🛎️ Zoom Link for Wednesday's Live Late Diagnosis - Book Club Meeting 🛎️
This week's pick will give you language for things you have been noticing for years.
In case you missed it in the April 1st email, on Wednesday at 8am PT, 11am ET, 4pm UK, and 5pm Europe, we will be getting together on Zoom to discuss the Book of the Month, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell. I’m sending this message early in case you haven’t had a chance to get the book yet. There is still time!
Paid members: Your Zoom link is at the bottom.
Everyone else: Read on.
Our May pick is Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell. It is a sharp, surprisingly funny book about how cult language actually works, why it works on people we tend to think of as smart, and how the same techniques have escaped capital-C cults and now live inside multilevel marketing companies, fitness studios, wellness influencers, coaching programs, and online communities most of us have brushed up against. By the time you finish it, you will have a vocabulary for things you have been clocking but could not name.
This is the meeting to come to if you have ever found yourself in a relationship, a job, a friend group, or a wellness program that felt slightly off and you could not articulate why. Cultish gives you the names. Love bombing. Insider language designed to make outside criticism sound ignorant. The reframing of doubt as disloyalty. The slow rewriting of reality through repeated exposure to a single charismatic frame. Once you have the vocabulary, the patterns become visible everywhere, and they get a lot harder to fall for.
If reading the whole book is not in the cards this week, Amanda Montell’s recent interview on A Little Bit Culty covers the core ideas in two really juicey episodes and is one of the best companion conversations to the book I have heard. The hosts, Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Ames, were both in NXIVM, so they bring the kind of lived-experience questions a more general literary interview would not get to. You can find the episode here or whereever you get your podcasts. It’s season 8 episodes 29 and 30.
A Little Bit Culty Part 1
A Little Bit Culty Part 2
Listen, read, do both, or do neither. I will give enough context on the call that you will be in the conversation either way.
The book club is one of the genuine pleasures of being in the Late Diagnosis Club. Every month we read something chosen specifically for the late-diagnosed audience, and the discussion goes places no podcast or Goodreads thread will take you. Best of all, unlike neurotypical book clubs, there is no guilt if you didn’t read or pressure to say something insightful. If you want to contribute, you can, but I run this infodump style which removes any of the PDA pressure, but anyone who want to jump in or even take over is welcome to!
The book runs about 300 pages and reads quickly. You can get Cultish on Libby or buy it almost anywhere. I listened to it on Audiobook (free with Libby!) and loved it!!!
US Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062993151
UK Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0062993151
[Become a member and join us Wednesday]
Note: The link to join the Zoom Meeting is below. Paid members will see it. If you don’t see it, either you are not a paid member, or you are logged in to the wrong account. If you are not a member, you will need to subscribe to have full access and to see the link below. If you would like a free subscription for May, just reply to this email, and we will get you a free trial month.
