What We Are Reading Today: ‘On Gaslighting’

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Updated 29 March 2024
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘On Gaslighting’

Author: Kate Abramson

“Gaslighting” is suddenly in everyone’s vocabulary. It’s written about, talked about, tweeted about, even sung about (in “Gaslighting” by The Chicks).
It’s become shorthand for being manipulated by someone who insists that up is down, hot is cold, dark is light — someone who isn’t just lying about such things, but trying to drive you crazy.
The term has its origins in a 1944 film in which a husband does exactly that to his  wife, his crazy-making  efforts symbolized by the rise and fall of the gaslights in their home.
In this timely and provocative book, Kate Abramson examines gaslighting from a philosophical perspective, investigating it as a distinctive moral phenomenon.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Fixed’

Updated 22 December 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Fixed’

Authors: John Y. Campbell and Tarun Tamadorai

We interact with the financial system every day, whether taking out or paying off loans, making insurance claims, or simply depositing money into our bank accounts. 

“Fixed” exposes how this system has been corrupted to serve the interests of financial services providers and their cleverest customers—at the expense of ordinary people.

John Campbell and Tarun Ramadorai diagnose the ills of today’s personal finance markets in the US and across the globe, looking at everything from short-term saving and borrowing to loans for education and housing, financial products for retirement, and insurance. 

They show how the system is “fixed” to benefit those who are wealthy and more educated while encouraging financial mistakes by those who are aren’t, making it difficult for regular consumers to make sound financial decisions and disadvantaging them in some of the most consequential economic transactions of their lives.