About us
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!
Note: We have never sent out cold-call emails to authors offering to promote them or have them speak at ours meetups in exchange for a monetary donation. Any emails of this nature are scams by individuals impersonating the organizers.
Upcoming events
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Short Reads Social #15: Will we ever escape from 'beauty'?
Madison Avenue Pub, Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON, CAShort-Read Socials are back! Come meet with like-minded and unlikeminded people to talk about the topic of the month. This time, we're thinking about beauty standards and looksmaxxing. Who gets to decide who are what is considered 'beautiful'? Is 'looksmaxxing' and the pursuit of beauty self-empowerment or self-harm? Is attractiveness a privilege?
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***Note: this event and future events (at least until 2027) will be on second and last Wednesdays! we won't be there on Tuesday :(
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How does it work?- The event is casual. You can talk to anyone there with or without our prompt sheets, either about the month's topic or about whatever you want.
- Open philosophical discussion, including for controversial topics, is welcome but be respectful. Every has had different experiences so aim to have good-faith discussions :)
- 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):
- On lookism
- If Pretty is a Privilege, Ugly is a Curse (19:16 to 1:18:39)
- Lookism as Epistemic Injustice
- On looksmaxxing
- How Many Bones Would You Break to Get Laid?
- Looksmaxxing and the Rise of Male-to-Male Transsexuals
- On the beauty industry
- The New Face
- The Age of Instagram Face (bypassed paywall version here)
- Feel free to post other recommendations (blogs, movies, tv episodes, video essays, etc.) 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 :)8 attendees
Past events
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