small talk at networking events or meetups? Looking to have more deep conversations with strangers but don't have the time to commit to a book or philosophy club?
Introducing Short-Read Socials! It's the same as any other networking event/social, we provide a topic and some prompting questions to get people started. This month's topic is mental health conditions and how people define them. Are people too quick to self-diagnose? Has the internet empowered people in handling their mental health or made them pathologize normal feelings? What even counts as mental illness?
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How does it work?- The event is pretty casual, where you can talk to anyone there with or without our prompt sheets.
- Open philosophical discussion, including for controversial topics, is welcome but be respectful :)
- If you've read/watched/heard anything related to the topic of the month, feel free to bring it in! Not necessarily physically, but you can if you want...
- If not, here are some thought-provoking reads to start you off (read as many or as few as you want):
- How anxiety became a catchall for every unpleasant emotion
- ‘Instagram therapy’ offers self-diagnoses, vocabulary and justifications, but it does not solve anything
- Ontology Of Psychiatric Conditions: Tradeoffs And Failures
- TikTok Gave Me Autism: The Politics of Self Diagnosis
- Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness (click the '4' button to read the article, and if that doesn't work then enter this link [https://www.wired.com/2010/12/ff-dsmv/] into 12ft.io)
- Feel free to post other recommendations in the comments!
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Finally, Short Read Socials have a 'pay what you can' policy. They'll always be free to attend--but if you've been having a good time with us and want to pass along a couple of bucks to help cover Meetup platform costs for future events, there is a contribution bucket on the table that night and a Paypal link :) - The Psychopath Test - 7:00pm June 11th Book ClubThe Harbord House, Toronto, ON
Is the real danger not the "psychopaths," but our need to find them?
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Sick of the brainrot and trying to read more? Looking to meet like-minded people or debate unlike-minded people? Or do you just want something to fill in your Wednesday night? Come down to the book club for humans!This time we’re reading The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness by Jon Ronson.
- Synopsis: They say one out of every hundred people is a psychopath. You probably passed one on the street today. These are people who have no empathy, who are manipulative, deceitful, charming, seductive, and delusional. The Psychopath Test is the New York Times bestselling exploration of their world and the madness industry.
- When Jon Ronson is drawn into an elaborate hoax played on some of the world’s top scientists, his investigation leads him, unexpectedly, to psychopaths. He meets an influential psychologist who is convinced that many important business leaders and politicians are in fact high-flying, high-functioning psychopaths, and teaches Ronson how to spot them. Armed with these new abilities, Ronson meets a patient inside an asylum for the criminally insane who insists that he’s sane, a mere run-of-the-mill troubled youth, not a psychopath—a claim that might be only manipulation, and a sign of his psychopathy. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud, and with a legendary CEO who took joy in shutting down factories and firing people. He delves into the fascinating history of psychopathy diagnosis and treatments, from LSD-fueled days-long naked therapy sessions in prisons to attempts to understand serial killers.
- A review on the book that more directly talks about its main points/themes
Notes
- We encourage you to support local book shops, though there are quite a few copies of this one currently available at TPL and online!
- To attend, you have to be a human (pets probably aren’t allowed at the venue ☹ )
- You can always come if you didn’t finish the book, but the discussion is based on having read the book (you will hear "spoilers")
- Open philosophical discussion, including for controversial topics, is welcome but be respectful
- Feel free to stay after to get to know people!
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Note: We have a 'pay what you can' policy to reduce the chance of events being cost-prohibitive for anyone. But if you've been having a good time with us and want to pass along a couple of bucks to help cover Meetup platform costs for future events, there is a contribution bucket on the table that night and a Paypal link :)
