June 20, 2013 • 36 mins
In this special episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Julie invite six guests to share their recommendations for summer reading. You'll hear from science author Mary Roach, musician DJ Food and author David Barnett. Plus fellow HowStuffWorks podcast hosts Cristen Conger, Lauren Vogelbaum and Tracy V. Wilson pop in with titles as well. And don't forget to check out the accompanying blog post for a complete list of titles.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas and
this is our second summer Reading episodes for this year. Again.
Last year we did an episode where Julie and I
(00:24):
shared some some recommendations a little science a little fiction,
a little science fiction for our more enlightened listeners, to
listeners out there who might want to read something during
their travels around the beach. Everyone seemed to get a
kick out of it, so we thought, let's do it again,
except let's do an extra episode where we we have
some guests come on and shared their ideas of about
what you might want to read this summer. Uh so
(00:45):
that's what this episode is all about. We have three
external guests from the outside world and three internal guests
from how stuff works dot com. Mry guests, yes, but
pretty soon not so much a mystery. So we're gonna
kick things off here with an external guest. The man
by the name of DJ Food also goes by the
name strictly keV. He is a UK DJ, performing artist
(01:09):
and overall connoisseur of all things weird and wonderful in
the areas of music, comics, sci fi needs to say.
Food has a really busy schedule, but I said, hey,
I'll reach out to him. He's he's involved in all
these very cool projects. He's he's constantly keeping track of
interesting books, interesting music, interesting comics on his website dj
food dot org, where he's constantly sharing his his own music,
(01:32):
his own mixes, his uh stuff about his lawyerst album,
as well as all sorts of cool comics, lots of
cool design stuff. Highly recommend checking that out. And now
let's hear from the man himself with three recommendations for
your summer reading. Hi, I'm DJ Food otherwise owned a
strictly keb and I'm here to present it three things
to blow your mind. First off, I've got a great
(01:53):
book called King City by an artist in rights called
Brandon Graham who's kind of tearing things in the comics
world at the moment. For the company image, King's City
is I think twelve issues collected of a comic that
completely passed me by. The story is revolves around a
number of people who live in King City. The city
is kind of the star of the book, but there's
(02:15):
a guy who's a cat master, who's kind of like
a ninja master of a cat that can do all
sorts of crazy things and change its body and stuff.
And there's an adventure of him, and there's a venture
of his ex girlfriend. There's eventually his friend whose name
escapes me now. But one of the things I like
about it is there's masses of detail on every page
and suddenly you'll dip into a cross word or join
(02:38):
the dots page or a game, even on a double
page spread. So it's a very unique way of storytelling
and it's a good page turn. So if you think
you know comics, you know, if we both know, I'm
sure everyone your your listeners know that it's not all
about d C and Marvel and guys and tights and capes.
This is this is something that anyone could get into.
(02:58):
You never have to really read a comic, mer are
It's not just a guy thing you can except you
know easily, girls can get into it, no problem. So
there you go. Not a very description, but it's it's
a very unique comic. So that's my first one. The
second one is another huge book copendium by Julian Cope.
You might know Julian Cope, the should I say rock
(03:19):
star singer artists recording artist spun to fame over here
anyway in the UK with the teardrop explodes. Um. He's
also a very good writer. If you ever find his
biography head on, it's well worth reading. But this is
something else. It's it's a collection of his album reviews
he used to do on his website, sort of arranged
in the sort of chronological alternate history of rock writing
(03:44):
from the last half of the twentieth century. It starts
at the end of the fifties. We all know the
accepted classics of rock led Zeppelin, the Who, the Beatles
of Stones, etcetera, etcetera. This is an alternate version of that.
It's um the things that fell under the radar, the
weird and the one for all the private pressings, the
oddities that he thinks that just as worthy as any
(04:06):
Beatles album but never got the kudos. So um, it's
a very very readable book. Again, he's got an excellent
turn of phrase, a sort of mixed of sort of
Hippie and Celtic if that makes any sense. And just
I always enjoy reading his stuff. As I said, his
biography head on is incredible. Um, he's had a very
(04:27):
interesting life and he's got a very unique tape on music.
It's as good as any writer you're reading the Music
press or on online Indium and Expedition into the Rock
and Roll Underground by Julian Cope. And last, but not least,
we have Watching the Watchman by Dave Gibbons, designed by
Chick Kidd and Mike Essel. And I'm sure a lot
(04:49):
of readers or listeners would know Watchman the comic Animore
and Ve Gibbons classic, you know, one of the first
graphic novels in inverted commas. This is a huge each
cover table book which basically explores the artwork at the
background and the genesis of the whole thing, including never
seen before artwork, preliminary designs, layouts for pages, promotional items,
(05:12):
original drawings, merchandise, the whole thing from start to finish
in order of the creation of Watchman by Dave Gibbons,
laid out superbly by the designership Kid with lots of
very very magnified illustrations splashed across the pages so you
really get into the grain of the book, and running
commentary by Dave Gibbons talking about the genesis of the book,
(05:35):
how he put it together, how we designed things, lots
of little clues which I'd never seen in the original
comics that he put in for people to find, and
just a very interesting historical look back at the classic
basically the making of a classic, and how the comics
industry changed from the beginning of the book to two
years later when it finished and it was it literally
(05:56):
did help change the comics industry overnight. Cool. I think
those are all three very interesting recommendations there. I was,
of course, I'm familiar with Watchman. Everyone I think it's
familiar with Watchman at this point, a very important comic book.
And uh, and it would be interesting for anyone out
there who's a fan to check out, um this this
(06:16):
new volume that gives even more visual insight into that world.
And uh, the other comic that Food mentioned, King City,
I have not read, but wow, I was just looking
at some of the visuals from this and it looks phenomenal.
One of the skills we were looking at here involved
like a space suit and kind of adorable cats crawling
all over the place. It's it's really wonderful looking. And
(06:40):
as far as Julian Cope goes, I think you had
some experience. Yeah. Yeah, Julian Couple was definitely in heavy
rotation some number of years ago in our household. And
I have to say, my husband's kind of mixed mixed
master and he's the person who curates the music in
our house. So um, I think that this will be
in an awesome there's day present for him because he
(07:02):
is a huge Julian Cope fan. And now I have
absolutely like, I mean going home after this and I'm
gonna put some Julian Cope in rotation because I that's
some good stuff. So I can't wait to check that out. Now,
since that book deals with with music, I would like
to play just a quick clip from DJ Foods two
thou twelve albums The Search Engine, which includes this track
the Electric Hoax featuring Natural Self, which really seems to
(07:26):
to summon some of the vibes that are discussed in
this in this book. Yeah ye see. And next we
(08:08):
are going to listen to Lauren vogel Bond's recommendations. She
is the co host of tech Stuff and forward Thinking
and just all around wonderful person. Yes, definitely a bookworm.
So when we set out to do this episode. I
was like, well, we gotta ask Lauren, because she's one
of these people that will bring you books and set
them on your desk and uh and and give you
(08:29):
strong recommendations on one which you need to read. And
so she has a couple here for you. Hey. There,
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. I'm the co host of tech Stuff
and also Forward Thinking, and I've got a couple of
recommendations for your summer reading list. This first one is
a book that you'd find in the Kids too Young
Adults section, but I think it's a good choice for
(08:49):
all ages. It's called The Gate. It's by John Connolly,
and the reason that I'm recommending it is Okay, the
crux of the plot of this book rests on two things,
large Hadron collider and a demon horde that is trying
to come through it in order to take over the world.
And that seems like prime stuff to blow your mind
fan material right there. The language in it is is
(09:12):
really just cheeky and hilarious. It's got science and fantasy.
There's a ton of footnotes, all the stuff that I
really love in a good young adult book about demons
and science, and at its core, it's it's really about
a very clever boy and his extremely brave docs, and
it's it's heart woman and wonderful and uh, if young
(09:33):
adult is not necessarily your thing, Connolly has a lot
of other books for children and adults, and I recommend
most of them. My second wreck on the list is
called The Magicians. It's by Love Grossman, and this one
is for grown ups only, or mature audiences or immature
mature audiences. I'm never really sure why mature is the
word that they choose to use when they're saying that
(09:54):
there's sex and alcohol use in a book. But it's
sort of like if Harry Potter had been set in
college and involved an extremely disaffected main character. The reason
that I'm recommending this one specifically is that, um, it's
got a system of magic in it, and uh, the
magical ability in this universe is based on a level
(10:16):
of creativity and intelligence in a person, in addition to
a a psyche breaking level of study that essentially renders magicians, uh,
not really operating under the normal confines of what we
would call sanity anymore. And to me, that's fascinating watching
these characters kind of go through this process and deal
(10:37):
with it and also deal with normal coming of age,
growing up sort of things. Also with within the story,
there's there's a series of fictional books about a magical
land called Philery, and this is a direct parallel to
the Narnia land and books and theories by C. S. Lewis.
When I was a kid, I loved Narnia, and the
protagonist of the Magicians was a huge fan of the
(11:00):
Philery books when he was a kid, and it becomes
really a very important part of the story. And just
watching what Grossman does with that source material, if you
know the Narnia books, becomes immensely fun. The book is
dry and very rilely funny and very poignant. It's it's
beautiful and heartbreaking and winds up being very hopeful in
(11:23):
in strange and lovely ways. Also there's a sequel and
that is on my summer reading list. So I hope
that you guys check out one or both of these.
If you do, tell Robert and Julie how you feel
about them, or if you want to, you can drop
me an email. You can reach me at tech stuff
at Discovery dot com, and I would love to hear
from you and uh yeah, enjoy your summer now. I
(11:45):
think it's it's awesome that she she brought up The
Magicians by Love Grossman because my wife just finished reading
this book and is already on the second book that
it follows it, and just just a word of caution.
When she was first reading it, I had actually given
it to her as a birthday gift, so she first
when she first started reading it, she was like, you know,
it's it's all right, It's all right, And then she
(12:05):
definitely reached a point where then she was just just
completely obsessed with it. Uh. And this is this world
of magic that it creates. So um So if you
pick it up and it's not getting you right away,
just just wait because if this test case proves to
be accurate, um, it will get his hooks into you. Well.
I kind of have a hundred page rule, Like if
(12:25):
I'm hundred page pages into it and it's not really
gripping me, then I kind of feel like, Okay, maybe
it's not the thing for me. Although I really do
prefer to finish a book. Yeah, and its entirety, but
I do feel like sometimes it takes a while for
the author to kind of get into the material and
lay it all down to where you're you're firmly set
(12:45):
in the trap. Yeah, I feel like a hundred page
rule is pretty fair because because on one hand, you
don't want to quit books and put them back on
the shelf or return them unfinished, and you know, you
want to get your money's worth out of it. You
don't want to be a quitter. But on the other hand,
life is short. You can only read so many books
in this life, and it's just not worth it to
struggle through when you're not enjoying. And I know people
who refuse to give up, like it'll be for months.
(13:08):
They're complaining about this book they're reading, and you're you're like,
don't finish it. What are you doing? I've done it
twice twice. One was a book that had been us
in the title, and I can't remember it, but I
was just I think I actually threw it across the
the room, um. And then the second one. And I
would love to pick this up sometime when I have
like one thousand weeks in a row just to do nothing,
(13:32):
and that is the infinite just which I think. I
was on page two hundred and eighty and then I went, Okay,
I can't. Yeah, and it was. And it was so
frustrating to me because this story, the characters were very intriguing,
but there was so much bobbing and weaving between that
I kept feeling as though I was dumped on the
(13:53):
side as a reader and would have to keep sort
of picking back up. So emotionally, I was like, oh,
but I was really invested in this, sorry, and here
I am in some other world. Well, you know, it's
I'm a big believer in the right book for the
right time. You know, sometimes it'll it'll be a great book,
and it will even be a great book for you,
but you have to be in the proper headspace for it.
You've got to have the right appetite for it at
(14:14):
the time. I mean, we all have those books on
our shelves who are like, oh, I really would love
to read that, but it's just not time yet. I
would love to hear from a listener who has read
Infinite just all the way through, and I would love
to know whether or not it really lives up to
the hype, Like if you put one thousand pages of
reading into it, will you feel like you had a
return on investment. On the other side, so if anybody's
(14:36):
out there, let us know. Alright, up next, we're gonna
hear from Mary Roach, who was, of course the author
of Stiff Spook, Bonk Packing from Ours and most recently Gold.
Of course you've heard us talk about golf. You've heard
us interview Mary Roach about this book. Uh. And and
we we we read it and ended up doing a
number of episodes on Digestion as a spinoff from it.
(14:56):
So of course we highly recommend any book by Mary
Roach Beach. But but we we also in our recent
talk whether we asked Mary, it's like, well, what books
are you excited about? Because I'm always interested in that,
you know, what's feeding the minds of the minds that
feed us. Uh. And she had a couple of really
tantalizing suggestions for your summer reading. There's a book that
(15:18):
is coming out by John Mullum uh M O O
A L. L. E. M. Called Wild Ones. And John
Lallum he wrote, I don't know if you saw it
was a cover story in the New York Times magazine
about homosexuality and animals and people who study it. And
and he is just the most amazing in terms of
his research, his ability to write beautiful essay and this
(15:41):
it's just this writing style, and it's this wonderful book. Well,
it's about how endangered species and and and basically humans
and how we see animals and what we decide to
save and what we don't decide to save, and just
the the unique views of humans, the approach towards different
(16:03):
animal species over the years. And it's very hard to
describe that book in a way that captures the sparkle
and interests of it. Anyway, I love that book and
that is coming out, I believe in May. Yeah, so
that's coming up. I'm trying to think what else I've
seen that is coming up. Rose George who wrote that
(16:24):
wonderful book on that called The Big Necessity, which I
had to do with poop and sanitation and the global
need for clean bathrooms. A lovely science writer, fascinating book,
and she has a new one coming out on shipping
global the world behind the scenes world of shipping, which
is not science, it's not exactly science, but in terms
(16:46):
of how things work. Just I can't wait to read it,
just just because you know, everything's shipped and it's this
sort of secret network that's out there and nobody really
knows much about it, and she spent a year on
ships and in shipyards and really uh sharreting that out.
So I'm looking forward to that one very much too.
(17:07):
So there, yeah, there you go. Uh. That shipping book
sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, as of the publication date of
this particular episode, that book is not out yet. Definitely,
as you're listening to this in the future, uh, it
is probably already available, but as of now, you're gonna
have to wait on that, and instead you'll have to
go after The Big Necessity, which seems like an awesome
(17:30):
book on its own, very interesting. Um. I also wanted
to point out that Rose George was a war correspondent
and she also has a book out on refugees, so
it seems to me like she has covered the spread
no matter what the topic, as she does some deep
dives on that and John mullum um the Wild Ones book.
I can't wait to pick that up because I keep
(17:51):
thinking that that would be a really nice companion book
to the book we discussed last year, which was Some
we Love, Some we Hate, and Some We Eat, which
at our relationship with animals and Malalam just kind of
takes it sounds like a different look at animals and
how we perceive them. And in fact, we have referenced
one of his articles before when we talked about homosexuality
(18:12):
and animals. Very interested to see what other sort of
discoveries he has in that book. Cool, you know, we're
gonna we're gonna take a quick break and when we
come back, we will hit you with three more guests. Um,
just throw them at you, Just throw them at you.
Two of them are going to be in house here
from some House Stuff Works podcasters that you you may
or may not be familiar with already. And then we're
(18:34):
also gonna hear from one more guest. Is Tracy thisling
Tracy alright, color back right after these uh these words.
All right, we're back and uh for this. For this
half of the episode, we're gonna kick things off with
(18:56):
Tracy V. Wilson, one of the long term of Faces
Voices writers here the rock of How Stuff Works. Yeah,
she's uh, she's the site manager as well as co
host of formerly of Pop Stuff and currently of Stuff
you Missed in a history class. So obviously we turned
to Tracy. We know she's a big reader, really into
(19:18):
sci fi and fantasy and writer herself writer herself that
she's an and a poet, and we said, well, hey,
let's uh, let's let's reach it out out to her,
see what she's got. And we just said, hey, whatever
you want to recommend to our listeners, let us have it.
So here you go. Hi. My name is Tracy V. Wilson,
co host of Stuff You Missed in History Class, and
(19:39):
here's my contribution to your summer reading list. It is
a combination of history and science fiction called The Doomsday
Book by Connie Willis. It came out in and it's
about a world where historians study history by actually traveling
back in time to observe things. And in this book,
our histor, Orion, our hero of the story, is traveling
(20:03):
back to the Middle Ages, and she is the first
historian ever to do this. Of course, things do not
go as planned, either in the Middle Ages or back home.
It is a page turner and I hope you all
enjoy it. Well, that one sounds fun, That one sounds uh,
you know, it's a little sort of time travel thrown
in there. I knew that she is a fan of that,
(20:25):
even in her own writing, So yeah, be interesting to
check out. All right. Up next, we're gonna hear from
David Barnett, who is an English journalist and author. You
may have seen his work and wired, Uh, the Independent,
and he's also a regular contributor to Tour Books, the
blog over there which it covers a lot of fantasy,
sci fi literary stuff. And I actually block a little
bit over there at tour Um, so I said, hey,
(20:47):
well it's let me reach out and see whoever at
tour will be interested in talking to us and sharing
some work with us. David also is a novelist. He's
written the books The Hinterland, Angel, Glass, Pop Cult, Don't
Let Them Take You Alive and Uh. He also has
a book called Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl, which
is alternative history, steam bunk Victorianism, just a lot of
(21:08):
fun stuff thrown in there. And he has some some
more horror themed books for us for those of you
who want something a little spooky or a little grimmer
for your summer reading. So let's hear from David. Hello.
My name is David Barnett, and I'm an author and
journalist based in the North of England, where I live
with my wife Claire and our children Charlie and Alice.
(21:30):
The first book in my alternate history Victoriana series, Gideon
Smith and the Mechanical Girl, is published in September by
Tall Books in the US and Snow Books in the UK,
and you can find my writing on science fictional matters,
among other things, at Tall dot com and other places.
(21:51):
I'd like to recommend for your summer reads a couple
of books that are very different but which could be
said to be thematically linked. They're all horror books, and
although at least two of them do actually deal with
a supernatural, they're all notable for routing their individual horrors
very much in the real world by way of a
(22:12):
firm grounding in science. The first book I'd like to
talk about is Red Moon by Benjamin Percy, which was
published in May. Red Moon is in essence a werewolf book,
but Percy kind of expertly brings his wolf men and
wolf women out from the shadows cast by the full
moon and puts them under a very contemporary and scientific spotlight.
(22:35):
In the world of Red Moon, werewolves or likens as
the non to the general public, aren't the product of
the occult or the supernatural, but rather those who have
been infected by a prion based BSc type disease. This
can and is often passed on by way of a
bite in the traditional werewolf style, or by other sharings
(22:58):
of bodily fluids. As as Percy goes into quite a bit.
He is an associate editor for Esquire Magazine. Is writing
is very cool and assured and sexy. Red Moon is
set in the modern day, but in a world that's
been greatly changed by the existence of Likens for a
century or more. So. It's kind of alternate history, retrofitted
(23:22):
history in itself. In the present day of the book,
Likens our government registered. They have to keep the transformations
under control with strict usage of government proved drugs. There's
actually a Like and Homeland, which is created from a
vast tract of wasteland between Finland and Russia, where American
(23:42):
martial law is established to look after things. Western companies
mind the rich uranium reserves. Their American troops are actually
fighting kind of an Afghanistan style war against Like and
Rebels in the mountains of this early godforsaken landscape, and
Red Moon kind of is about how the Like and
(24:03):
Rebels are bringing the war home to America and the
Lins in person's book kind of double for any number
of ethnic or minority groups, and their history in the
US has parallels with the civil rights movements of the sixties, Islamophobia,
fundamental terrorism in the present day pro fight. It's a
very kind of post nine eleven sort of book, and
(24:26):
Percy quite deftly tells all sides of the story by
following different characters with different objectives, different viewpoints. So there's
very much an anti like and senator who's running for president.
There's a young guy who's the main focus of the
book whose father is away with the army fighting in
(24:47):
the like and homeland, and there's a young woman who's
her self alike, and and all these stories, as you
would expect, come together for a fairly explosive climax. And
it's a very ns blockbuster of a novel, as much
a political thriller as it is a horror novel. I think.
Another book which is heavy on the science, though it
(25:09):
does bring supernatural elements to the four quite more than
Red Moon is Revivor by Seth Patrick, which is out
in the middle of June, and this takes another standard
horror trope, which is people who can talk to the dead,
which we've seen a lot in movies and books, but
it gives it a very smart and glossy modern twist. Basically,
(25:35):
revive a twelve years or so before the action in
the book, the world discovers the existence of these people
who can, by touching the hands of the flesh of
the dead shortly after they've died, have conversations with them
temporarily bring them back to life, only for a few minutes,
but it enables them to have brief conversations with them. Obviously,
(25:58):
this is greeted with a wide range of panic and
then interest and curiosity, but it isn't very long before
the military and the police applications of this come to
the fall. So by the time the action in the
book takes place, which is so modern day criminal investigations,
(26:19):
homicide investigations especially heavily using revivers. They can bring murder
victims back to life at the scene for a few minutes,
and those mode of victims can immediately identify their killers,
so it changes the whole face of criminal investigations. The
book follows a guy called Joan and Miller who was
(26:40):
a forensic reviver. He's brought into murder scenes to question
the newly dead about the moments that led to their killings.
It's it's quite tough, demanding work. It really takes it
out of these revivers that these guys doing this, It
really sort of hammers them both psychically and psychologically and physically.
(27:01):
Jonah finds himself increasingly troubled by the revivals he is doing,
not just because of the exhaustion it brings on, but
because he can't shake the feeling that when he starts
to temporarily revive the dead, there's kind of some other
presence that's lurking on the edges and wanting to come through.
It's revives great edge of the seat read which possibly
(27:22):
owes more to shiny, high tech TV crime shows than
a traditional horror. It's kind of like C S I Zombie,
something like that, Patrick pals On. The tension doesn't spur
the shocks, and it keeps the revelations coming thick and fast.
So it's a really good summer blockbuster read again. The
third book I'd like to do our attention to is
(27:43):
one that has been it a little longer than though
that those of us. It's called London Falling by Paul Cornell.
Now this is much heavier on the supernatural, but it
does taken a lot of scientifics the side of it,
not so much with the technical side of things, but
more in the science of police work really, So it
(28:04):
has some parallels with Reviving that it concentrates on the
police work and how that is linked to the supernatural
in this story, but it's much much grittier, much more
down to earth. It uh, It's London Falling, concentrates on
the science really of old school policing as seen through
the eyes of a bunch of coppers in present day London.
(28:26):
Paul Cornell is perhaps more well known for his comic
book work. He's currently the addor of Wolverine from Marvel,
and he's also a lot of TV work, written some
Doctor Who episodes, and this is his first novel and
it's very accomplished, inspired and genuinely scary. I think, possibly
more scary than the other two books, which are more
(28:49):
thriller type novels, but this, this, I think ticks all
the old style horror boxes. The story follows this team
of police detectives and they're investigating series of child disappearances
in London, and they slowly become to realize that This
is looks like the work of a woman who should
be along dead, and she's got some strange links to
(29:11):
an English football team that's socked team for American listeners,
west Ham United, and it sounds quite odd on paper,
but Cornell really pulls all these strands together. It's very British,
though in in my copy he does helpfully provide a
glossary of terms at the back of the book that's
perhaps as much for other English readers as it is
(29:33):
for American readers because a lot of its London Company
Eastern type stuff. So it's quite interesting that respect, and
it's very um It would possibly appeal to anyone who
may have enjoyed Hell Blazer John Constantine comics from Vertigo.
It's that kind of rough and ready sort of horror,
(29:54):
and if anyone out there remembers the Sweeney the older
seventies British Cops show with JOHNA. Thorne Dennis Waterman, it's
that kind of don't and dirty vibe with this gritty,
grimy urban horror. And there's a there's an amazing revelation
involving one of the main characters which absolutely not my
socks off when it comes and I bet it does
(30:15):
the same friend on Nels who reads it as well,
And so those really am I recommended summer reads. There
perhaps a little dark for summer, but I think they'll
definitely stick in your mind. And the perfect beach reads
to my mind. Cool. Well, I you know, I'm particularly
interested in Benjamin Percy's Red Moon, the idea of taking
taking the werewolf myth and then explaining it with a
(30:37):
little science, throwing in some pyon diseases in there. It's
I love new takes on old monsters. Yeah, and well,
the werewolf is I think just a great classic monster.
So anyway that you can sort of get to that
story in a new and refreshing way, I'm all for that.
Let's go on to our last contributor. Here is Christen Conger,
(30:58):
she of Stuff Mom Never Told You. He has a
great recommendation, and here it is. Hey, this is Kristen Conger,
co host of Stuff Mom Never Told You, and my
summer book reading recommendation is Breasts, A Natural and Unnatural
History by Florence Williams. I literally took it with me
(31:21):
to the beach last week when I went on a
brief vacation and dived right into it and it's a
fascinating look at both the evolution and science of human
breasts and also our cultural associations with it. How breast
implants became a thing. Hint it has to do with
paraffin injections, yikes. And Florence Williams is a great job
(31:45):
using really engaging language to draw you into not only
the science but also the cultural history of breasts. So
if you want to bring a book to the pool
side or beach side with you that Mike get some
looks because it does say press on the cover. I
highly recommend it. It's a really great read and it
(32:06):
appeals to the brainier side and also the lady's side,
And so yeah, check it out. Florence Williams Breasts and
Natural and Unnatural History. Well, there you go. The science,
the biology, the history of breast sounds like a good
place to to end out the podcast. I cannot actually
(32:28):
wait to check out this book myself, because I think
that it's one of those things that well, you can't deny.
All of us have breast real female right so um
as we discussed in our milk episode, and men have
all the same equipment and under the right circumstances can
certainly lacktate as well, so we all have breasts well
and culturally this is a huge thing right for us. Um.
(32:52):
Sorry that there's I feel like there are breast chips
right there in the surface and I will try not
to touch them. But well, there he goes again. Uh So, anyway,
I just wanted to point out that on Slate this week,
one of the top performing articles was about bras and
about how there's new sizes something like ten different new
sizes that are coming out because apparently the broad industry
(33:15):
is servicing women in an all together wrongheaded manner um.
And I thought that was fascinating. I thought this one
article on sort of revamping the bra industry is number
one for this week on Slate. Well, it directly influences
like half the population, So there you go. That's right.
(33:35):
Well awesome. Well, I would like to personally thank all
of the the individuals who took time out of their
schedule in house or elsewhere in the world and on
other continents to to talk with us, to think think
it over and come up with some books and and
share you know, their their ideas and share the stuff
they love with you. Guys. I think it's it's easy
to overlook how cool that is because so many times
(33:56):
people who produce content, uh, you know, you get pped
up in in your own stuff, creating your own stuff,
promoting your own stuff, and it's it's it's really cool
when somebody takes some time to say, you know what,
this is the stuff I love that influences me, but
it's not of me, and I would like to to
share it. So so thanks to to everybody who who
chimed in. As for the rest of you, uh, some
(34:18):
of you are probably wondering, oh, what was that book
that that food was talking about? What was the name
of that author that that that conger or or Lauren mentioned,
how do you spell that? Well, be sure to go
to our website, Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com
and that's where everything is. That's our mothership. That's also
where the blog posts are. And there is a blog
post accompanying these episodes that will have a complete list
(34:38):
of all the book recommendations, both the ones that that
Julie and I made in the previous episode and the
guest recommendations in this episode, all and went easy to
handle list with links and everything that you could desire.
So be sure to check that out. You can also
check us out at various social media outlets. We're on Facebook,
We're on Twitter, We're on tumbler, and on YouTube. Are
(34:59):
handle is mind Stuff Show. And please do share your
thoughts with us on the recommendations that we gave, recommendations
that our guests gave, and what you also recommend and
you can do so by sending us an email at
below the Mind at Discovery dot com. And I'm going
to close out here with just a little bit of
music from DJ Food from his album two thousand and
twelve album The Search Engine, which is amazing. You should
(35:22):
check it out. More information about it at DJA food
dot org or Ninja tune dot net. This track is colors.
Beyond the colors at the upper end of the electromagnetic
spectrum is energy of short wave length and very EMag
frequency gamma raised X ray and dra a violet rate.
For more on this and thousands of other topics because
(35:44):
it how stuff works dot com. Next comes the end
of energy. We can see with violet light at the
high energy and to bend down to the green yellow
our ange and read at the low frequency end below
the bed, we can again no longer see the An
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas and
this is our second summer Reading episodes for this year. Again.
Last year we did an episode where Julie and I
(00:24):
shared some some recommendations a little science a little fiction,
a little science fiction for our more enlightened listeners, to
listeners out there who might want to read something during
their travels around the beach. Everyone seemed to get a
kick out of it, so we thought, let's do it again,
except let's do an extra episode where we we have
some guests come on and shared their ideas of about
what you might want to read this summer. Uh so
(00:45):
that's what this episode is all about. We have three
external guests from the outside world and three internal guests
from how stuff works dot com. Mry guests, yes, but
pretty soon not so much a mystery. So we're gonna
kick things off here with an external guest. The man
by the name of DJ Food also goes by the
name strictly keV. He is a UK DJ, performing artist
(01:09):
and overall connoisseur of all things weird and wonderful in
the areas of music, comics, sci fi needs to say.
Food has a really busy schedule, but I said, hey,
I'll reach out to him. He's he's involved in all
these very cool projects. He's he's constantly keeping track of
interesting books, interesting music, interesting comics on his website dj
food dot org, where he's constantly sharing his his own music,
(01:32):
his own mixes, his uh stuff about his lawyerst album,
as well as all sorts of cool comics, lots of
cool design stuff. Highly recommend checking that out. And now
let's hear from the man himself with three recommendations for
your summer reading. Hi, I'm DJ Food otherwise owned a
strictly keb and I'm here to present it three things
to blow your mind. First off, I've got a great
(01:53):
book called King City by an artist in rights called
Brandon Graham who's kind of tearing things in the comics
world at the moment. For the company image, King's City
is I think twelve issues collected of a comic that
completely passed me by. The story is revolves around a
number of people who live in King City. The city
is kind of the star of the book, but there's
(02:15):
a guy who's a cat master, who's kind of like
a ninja master of a cat that can do all
sorts of crazy things and change its body and stuff.
And there's an adventure of him, and there's a venture
of his ex girlfriend. There's eventually his friend whose name
escapes me now. But one of the things I like
about it is there's masses of detail on every page
and suddenly you'll dip into a cross word or join
(02:38):
the dots page or a game, even on a double
page spread. So it's a very unique way of storytelling
and it's a good page turn. So if you think
you know comics, you know, if we both know, I'm
sure everyone your your listeners know that it's not all
about d C and Marvel and guys and tights and capes.
This is this is something that anyone could get into.
(02:58):
You never have to really read a comic, mer are
It's not just a guy thing you can except you
know easily, girls can get into it, no problem. So
there you go. Not a very description, but it's it's
a very unique comic. So that's my first one. The
second one is another huge book copendium by Julian Cope.
You might know Julian Cope, the should I say rock
(03:19):
star singer artists recording artist spun to fame over here
anyway in the UK with the teardrop explodes. Um. He's
also a very good writer. If you ever find his
biography head on, it's well worth reading. But this is
something else. It's it's a collection of his album reviews
he used to do on his website, sort of arranged
in the sort of chronological alternate history of rock writing
(03:44):
from the last half of the twentieth century. It starts
at the end of the fifties. We all know the
accepted classics of rock led Zeppelin, the Who, the Beatles
of Stones, etcetera, etcetera. This is an alternate version of that.
It's um the things that fell under the radar, the
weird and the one for all the private pressings, the
oddities that he thinks that just as worthy as any
(04:06):
Beatles album but never got the kudos. So um, it's
a very very readable book. Again, he's got an excellent
turn of phrase, a sort of mixed of sort of
Hippie and Celtic if that makes any sense. And just
I always enjoy reading his stuff. As I said, his
biography head on is incredible. Um, he's had a very
(04:27):
interesting life and he's got a very unique tape on music.
It's as good as any writer you're reading the Music
press or on online Indium and Expedition into the Rock
and Roll Underground by Julian Cope. And last, but not least,
we have Watching the Watchman by Dave Gibbons, designed by
Chick Kidd and Mike Essel. And I'm sure a lot
(04:49):
of readers or listeners would know Watchman the comic Animore
and Ve Gibbons classic, you know, one of the first
graphic novels in inverted commas. This is a huge each
cover table book which basically explores the artwork at the
background and the genesis of the whole thing, including never
seen before artwork, preliminary designs, layouts for pages, promotional items,
(05:12):
original drawings, merchandise, the whole thing from start to finish
in order of the creation of Watchman by Dave Gibbons,
laid out superbly by the designership Kid with lots of
very very magnified illustrations splashed across the pages so you
really get into the grain of the book, and running
commentary by Dave Gibbons talking about the genesis of the book,
(05:35):
how he put it together, how we designed things, lots
of little clues which I'd never seen in the original
comics that he put in for people to find, and
just a very interesting historical look back at the classic
basically the making of a classic, and how the comics
industry changed from the beginning of the book to two
years later when it finished and it was it literally
(05:56):
did help change the comics industry overnight. Cool. I think
those are all three very interesting recommendations there. I was,
of course, I'm familiar with Watchman. Everyone I think it's
familiar with Watchman at this point, a very important comic book.
And uh, and it would be interesting for anyone out
there who's a fan to check out, um this this
(06:16):
new volume that gives even more visual insight into that world.
And uh, the other comic that Food mentioned, King City,
I have not read, but wow, I was just looking
at some of the visuals from this and it looks phenomenal.
One of the skills we were looking at here involved
like a space suit and kind of adorable cats crawling
all over the place. It's it's really wonderful looking. And
(06:40):
as far as Julian Cope goes, I think you had
some experience. Yeah. Yeah, Julian Couple was definitely in heavy
rotation some number of years ago in our household. And
I have to say, my husband's kind of mixed mixed
master and he's the person who curates the music in
our house. So um, I think that this will be
in an awesome there's day present for him because he
(07:02):
is a huge Julian Cope fan. And now I have
absolutely like, I mean going home after this and I'm
gonna put some Julian Cope in rotation because I that's
some good stuff. So I can't wait to check that out. Now,
since that book deals with with music, I would like
to play just a quick clip from DJ Foods two
thou twelve albums The Search Engine, which includes this track
the Electric Hoax featuring Natural Self, which really seems to
(07:26):
to summon some of the vibes that are discussed in
this in this book. Yeah ye see. And next we
(08:08):
are going to listen to Lauren vogel Bond's recommendations. She
is the co host of tech Stuff and forward Thinking
and just all around wonderful person. Yes, definitely a bookworm.
So when we set out to do this episode. I
was like, well, we gotta ask Lauren, because she's one
of these people that will bring you books and set
them on your desk and uh and and give you
(08:29):
strong recommendations on one which you need to read. And
so she has a couple here for you. Hey. There,
I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. I'm the co host of tech Stuff
and also Forward Thinking, and I've got a couple of
recommendations for your summer reading list. This first one is
a book that you'd find in the Kids too Young
Adults section, but I think it's a good choice for
(08:49):
all ages. It's called The Gate. It's by John Connolly,
and the reason that I'm recommending it is Okay, the
crux of the plot of this book rests on two things,
large Hadron collider and a demon horde that is trying
to come through it in order to take over the world.
And that seems like prime stuff to blow your mind
fan material right there. The language in it is is
(09:12):
really just cheeky and hilarious. It's got science and fantasy.
There's a ton of footnotes, all the stuff that I
really love in a good young adult book about demons
and science, and at its core, it's it's really about
a very clever boy and his extremely brave docs, and
it's it's heart woman and wonderful and uh, if young
(09:33):
adult is not necessarily your thing, Connolly has a lot
of other books for children and adults, and I recommend
most of them. My second wreck on the list is
called The Magicians. It's by Love Grossman, and this one
is for grown ups only, or mature audiences or immature
mature audiences. I'm never really sure why mature is the
word that they choose to use when they're saying that
(09:54):
there's sex and alcohol use in a book. But it's
sort of like if Harry Potter had been set in
college and involved an extremely disaffected main character. The reason
that I'm recommending this one specifically is that, um, it's
got a system of magic in it, and uh, the
magical ability in this universe is based on a level
(10:16):
of creativity and intelligence in a person, in addition to
a a psyche breaking level of study that essentially renders magicians, uh,
not really operating under the normal confines of what we
would call sanity anymore. And to me, that's fascinating watching
these characters kind of go through this process and deal
(10:37):
with it and also deal with normal coming of age,
growing up sort of things. Also with within the story,
there's there's a series of fictional books about a magical
land called Philery, and this is a direct parallel to
the Narnia land and books and theories by C. S. Lewis.
When I was a kid, I loved Narnia, and the
protagonist of the Magicians was a huge fan of the
(11:00):
Philery books when he was a kid, and it becomes
really a very important part of the story. And just
watching what Grossman does with that source material, if you
know the Narnia books, becomes immensely fun. The book is
dry and very rilely funny and very poignant. It's it's
beautiful and heartbreaking and winds up being very hopeful in
(11:23):
in strange and lovely ways. Also there's a sequel and
that is on my summer reading list. So I hope
that you guys check out one or both of these.
If you do, tell Robert and Julie how you feel
about them, or if you want to, you can drop
me an email. You can reach me at tech stuff
at Discovery dot com, and I would love to hear
from you and uh yeah, enjoy your summer now. I
(11:45):
think it's it's awesome that she she brought up The
Magicians by Love Grossman because my wife just finished reading
this book and is already on the second book that
it follows it, and just just a word of caution.
When she was first reading it, I had actually given
it to her as a birthday gift, so she first
when she first started reading it, she was like, you know,
it's it's all right, It's all right, And then she
(12:05):
definitely reached a point where then she was just just
completely obsessed with it. Uh. And this is this world
of magic that it creates. So um So if you
pick it up and it's not getting you right away,
just just wait because if this test case proves to
be accurate, um, it will get his hooks into you. Well.
I kind of have a hundred page rule, Like if
(12:25):
I'm hundred page pages into it and it's not really
gripping me, then I kind of feel like, Okay, maybe
it's not the thing for me. Although I really do
prefer to finish a book. Yeah, and its entirety, but
I do feel like sometimes it takes a while for
the author to kind of get into the material and
lay it all down to where you're you're firmly set
(12:45):
in the trap. Yeah, I feel like a hundred page
rule is pretty fair because because on one hand, you
don't want to quit books and put them back on
the shelf or return them unfinished, and you know, you
want to get your money's worth out of it. You
don't want to be a quitter. But on the other hand,
life is short. You can only read so many books
in this life, and it's just not worth it to
struggle through when you're not enjoying. And I know people
who refuse to give up, like it'll be for months.
(13:08):
They're complaining about this book they're reading, and you're you're like,
don't finish it. What are you doing? I've done it
twice twice. One was a book that had been us
in the title, and I can't remember it, but I
was just I think I actually threw it across the
the room, um. And then the second one. And I
would love to pick this up sometime when I have
like one thousand weeks in a row just to do nothing,
(13:32):
and that is the infinite just which I think. I
was on page two hundred and eighty and then I went, Okay,
I can't. Yeah, and it was. And it was so
frustrating to me because this story, the characters were very intriguing,
but there was so much bobbing and weaving between that
I kept feeling as though I was dumped on the
(13:53):
side as a reader and would have to keep sort
of picking back up. So emotionally, I was like, oh,
but I was really invested in this, sorry, and here
I am in some other world. Well, you know, it's
I'm a big believer in the right book for the
right time. You know, sometimes it'll it'll be a great book,
and it will even be a great book for you,
but you have to be in the proper headspace for it.
You've got to have the right appetite for it at
(14:14):
the time. I mean, we all have those books on
our shelves who are like, oh, I really would love
to read that, but it's just not time yet. I
would love to hear from a listener who has read
Infinite just all the way through, and I would love
to know whether or not it really lives up to
the hype, Like if you put one thousand pages of
reading into it, will you feel like you had a
return on investment. On the other side, so if anybody's
(14:36):
out there, let us know. Alright, up next, we're gonna
hear from Mary Roach, who was, of course the author
of Stiff Spook, Bonk Packing from Ours and most recently Gold.
Of course you've heard us talk about golf. You've heard
us interview Mary Roach about this book. Uh. And and
we we we read it and ended up doing a
number of episodes on Digestion as a spinoff from it.
(14:56):
So of course we highly recommend any book by Mary
Roach Beach. But but we we also in our recent
talk whether we asked Mary, it's like, well, what books
are you excited about? Because I'm always interested in that,
you know, what's feeding the minds of the minds that
feed us. Uh. And she had a couple of really
tantalizing suggestions for your summer reading. There's a book that
(15:18):
is coming out by John Mullum uh M O O
A L. L. E. M. Called Wild Ones. And John
Lallum he wrote, I don't know if you saw it
was a cover story in the New York Times magazine
about homosexuality and animals and people who study it. And
and he is just the most amazing in terms of
his research, his ability to write beautiful essay and this
(15:41):
it's just this writing style, and it's this wonderful book. Well,
it's about how endangered species and and and basically humans
and how we see animals and what we decide to
save and what we don't decide to save, and just
the the unique views of humans, the approach towards different
(16:03):
animal species over the years. And it's very hard to
describe that book in a way that captures the sparkle
and interests of it. Anyway, I love that book and
that is coming out, I believe in May. Yeah, so
that's coming up. I'm trying to think what else I've
seen that is coming up. Rose George who wrote that
(16:24):
wonderful book on that called The Big Necessity, which I
had to do with poop and sanitation and the global
need for clean bathrooms. A lovely science writer, fascinating book,
and she has a new one coming out on shipping
global the world behind the scenes world of shipping, which
is not science, it's not exactly science, but in terms
(16:46):
of how things work. Just I can't wait to read it,
just just because you know, everything's shipped and it's this
sort of secret network that's out there and nobody really
knows much about it, and she spent a year on
ships and in shipyards and really uh sharreting that out.
So I'm looking forward to that one very much too.
(17:07):
So there, yeah, there you go. Uh. That shipping book
sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, as of the publication date of
this particular episode, that book is not out yet. Definitely,
as you're listening to this in the future, uh, it
is probably already available, but as of now, you're gonna
have to wait on that, and instead you'll have to
go after The Big Necessity, which seems like an awesome
(17:30):
book on its own, very interesting. Um. I also wanted
to point out that Rose George was a war correspondent
and she also has a book out on refugees, so
it seems to me like she has covered the spread
no matter what the topic, as she does some deep
dives on that and John mullum um the Wild Ones book.
I can't wait to pick that up because I keep
(17:51):
thinking that that would be a really nice companion book
to the book we discussed last year, which was Some
we Love, Some we Hate, and Some We Eat, which
at our relationship with animals and Malalam just kind of
takes it sounds like a different look at animals and
how we perceive them. And in fact, we have referenced
one of his articles before when we talked about homosexuality
(18:12):
and animals. Very interested to see what other sort of
discoveries he has in that book. Cool, you know, we're
gonna we're gonna take a quick break and when we
come back, we will hit you with three more guests. Um,
just throw them at you, Just throw them at you.
Two of them are going to be in house here
from some House Stuff Works podcasters that you you may
or may not be familiar with already. And then we're
(18:34):
also gonna hear from one more guest. Is Tracy thisling
Tracy alright, color back right after these uh these words.
All right, we're back and uh for this. For this
half of the episode, we're gonna kick things off with
(18:56):
Tracy V. Wilson, one of the long term of Faces
Voices writers here the rock of How Stuff Works. Yeah,
she's uh, she's the site manager as well as co
host of formerly of Pop Stuff and currently of Stuff
you Missed in a history class. So obviously we turned
to Tracy. We know she's a big reader, really into
(19:18):
sci fi and fantasy and writer herself writer herself that
she's an and a poet, and we said, well, hey,
let's uh, let's let's reach it out out to her,
see what she's got. And we just said, hey, whatever
you want to recommend to our listeners, let us have it.
So here you go. Hi. My name is Tracy V. Wilson,
co host of Stuff You Missed in History Class, and
(19:39):
here's my contribution to your summer reading list. It is
a combination of history and science fiction called The Doomsday
Book by Connie Willis. It came out in and it's
about a world where historians study history by actually traveling
back in time to observe things. And in this book,
our histor, Orion, our hero of the story, is traveling
(20:03):
back to the Middle Ages, and she is the first
historian ever to do this. Of course, things do not
go as planned, either in the Middle Ages or back home.
It is a page turner and I hope you all
enjoy it. Well, that one sounds fun, That one sounds uh,
you know, it's a little sort of time travel thrown
in there. I knew that she is a fan of that,
(20:25):
even in her own writing, So yeah, be interesting to
check out. All right. Up next, we're gonna hear from
David Barnett, who is an English journalist and author. You
may have seen his work and wired, Uh, the Independent,
and he's also a regular contributor to Tour Books, the
blog over there which it covers a lot of fantasy,
sci fi literary stuff. And I actually block a little
bit over there at tour Um, so I said, hey,
(20:47):
well it's let me reach out and see whoever at
tour will be interested in talking to us and sharing
some work with us. David also is a novelist. He's
written the books The Hinterland, Angel, Glass, Pop Cult, Don't
Let Them Take You Alive and Uh. He also has
a book called Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl, which
is alternative history, steam bunk Victorianism, just a lot of
(21:08):
fun stuff thrown in there. And he has some some
more horror themed books for us for those of you
who want something a little spooky or a little grimmer
for your summer reading. So let's hear from David. Hello.
My name is David Barnett, and I'm an author and
journalist based in the North of England, where I live
with my wife Claire and our children Charlie and Alice.
(21:30):
The first book in my alternate history Victoriana series, Gideon
Smith and the Mechanical Girl, is published in September by
Tall Books in the US and Snow Books in the UK,
and you can find my writing on science fictional matters,
among other things, at Tall dot com and other places.
(21:51):
I'd like to recommend for your summer reads a couple
of books that are very different but which could be
said to be thematically linked. They're all horror books, and
although at least two of them do actually deal with
a supernatural, they're all notable for routing their individual horrors
very much in the real world by way of a
(22:12):
firm grounding in science. The first book I'd like to
talk about is Red Moon by Benjamin Percy, which was
published in May. Red Moon is in essence a werewolf book,
but Percy kind of expertly brings his wolf men and
wolf women out from the shadows cast by the full
moon and puts them under a very contemporary and scientific spotlight.
(22:35):
In the world of Red Moon, werewolves or likens as
the non to the general public, aren't the product of
the occult or the supernatural, but rather those who have
been infected by a prion based BSc type disease. This
can and is often passed on by way of a
bite in the traditional werewolf style, or by other sharings
(22:58):
of bodily fluids. As as Percy goes into quite a bit.
He is an associate editor for Esquire Magazine. Is writing
is very cool and assured and sexy. Red Moon is
set in the modern day, but in a world that's
been greatly changed by the existence of Likens for a
century or more. So. It's kind of alternate history, retrofitted
(23:22):
history in itself. In the present day of the book,
Likens our government registered. They have to keep the transformations
under control with strict usage of government proved drugs. There's
actually a Like and Homeland, which is created from a
vast tract of wasteland between Finland and Russia, where American
(23:42):
martial law is established to look after things. Western companies
mind the rich uranium reserves. Their American troops are actually
fighting kind of an Afghanistan style war against Like and
Rebels in the mountains of this early godforsaken landscape, and
Red Moon kind of is about how the Like and
(24:03):
Rebels are bringing the war home to America and the
Lins in person's book kind of double for any number
of ethnic or minority groups, and their history in the
US has parallels with the civil rights movements of the sixties, Islamophobia,
fundamental terrorism in the present day pro fight. It's a
very kind of post nine eleven sort of book, and
(24:26):
Percy quite deftly tells all sides of the story by
following different characters with different objectives, different viewpoints. So there's
very much an anti like and senator who's running for president.
There's a young guy who's the main focus of the
book whose father is away with the army fighting in
(24:47):
the like and homeland, and there's a young woman who's
her self alike, and and all these stories, as you
would expect, come together for a fairly explosive climax. And
it's a very ns blockbuster of a novel, as much
a political thriller as it is a horror novel. I think.
Another book which is heavy on the science, though it
(25:09):
does bring supernatural elements to the four quite more than
Red Moon is Revivor by Seth Patrick, which is out
in the middle of June, and this takes another standard
horror trope, which is people who can talk to the dead,
which we've seen a lot in movies and books, but
it gives it a very smart and glossy modern twist. Basically,
(25:35):
revive a twelve years or so before the action in
the book, the world discovers the existence of these people
who can, by touching the hands of the flesh of
the dead shortly after they've died, have conversations with them
temporarily bring them back to life, only for a few minutes,
but it enables them to have brief conversations with them. Obviously,
(25:58):
this is greeted with a wide range of panic and
then interest and curiosity, but it isn't very long before
the military and the police applications of this come to
the fall. So by the time the action in the
book takes place, which is so modern day criminal investigations,
(26:19):
homicide investigations especially heavily using revivers. They can bring murder
victims back to life at the scene for a few minutes,
and those mode of victims can immediately identify their killers,
so it changes the whole face of criminal investigations. The
book follows a guy called Joan and Miller who was
(26:40):
a forensic reviver. He's brought into murder scenes to question
the newly dead about the moments that led to their killings.
It's it's quite tough, demanding work. It really takes it
out of these revivers that these guys doing this, It
really sort of hammers them both psychically and psychologically and physically.
(27:01):
Jonah finds himself increasingly troubled by the revivals he is doing,
not just because of the exhaustion it brings on, but
because he can't shake the feeling that when he starts
to temporarily revive the dead, there's kind of some other
presence that's lurking on the edges and wanting to come through.
It's revives great edge of the seat read which possibly
(27:22):
owes more to shiny, high tech TV crime shows than
a traditional horror. It's kind of like C S I Zombie,
something like that, Patrick pals On. The tension doesn't spur
the shocks, and it keeps the revelations coming thick and fast.
So it's a really good summer blockbuster read again. The
third book I'd like to do our attention to is
(27:43):
one that has been it a little longer than though
that those of us. It's called London Falling by Paul Cornell.
Now this is much heavier on the supernatural, but it
does taken a lot of scientifics the side of it,
not so much with the technical side of things, but
more in the science of police work really, So it
(28:04):
has some parallels with Reviving that it concentrates on the
police work and how that is linked to the supernatural
in this story, but it's much much grittier, much more
down to earth. It uh, It's London Falling, concentrates on
the science really of old school policing as seen through
the eyes of a bunch of coppers in present day London.
(28:26):
Paul Cornell is perhaps more well known for his comic
book work. He's currently the addor of Wolverine from Marvel,
and he's also a lot of TV work, written some
Doctor Who episodes, and this is his first novel and
it's very accomplished, inspired and genuinely scary. I think, possibly
more scary than the other two books, which are more
(28:49):
thriller type novels, but this, this, I think ticks all
the old style horror boxes. The story follows this team
of police detectives and they're investigating series of child disappearances
in London, and they slowly become to realize that This
is looks like the work of a woman who should
be along dead, and she's got some strange links to
(29:11):
an English football team that's socked team for American listeners,
west Ham United, and it sounds quite odd on paper,
but Cornell really pulls all these strands together. It's very British,
though in in my copy he does helpfully provide a
glossary of terms at the back of the book that's
perhaps as much for other English readers as it is
(29:33):
for American readers because a lot of its London Company
Eastern type stuff. So it's quite interesting that respect, and
it's very um It would possibly appeal to anyone who
may have enjoyed Hell Blazer John Constantine comics from Vertigo.
It's that kind of rough and ready sort of horror,
(29:54):
and if anyone out there remembers the Sweeney the older
seventies British Cops show with JOHNA. Thorne Dennis Waterman, it's
that kind of don't and dirty vibe with this gritty,
grimy urban horror. And there's a there's an amazing revelation
involving one of the main characters which absolutely not my
socks off when it comes and I bet it does
(30:15):
the same friend on Nels who reads it as well,
And so those really am I recommended summer reads. There
perhaps a little dark for summer, but I think they'll
definitely stick in your mind. And the perfect beach reads
to my mind. Cool. Well, I you know, I'm particularly
interested in Benjamin Percy's Red Moon, the idea of taking
taking the werewolf myth and then explaining it with a
(30:37):
little science, throwing in some pyon diseases in there. It's
I love new takes on old monsters. Yeah, and well,
the werewolf is I think just a great classic monster.
So anyway that you can sort of get to that
story in a new and refreshing way, I'm all for that.
Let's go on to our last contributor. Here is Christen Conger,
(30:58):
she of Stuff Mom Never Told You. He has a
great recommendation, and here it is. Hey, this is Kristen Conger,
co host of Stuff Mom Never Told You, and my
summer book reading recommendation is Breasts, A Natural and Unnatural
History by Florence Williams. I literally took it with me
(31:21):
to the beach last week when I went on a
brief vacation and dived right into it and it's a
fascinating look at both the evolution and science of human
breasts and also our cultural associations with it. How breast
implants became a thing. Hint it has to do with
paraffin injections, yikes. And Florence Williams is a great job
(31:45):
using really engaging language to draw you into not only
the science but also the cultural history of breasts. So
if you want to bring a book to the pool
side or beach side with you that Mike get some
looks because it does say press on the cover. I
highly recommend it. It's a really great read and it
(32:06):
appeals to the brainier side and also the lady's side,
And so yeah, check it out. Florence Williams Breasts and
Natural and Unnatural History. Well, there you go. The science,
the biology, the history of breast sounds like a good
place to to end out the podcast. I cannot actually
(32:28):
wait to check out this book myself, because I think
that it's one of those things that well, you can't deny.
All of us have breast real female right so um
as we discussed in our milk episode, and men have
all the same equipment and under the right circumstances can
certainly lacktate as well, so we all have breasts well
and culturally this is a huge thing right for us. Um.
(32:52):
Sorry that there's I feel like there are breast chips
right there in the surface and I will try not
to touch them. But well, there he goes again. Uh So, anyway,
I just wanted to point out that on Slate this week,
one of the top performing articles was about bras and
about how there's new sizes something like ten different new
sizes that are coming out because apparently the broad industry
(33:15):
is servicing women in an all together wrongheaded manner um.
And I thought that was fascinating. I thought this one
article on sort of revamping the bra industry is number
one for this week on Slate. Well, it directly influences
like half the population, So there you go. That's right.
(33:35):
Well awesome. Well, I would like to personally thank all
of the the individuals who took time out of their
schedule in house or elsewhere in the world and on
other continents to to talk with us, to think think
it over and come up with some books and and
share you know, their their ideas and share the stuff
they love with you. Guys. I think it's it's easy
to overlook how cool that is because so many times
(33:56):
people who produce content, uh, you know, you get pped
up in in your own stuff, creating your own stuff,
promoting your own stuff, and it's it's it's really cool
when somebody takes some time to say, you know what,
this is the stuff I love that influences me, but
it's not of me, and I would like to to
share it. So so thanks to to everybody who who
chimed in. As for the rest of you, uh, some
(34:18):
of you are probably wondering, oh, what was that book
that that food was talking about? What was the name
of that author that that that conger or or Lauren mentioned,
how do you spell that? Well, be sure to go
to our website, Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com
and that's where everything is. That's our mothership. That's also
where the blog posts are. And there is a blog
post accompanying these episodes that will have a complete list
(34:38):
of all the book recommendations, both the ones that that
Julie and I made in the previous episode and the
guest recommendations in this episode, all and went easy to
handle list with links and everything that you could desire.
So be sure to check that out. You can also
check us out at various social media outlets. We're on Facebook,
We're on Twitter, We're on tumbler, and on YouTube. Are
(34:59):
handle is mind Stuff Show. And please do share your
thoughts with us on the recommendations that we gave, recommendations
that our guests gave, and what you also recommend and
you can do so by sending us an email at
below the Mind at Discovery dot com. And I'm going
to close out here with just a little bit of
music from DJ Food from his album two thousand and
twelve album The Search Engine, which is amazing. You should
(35:22):
check it out. More information about it at DJA food
dot org or Ninja tune dot net. This track is colors.
Beyond the colors at the upper end of the electromagnetic
spectrum is energy of short wave length and very EMag
frequency gamma raised X ray and dra a violet rate.
For more on this and thousands of other topics because
(35:44):
it how stuff works dot com. Next comes the end
of energy. We can see with violet light at the
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