A Shelf, Not a Bibliography
The longer book has a hundred and ten references. This one has a shelf. These are the things I actually read and watched, in roughly the order they appear, with one line each on why.
- E. B. WhiteCharlotte’s Web (1952)
A children’s book about a media campaign. Read it again as an adult and watch Charlotte do her research before she weaves.
Appears in: Some Pig - Marshall McLuhanUnderstanding Media (1964)
Difficult, often maddening, written up the road at the University of Toronto. The first chapter is enough to change how you watch television.
Appears in: Some Pig - Alfred KorzybskiScience and Sanity (1933)
Nearly unreadable. You do not need to read it. You need the five words.
Appears in: The Map Is Not the Territory - PlatoThe Apology
Socrates on trial, explaining why he spent his life annoying people with questions. Short, free, and the best defence of self-examination ever written.
Appears in: Know Thyself - Mad Men (2007–2015)
Seven seasons on a man who built himself out of words. Watch for the moments he has what he wanted and looks sick about it.
Appears in: Know Thyself - Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Measure of a Man” (1989)
One hour. A courtroom decides whether a machine is a person, and in doing so decides what the people are. Watch it before you read chapter six.
Appears in: The Measure of a Man - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Emissary” (1993)
The pilot. The baseball scene is chapter ten. Garak arrives a few episodes later and is worth the whole series.
Appears in: Know Thyself, Linear Time - Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023)
The synth ban in the first season is the Butlerian Jihad in a Starfleet uniform. Stay for Data’s last request.
Appears in: The Measure of a Man, Fear Is the Mind-Killer - Rick and Morty (2013–)
The smartest man in the universe, miserable. The backyard scene in the second season is the thesis of chapter four.
Appears in: Nobody Exists on Purpose - Marcus AureliusMeditations
A Roman emperor’s private notes to himself. The antidote to Rick.
Appears in: Nobody Exists on Purpose - The Simpsons (1989–)
Sector 7-G is the most honest depiction of human–machine interaction in the history of the medium. I will defend this to anyone.
Appears in: The Conductor - The Sopranos (1999–2007)
A man who knows himself completely and changes nothing.
Appears in: Tony Soprano Goes to Therapy - William ShakespeareHamlet
A man who knows himself completely and does nothing. Four hundred years old; still the best thing on the subject.
Appears in: Tony Soprano Goes to Therapy - Frank HerbertDune (1965)
Read the appendices. The Butlerian Jihad is the whole argument hiding in the back of the book.
Appears in: Fear Is the Mind-Killer - Margaret AtwoodThe Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
Written in this city, by someone who understood before most of us what it means to take away a person’s words.
Appears in: Fear Is the Mind-Killer - Ayn RandAtlas Shrugged (1957)
Read it to understand the question. Then look at your parents to understand the answer.
Appears in: Who Is John Galt? - Herman HesseSiddhartha (1922)
Short. Read the last chapter twice.
Appears in: The Ferryman - Ray KurzweilThe Age of Spiritual Machines (1999), The Singularity Is Near (2005), The Singularity Is Nearer (2024)
The man who saw the river first. I disagree with him about the date, which is the subject of the longer book, and agree with him about everything else.
Appears in: The Map Is Not the Territory, Nobody Exists on Purpose, The Ferryman - Vernor Vinge“The Coming Technological Singularity” (1993)
The essay that gave the thing its name. Twelve pages.
Appears in: The Map Is Not the Territory - A cash register at the Dupont Galleria (circa 1988)
Out of print.
Appears in: Prologue, M6N