The Blue Book Club: Breakneck
Book club meets November 16. This is the book club you've always wanted, where everyone has done more than the reading.
Summary: the Blue Book Club will meet on Sunday, November 16. Attendees will take a rigorous exam on the book Breakneck. If they pass, they will go on to attend the book club event itself. The goal: create a rigorous, lively social scene of book readers. The Blue Book Club will meet regularly starting in January 2026 with an integrated course of books, and the November event is the best way to join us.
Note: supply of the book is low across bookstores and online. If you cannot get a physical copy, proceed with a digital copy! We’ll have some physical copies for you soon.
“I’m going to start a book club.”
These famous last words have been uttered untold times, only for the whole enterprise to come crashing down in hail of people who didn’t do the reading. And even if people did do the reading—how was the reading comprehension?
Well guess what. I’m going to start a book club with Andrew and Priya Rose, and you, as a prospective participant, are guaranteed to be in a room of people who did the reading, and did it well.
Introducing: the Blue Book Club. Our first meeting is Sunday, November 16, at noon. We will be reading Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang. Here’s how the book club meeting will go:
12:00pm–12:45pm: Blue Book exam. You will take a handwritten exam on Breakneck. Pencils down at 12:45pm. You must earn 95% to pass. Most of the exam questions are contained in the final section of this post, though not all. Read well!
12:45pm–1:15pm: grading of the exams. While this goes on in a back room, all exam takers are welcome to socialize, have snacks, and enjoy themselves.
1:15pm–1:25pm: exams will be returned. Those who passed will stay, those who did not pass will leave at this time. But there is no shame in leaving! Better to die nobly upon the sword than shirk the battle. We hope to see you in the future.
1:30pm–3:30pm: based on the number of people who pass the exam, we will commence the main book club event. This might be a small group seminar, or it might be a full unconference. We’ll be prepared to scale as appropriate.
Here is what you will need to have done and prepared before you come to the Blue Book Club meeting (see “requirements” section below for details):
A marked up copy of Breakneck.
See further down the post for more intensive (but not required) things to do before, during, and after reading Breakneck.
Why Breakneck?
Breakneck was just released, it’s getting a wide reception, and it hits on one of the most urgently discussed issues of our time: the geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States.
However: most people do not have the experience of rigorously discussing a new book or its ideas. They encounter memes about the book, second-hand impressions of the book that are themselves recitations of half-remembered book reviews, and tweets about the book.
But rigorously reading something like Breakneck, including its own reference materials, will forever change your standards for yourself and others. For example: imagine trying to discuss a book comparing China and the United States without knowing basic Chinese history.
You simply must know what you’re talking about. Your reward for this will be interacting with other people who do the same.
The Blue Book Exam Overview
What is the full title of the book, including the subtitle?
Who is the book’s author?
What year was the book published?
What is the author’s educational and professional background? What are they doing now?
Write out the table of contents exactly as it appears in the book (not page numbers, just chapter numbers and titles, including the introduction, acknowledgements, notes, and suggestions for further reading). For the introduction and each chapter, write the following:
A concrete, thematically accurate summary of the chapter (1-3 sentences).
For the acknowledgements section, answer this question: which people were vital to the completion of this book?
For the suggestions for further reading section: note which of those books you have read, and write 1-3 sentences about whether you would also suggest them for further reading. If you have read none of them, answer this question in 2-4 sentences: How do you think your understanding of Breakneck could be changed if you read any of these books?
A few other questions to further check reading comprehension.
Note: Blue Book Club attendees should be prepared to show their books and preparation materials for inspection. A bare book with no notes (in the book or outside it) is not a good sign that an individual has engaged with the book deeply enough to respect the time of other Club attendees. You can mark up a physical book, or adapt the markup to a digital copy (and as of this moment, due to supply issues, only digital copies of the book are available).
Recommendations (not requirements) for Reading Breakneck
Do the following before you read:
Read a summary of Chinese and American history through the 20th and 21st centuries. Try to get the very broad contours of it in your head before beginning the book. A good way to check what you have in your head is to write down what you know without any assistance. You can read any summary you want, but I’ve linked to an example.
If you want to read the book with a group, organize that on your own.
Unless you have a good system for reading books digitally that you’re confident in, acquire a physical copy of Breakneck. Acquire a pen. Be prepared to mark the book up in great detail.
Open the book, and look at the table of contents. Turn to each section and flip through it briefly, reading the first page of each section and quickly skimming the rest.
Do the following as you read:
Keep a timeline of all the dates mentioned in the book, ideally on a physical piece of paper that you update as you read. It will be helpful to look up the term dates of Chinese and American heads of government throughout the 20th and 21st century ahead of time. If you can print those out and have them handy as you read, even better.
Have a map of China handy, ideally a paper one you have printed that can be marked up. Mark it up as you read.
Draw a box around words and references you do not know. Don’t worry about looking each of them up immediately as you encounter them, but do note how much you know and how much you don’t. It is easy to read a book and think you understand a subject as the author understands it—but the boxes will help reveal the daylight between those two things.
Do the following after you are done reading the book:
Go back through the book, and, if you have not already looked up the boxed items, do so. Make a glossary of people and concepts. If you do not do this, it is likely you will not be able to participate in the Blue Book Club conversation very well. You will likely not pass the exam.
Write a response paper (or equivalent) to the book; this could be a long thread on social media, a blog post, a book review, etc. Publish it publicly prior to the Blue Book Club meeting date on November 16. If we wind up doing an unconference, this will be especially helpful. Drop a link to it in these comments when you’re done, and feel free to tag me, Andrew, or Priya on X/Substack/LinkedIn/wherever you can find us.
Damn acknowledgement section questions!!????
This is a fantastic idea! I will be out of the country on the 16th, but would love to join future sessions.