The Little Book of Conspiracies: 50 Reasons to be Paranoid by Joel Levy, was an interesting book to say the least. It is not your average book with a set story line, climax and conclusion; it is a collection of various stories, or conspiracies, involving colossal cover-ups, political conspiracies, sci-fi conspiracies, and conspiracies that could be happening to people in everyday life.

The book itself is 138 pages, and is divided into 4 distinct subjects; Part One: It Could Be Happening To You, Part Two: Political Conspiracies and Colossal Cover-ups, Part Three: No One is Safe, and Part Four: Sci-fi Conspiracies. Each subject has varying stories, ranging from ten to twenty under each topic. These stories offer another perspective to everyday things, or major occurrences. Firstly, every story has a question under the title, then a section that explains “What the theorists say.” After explaining the theorist’s point of view, Levy explains “The official line”, and lastly “How paranoid should you be?” with a percentage and explanation as to why the percentage is what it is. The book genre is Popular media: general interest, as it speaks about present and past occurrences. It definitely is not a book for children under the age of thirteen, as it could scare them, but everyone of ages thirteen and up would enjoy reading it. Although it is extremely interesting, some things are hard to believe and ridiculous, and his theories are also based off of Wikipedia, which isn’t always reliable.

For example, in Part One, one particular story that stood out to me was a story titled Anthrax A-Go-Go, which discusses why there was a number of anthrax-filled letters mailed to political and media targets in the US, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The criminal(s) were never caught, and no one knows what the source of these attacks was. The “How paranoid should you be” percentage was 82%, which is extremely high, and offered a new perspective on the supposed rumors surrounding the 9/11 attacks. It’s all really fascinating to read, even though there is a huge percentage that it may be untrue.

Each part focuses on a different segment, the “It Could Be Happening to You” segment focuses on everyday occurrences that any citizen can witness, the Political Conspiracies and Colossal Cover-ups segment focuses on conspiracies of war and country affiliations, the one is safe section focuses on famous people’s murders, and the sci-fi conspiracies section focuses on UFO’s, abductions and space in general.

In my opinion, the book was an interesting collection of various stories that keep you wondering, although some stories are hard to believe and ridiculous assumptions that may make you chuckle, such as the topic of the existence of aliens. I really enjoyed the book overall, it’s something different for sure, straying from the typical teen romance story, or fiction vampire novels. Each story makes you re-think the possibilities of what our government is capable of controlling, and the true evil in the world.