Summer Reading 2014

some of our personal weading recommendations for you. The Stuff to Blow your Mind listener, it's right because summer breeze makes you feel fine blowing through the jasmine of your mind. You want a book to accompany that jasmine of your mind, and we've got a bunch of recommendations here. That's right.

We have As always, we we try and get a collection a little fiction, a little nonfiction, because you know, we don't want just throw a whole bunch of scientific books at you, and we're you know, we're probably not going to hit you over the head with anything to stuffy. But likewise, we know that ourreers have diverse taste and we want to present you with some some fictional selections

as well. All right, so I'm gonna launch and are because I feel like this is probably the best beachiest read if you are going to the beach and you do kind of want to put your brain on on hold for a second, but you're really interested in knowing how some people's brains work when it comes to their art. And I'm talking about this book called Daily Rituals How Artists Work, and it covers everybody from like Gustav Roubert,

Tony Morrison, Hruki Marakami, uh Igor Stravinsky. I mean it's it's got a bunch of selections here that details the sort of habits that these people are made up of and how they create their art. And I find it fascinating because, um, you may have some favorite authors and here are favorite artists or even favorite scientists, and you will find out how they started the day and more importantly, how they obsessed. Because I feel like this is such a great little way to eavesdrop on people and and

find out how they do the thing that they do. Yeah, and just I was glancing through this earlier. Um, it's segmented, correct, Like you can sort of skip through and you can see an individual in the individual's name and hone in on that section, right, Yeah, I mean yes, And it's it's done in little chunks. So again, it's something you can pick up and put down really easily. The writer is Mason Curry, and he collected these. I believe he has a website in which she sorted to detail people's

daily habits, people luminaries mostly. Um, I'll just read this one little bit about Franz Kafka. This is frustrated with his living quarters in day job, wrote in a letter to police Bower in n quote. Time is short, my strength is limited. The office is a horror, the apartment is noisy. And if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible, then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers, so you get insight into their psyche as well as

what their daily rituals are. Yeah, and you can say, hey, his life is chaotic, and he got some stuff done and made a name for himself. Maybe I can do that too. There's even this great bit about Patricia Highsmith, who is She wrote I believe the talented Mr Ripley, about how she had this intense connection with animals, particularly snails, and how she smuggled these snails into other countries by

attaching them to I think under her breast. Good stuff. Wow, so there's another You know, she attached snails to her breasts and she got stuff done. Maybe I can do that as well, improving that's the answer work, all right. Well, the first book I'm gonna bring up is is when you may have heard me talk about a little bit before, and that is Dark Banquet Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood Feeding Creatures by Bill shoot Um. And he has a website devoted to this book, which is dark

Banquet dot com. So this is a wonderful text, very accessible. This is not a stuffy science Texas is a fun science text. The book deals primarily with vampire bats, but it also discusses a variety of natural other natural world blood drinkers, and he goes into the surprisingly interconnected worlds of natural world single of wars, and the mythic world

of humanoid vampires. He gets into into vampire hysteria and in this interesting reality where you had the idea of the vampire um in the West before we'd actually discovered vampire bats. I'm gonna read just a quick little section from this book. Clearly, though, once word of the existence of real vampire bats began to circulate, a new supernatural emphasis on these mysterious and as yet unidentified creatures began

to take shape. Bats living in Europe, where blood feeding species had never existed, were gradually implicated as being vampires. Hysteria and storytelling outpaced reason and science. Though to be frank, science has done a lousy job of getting its vampire

bat story straight. So there's just a taste from the book, Like I said, very accessible, fun and when I ran across it, it it really blew my mind because I was just doing a quick Monster Science Monster the Week post on the blog series where I was just kind of thinking, how would a human vampire have evolved? Uh, the the answer or some suggestion of how this would work would be would would best be found in the evolution of

the vampire bat. And when I was looking for a good source on that, I ran across his text and uh we ended up discussing this in a in an episode on vampire bats. For stuff to blow your mind, go back and listen to that. But essentially, you just get into this crazy idea of in this crazy world where you're you're imagining the evolution of this creature, how does it how does it end up in this scenario where it uh, it takes on blood uh as its

eventual primary mode of feeding itself. It's primary food, right, because as we've discussed before, this is not an easy living. You know, it's not like they found the get rich quick scheme in the in the hunger game that is uh, that is evolution. No, they ended up making a name

for themselves on a on a really poor source of sustenance. Yeah, and I think it underscores this whole idea of of this, this heartbreaking idea when you talk about predation and you talk about being one of the animals and those circles. Because again, we're pretty lucky to have gotten out of this, right that no longer do we have predators going after us.

But this heartbreaking idea where you have to, you know, constantly go after something, tear it apart, take its energy for your own day after day, particularly with these vampire bats, right night after night, you must seek this blood for sustenance. And to me, that underscores the whole predation thing. In the first place. We're all kind of vampires in a sense. Yeah, I know, I'm one of vegetarian so plant vampire. Fine, and their sun vampires so dirt vampires. Good point. Good point.

The next selection here is as a fiction work of fiction. It is called The Girl with All the Gifts by Mr Carey, and I guess you would put this in the sci fi realm um. I don't want to say too much about it because I don't I don't want any plot spoilers here, but it is just it's grabbed me by the khonies, the invisible coonies that I have, and I'm just gonna read this little selection here says every morning Melanie waits in herself to be collected for class.

When they come for her, sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. I mean it just that's the beginning of it. And I'm reading that because I want you guys to understand that this, honestly is something that has completely arrested my attention here. I know that I'm not through it all the way yet,

but it's excellent so far. Josh Weeden has said the story of Melanie that people around her is so thoroughly crafted, so heartfelt, remorseless, and painfully human. That it takes the potentially tired trope of the zombie apocalypse and makes it as fresh as it is terrifying. The story spirals towards a conclusions so surprising, so warm, and yet so chilling, that it takes a moment to realize it's been earned since the first page and even before it left me

sighing with envious joy like i'd been Simmy. Simmy chanously offered flowers and beaten at chess a jewel. So just to give you guys an idea of of what it's about and sort of accolades it's getting. Yeah, it sounds fascinating and I can't help but wonder I did the did the author take this on as a like a challenge to say, I'm going to write a zombie apocalypse novel? Even though that idea there everyone, when with any in irrational thought, is going to say, don't write a zombie book.

Don't whatever you do, don't write a zombie apocalypse. But but then she's she's done it, and she's made it work, and she and done it in in a new and exciting way. Yeah, I was making me think about Richard Mouth heasons I am legend in the same way that you're the internal state of this person is being plumbed to the deepest depths that it's um that you kind of forget that there's this other horrific story that it's

wrapped up And does that make sense? So and I am legend you're this man is so isolated and there's such existential terror having to board yourself up every night to keep you know, the Boogeyman away, that you forget that this is essentially a vampire story. And in the same way, you know, um, the girl with all the gifts is making you forget that this is a zombie story.

Very cool, Very cool. All right, Well, my next reading recommendation is another book that we've mentioned on the podcast, particularly in our Fraggle Rock Troglafauna episode, And this is The Wider Worlds of Jim Hinson, essays on his work and legacy beyond the Muppet Show in Sesame Street. Uh. This was compiled was edited by Jennifer C. Garland and Anissa M. Graham. You can find this in I think it's cheapest as a kindle book. You can order a

physical copy as well. Uh. And I'm not going to read an excerpt but I just want to roll through the titles of some of the colle that essays by various authors just to give you a taste about how how deeply uh these authors dive into the world of Hinton, which you know, ultimately is a very thought out world. I mean, we Hinson wasn't just you know, spit firing some ideas and saying, now, let's make something about some muppets living in a cave. Now, that was a very

nuanced idea. They were setting out to achieve certain things and and relate certain messages to a young audience. Yeah, I mean psychological and talking about the bio diversity is really interesting. Yeah. So you have a four different essays on Fraggle Rock, including um, no sex, please were fragg holes which gets into uh gender and fraggle Rock. Uh, the wonderful Ecology of Fraggle Rock by Justin Verfel that

we are referenced. You see either various essays in here about the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, including uh interpreting the various species in the Dark Crystal and Fraggle Rock, including what was sundered and undone shall be whole Union nature and agra in the Dark Crystal there are some essays about the Storyteller series, which I adore as well. Um, Everyone's Storyteller, the shifting rolls of story storyteller, storytellers and audiences in the Jim Hinson Hour, Uh, there's some stuff

on em and Honor's jug Band Christmas of course. Um. And then there's a let's see a couple here on far Escape as well, including exploring the alien other of far skate human puppet costume cosmetics. So if you are a Hinston fan, if you are a you know, a Labyrinth fan, Dark Crystal fan, Frankle Flan fan, It's, etcetera, this is a book you really should check out because they all all the authors take a deep, loving dive into these creations. All right, And speaking of representations of animals,

my next pick is a non fiction pick um. It's called Wild Ones. It's sometimes dismaying, weirdly reassuring story about looking at people looking at animals in America. And it's by John Well um um who's also the author of the two thousand and ten New York Times piece and Animals Be Gay, which we did episode on based on his writing and research. So I was really excited when this book came out because I think that he has

a very interesting perspective and his stuff is really well researched. UM. I was also very interested in his perspective on the relationship between animals and humans because he comes at it from the angle of In two thousand and ten, he became a father, he became a new parent, and all of a sudden, he was aware of this, this deluge of animal themed things coming into his life via his child. So you know what I'm talking about, Yeah, you get you.

You all of a sudden have five books about animals, You have pajamas with animals on them, you have you know, um songs about animals. And he began to think about this in very serious terms, like what does this mean? This is a very illusory, uh fictional world that we're creating thing for these children. This is a fairy tale about animals when in fact, the actual state of animals and the animal kingdom on Earth now is going to be vastly different. When when you know, my daughter reaches

the age of thirty, polar bears may not exist. So he started to take this on this idea of conservation and extinction, and he looks at I believe it's butterflies, polar bears, and the whooping crane, and follows their specific um trajectories through conservation through um looming extinction, and how humans are are actually trying to affect change. And it does get depressing at times because um, I don't want

to ruin it for people. But the way in which we're going about this, he may argue, is that we may be creating a world that cannot sustain an animal kingdom in earnest as it has in the past. So even trying to conserve animals maybe uh, sort of a zero sum game because we have so altered the landscape and we are squarely in the anthroposyne era in which is the man made era, and we are manipulating everything around us. So it's a good one to read at

the barbecue this summer, that's what you're saying. It is something that you should corner one of her family members about at the barbecue and just depressed the hell out of them. Sounds good, I mean, if you like me. I mean I I like a good sobering read, you know. I mean we're not talking about escapist books here. We're talking about books that they make you think, make you

re evaluate humanities, uh trajectory, your own personal trajectory. Well, yeah, and he's also digging deeper into um, you know, subconscious here too. He's saying, like, why why aren't those polar bears effective anymore? Have their cuteness actually usurped their message or the message that controversations are trying to put out there about habitat loss and extinction, And so it's very interesting.

It sort of talks about how psychologically we are taking all this information in, how it's essentially becoming ineffective and why that is. Anyway, Yes, it's a it's a good read. Now, Julie, I understand that you are about maybe halfway through um watching True Detective, the HBO series right now? Correct, yes, yeah, and you you're enjoying it? Yes? Can you see the spirals in my eyes? So I cannot think of better writing, better storytelling, and also UM stories that hit on a

lot of the things that we talked about. Yeah, I was when when I first started watching it, which was I guess it was like three or four episodes into the run, and I started hearing all the buzz and people were cornering me null here in the recording studio, was cornering me and producer asking me if I was reading, if I was watching at and why I had not watched the yet. It was hitting all these various themes that we've covered before. It was lining up with some

of my own personal interests. So I love the show. And afterwards, I was really interested in the show's creator and writer, uh Nick Pizo Alatta, because clearly this is a guy whose brain is lining up with my own in some respects, and it's created some art that I'm really into. So I discovered his book, Galveston, a novel and uh I very strongly recommended, particularly if you're if you were a fan of a true detective and you want a little more of that kind of flavoring. UM

in anticipation of a second season eventually coming out. Now, I wanna preface and say this is not a book that is rife with a bunch of super mysterious intrigue. There's no there's no mention of Yellow Kings, there's no uh sort of love crafty and sort of elements in the works. Um. But but it does have a lot of the uh, the the feel that you would find

in the in some of the characters in true detective. Now, this novel deals with a character of the name of Roy Caddy who's a criminal, career criminal living in New Orleans and and he finds out that he has a terminal illness, or right about the time that he that, he finds out that his boss is a dangerous loan

sharking bar owner wants him dead. So there's this uh, brutal sequence where he's double cross, barely makes out and makes it out of town with his life and he ends up on the run into coastal Texas with a prostitute and a young girl, and from there it just goes into some very interesting places. I don't want to give anything away, but but you do have a character who's really coming to terms with with what's important in life. What's he gonna do with the rest of the life

that he has here? How does that square with what he's made of his life so far? And it's just beautifully written. Um. I was really impressed with Pizolato's use of language in this novel. Um that the character at times feels like he is kind of cut from the same cloth as the rust Coal character, Like they're like, there may be sort of cosmic twins in some way.

But yeah, beautiful read and at the end I actually ended up tearing up a bit, so I'm not gonna I do have one little section when I read for you. I really want to read you, read you the last couple of paragraphs, but that would be spoiling things. We were silent for a long stretch. Then, with the wind shushing outside and the rhythm of a skier, a cloud riddled heaven sealed the horizon, and I felt like we were bugs crawling along the edge of the world, which

we were in a way. I kept this westward, the sun at our backs, the girl's faces turning sleepy. That old rule came back. You do your own time, not someone else's. But what about after your own time is done? I wondered. I looked down at the little girl sleeping, one fist curled under her chin. Why did you take the silencer off? I asked. Rocky shrugged and followed something out the window. I thought it looked meaner without it, I said, have you ever been to Galveston? She shook

her head. So there's just a taste again already. I'm like, they're in that scene, so yeah, don't go into it. Expecting, you know, another slice of True Detective. But if you appreciate did the writing appreciated some of the feel of that show, then you really can't go wrong with that book. And last I checked, the Kindle version is available for like twine, so you're basically losing money if you don't

buy it. There you go. Alright, So in the realm of fiction, Joyce Carol Oates, the pick that I have here is Blonde. I believe this came out maybe in two thousand. It's an older book, but I wanted to go back to it because I think we were talking about Marilyn Monroe and her breathiness, and that got MA hated thinking, like I really would like to know more about Marilyn Monroe. And Joyce Carroll Oates is one of

my favorite writers. Um. The first time I was sort of indoctrinated with her writing was in a short story where are You Going? Where Have You Been? And that's about a teenager named Connie, and she's got a really bad case of teenager on we at the same time, she's got this burgeoning sexuality that she's trying to deal with. And what I love about this story is that is a kind of coming age story that everybody knows about

that they never discussed. And what I'm talking about here is like the burden of sexuality as a woman and essentially what that sometimes boils down to his predator and prey. And in that short story, um, this guy arnold friend shows up as the predator and this golden convertible and this this gold convertible becomes this kind of like death

chariot for kind. So the reason I bring this short story up is because Blonde is about Marilyn Monroe obviously, but more about that burden of sexuality, and it is just a phenomenal take on this historic, iconic person who is in many ways unknowable and yet somehow Oates has gotten into her internal life, her into her thoughts what I think might be her thoughts, right, and has written this narrative that is so compelling that you think that

you are reading Marilyn Mina Rose diary. And it's starts out with marily Monrose child and follows her through her suicide and it is so gripping I can't even tell you, like it's probably one of the most haunting texts that I've ever read. And I don't know how she did it. I really feel like that's one of those moments where she was struck by the muse and how she inhabited UM, this person who is very much sort of a flat

character force. Right, it's this Um, this woman who is innocence and yet she's the sex kitten, and you see through this, this lens of her life, this other side to her. Maybe how she became Marilyn Monroe and Maril Monroe, by the way, in real life was freighted with all sorts of problems since we know and her mother UM had some very bad mental problems UM that obviously showed

up in Marial Monrose life. Anyway, let me just read this New York Times review real quick, because I think it is pithy, and I will go on and on if I don't stop myself by reading this. So it says, and although sometimes sloppy and sentimental, it is perhaps the most ferocious fictional treatise ever written on the uninhabitable grotesqueness

of femininity. No one embodied femininity better than mal Monroe, who concocted a persona who seemed to exist only for sex and at the same time to be oblivious of it. Who possessed an eroticism that was all responsiveness and no desire. How else to cater to a masculine sexuality that hates itself and demands that females receive and bear away that hatred like dutiful wives cleaning up after a husband's violent binge.

And I thought that was that was great. That really takes the spirit of this book and the spirit of those times in which Miller Monroe um came to inhabit all of these anxieties about sexuality excellent. Well, I have to I have to admit that when I when I first heard about that book, it was hard for me to get excited about it because I love Joyce Carol Oates.

Most of what I've read a verse is uh, you know, strange fiction stories that she's written and u uh and we've read read a longer work or two sort of dealing with with twisted, flawed individuals, um grotesque individuals and so the cell. Oh, she wrote a book about Marilyn Monroe. Just on the surface, it doesn't seem to match up, you know, because I'm thinking thinking, Joyce Carol Oates is on one end of the spectrum. Uh, Marilyn Monroe is on the other and and and never the two should meet.

But but now that you've explained it, I mean it makes perfect since you mentioned the grotesqueness of femininity, so I mean that that bridges the gap right there. So I'm I'm actually more interested in checking the book out

myself now. Yeah. And her narrative techniques are fascinating, and she uses smell a lot, and you wouldn't think that, like, oh, I'm going to read this book about Marin Monroe and there's one of the tropes is going to be smell, and it comes to symbolize and really it even comes to to sort of symbolize, um, Milen Monroe's attempt to try to escape her more working class ressroots, you know, um and then a sent to stardom through the sense

of smell. It's fascinating. But yeah, I mean this is the person Joyce Carol Ows who wrote the book Zombie about dam Yeah, great book. You've read that one, Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, so you wouldn't you wouldn't think Dahmer Marilyn Monroe. But again, it it sounds like it works in her capable hands. Sure. My next selection is one is another one that I would definitely put in this category of the cell maybe not sounding all that great on the surface of things. And the book is sixty

three by Stephen King. Now I'm a long time King fan, so I don't have to come. I don't have to get over a Stephen King hurdle. I think some people have that in their mind, like, here's a very popular author. Uh he's and he's been churning out books like crazy for years. Is he deserving of my attention? I would argue, yes, I think I think Stephen King has has earned his place, uh and has certainly earned his his literary reputation on

top of his commercial reputation. But even m for me, this was a hard sell because the the idea on the book here is, hey, what have you traveled back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination, which of course occurred one It's kind of an interesting thought experiment, you know, you get into what happened, What would happen if you could travel back in time? What would happen if you

change things? The butterfly effect of changing something in history? Um, And that's fascinating, but it doesn't necessarily um connect with me beyond that I like I, so when the book came out, I just kind of noticed that it existed and moved on. And then just in the last fall, I was in a situation where, of course I had a new child in the house. I seemed like I was spending a lot of time, uh, laying on the floor of his bedroom waiting for him to go to

sleep so I could sneak out. And friends sent me a kindle copy of this book, and I started reading it and just could not put it down. It was just it's just highly addictive right from the beginning. There's no there's no hurdle to overcome in reading three because one of the really fascinating things here is, first of all, there's no worrying about time travel science, how you do it? Basically, magic portal opens up. How does it work? Who knows?

Maybe it's a wormhole, maybe it's magic. Don't concern your stuff with that, because it's it's The story is ultimately about more than that. The idea is that this portal only opens up to a period in the past prior to three, and so in order to go back in time and change the past, you would have to go back. Uh you have you have to live in the past, you have to go back into the past and live for like for you know, a year or two to

reach the point where you could change history. And there are these added complications and that you get into the idea that the time stream is like it's like a river, and to try and divert a river, there's there's resistance. So our character as he goes back in time and ultimately sets out on this quest to change history, he begins to encounter resistance to the change. So he's trying

to be injected out of that time stream. Um, yeah, to to a sense, it's sort of like there's so much writing on the way things work that there's a resistance to making small changes in the time stream, but he's trying to make a large one, and in doing so, the forces against him are are almost immeasurable. So it's, uh, it's a fascinating read. It's really one of the best

King books I've read in quite some time. So they recommend, well, yeah, and I think that again, he is someone who is also just a master at his craft, and so I can't imagine a bad turn at a character or even just a plot line with him. And you also learned way more about the Kennedy assassination than you ever thought you wanted to know. Okay, that means that you can drop in on those conspiracy theory chat rooms, right, Yeah,

and then you know what they're talking about. You know who some of these figures are because they show up as figures in this book because part of it too. If the character goes back in time and he's not certain there's no one, they think there's like a nineties something percent chance that it that it is just the

lone gunment theory. But what if you don't want to go back and and kill Lee Harvey Oswald if there's even like a two percent five percent chance even that he's not the guy, and then ultimately you wouldn't be able to change your history anyway. Yeah, and by the way, Marilyn Monroe is wrapped up into this as well, So

you have fitting fitting pair of books there for the summer. Indeed, all right, My last pick here is Cabinet of Curiosities, My Notebooks, Collections and Other Obsessions by Guiannimo and Mark Scott Zacrie. And this was actually a book that I got for my husband because um, he likes Del Toro and he really likes a lot of this for I don't know if you would call it this like monster aesthetic, an art, grotesque ery. I don't know, but I've been

pouring through it. It is kind of a much bigger, deep than that Daily Ritual's book I was talking about where you get to appear into artist lives. Here is this this really like lens into del Toro's life. You get to see his collection, just stuff that he collects. In fact, I'm looking at this picture right now of a life size sculpture of HP Lovecraft by Thomas Cubler,

which is watching over the horror library at the Bleak House. Um, I mean he has a life size closure of HP Lovecraft leering at you as you walk around the house. Very odd look on HP lovecraft face. And so you also have some of his influences, so Mary Shelley and Lovecraft of course, and Arthur mackin ed Garland Poe is it Macinnermashon, I'm not sure, but author of The Great God Pan which is an extremely creepy short story. Yeah.

So in this sense, I think you get a lot more than you would bargain for from someone who is um a director, right, You would normally think, oh, maybe I'll get a little bit of access to how he works, but no, you get everything. It looks like here um

short of a personal tour of his own home. So I just thought it was great for anybody who is interested in some of the monster science that you have been covering, um, and anybody who is interested in his films, because he's got thoughts for new films kind of scribbled in there, bits of dialogue. Um, He's got other bits of dialogue from plays and from stories that have colored

his perception. And then of course just his sketches are fascinating. Yeah, his sketches are amazing, And apparently when he pitches projects like the sketches are very much a part of it, and they're the sketches sketches are are part of his writing process and a part of his way of of bringing his own ideas together and then ultimately presenting them to the studios. Yeah, so it is really kind of

like cracking up in his brain. You're able to see all his obsessions, his influences, and then how he thinks and his representation of that and sketches is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, not a beautiful but horrifically beautiful. Yeah, that's the thing. He gets horrifically beautiful better than than just about anybody. And I mean certainly see in his work there's there's so much monstrosity. He genuinely loves monsters and understands what monsters are. You see a great deal of Catholic imagery.

Like especially with Blade too. I love that he created a vampire that could only be killed by staking it through the side of the rib cage. Uh as in the same way that Christ dies on the Cross when the spear enters the rib cage and pierces the heart. Uh And he you know, he has his whole, this whole design in place where the bone is u is too solid over the heart so you can only go in through the side. I mean, it's just I love

the man's aesthetic. It's wonderful, which makes it that much more exciting to know that he's working on HP Lovecrafts at the Mountains of Madness. And in fact, there's a couple of pages dedicated to that as well, So that level of detail. Seeing that come across and a film is would be amazing. Yeah, I really, I really hope

that project comes together. It sounds sounds wonderful. Alright. I have one more reading suggestion, and this one has to do with monsters, and it's for young readers, so um uh, this one is certainly worth picking up. It's called Monsters and Water Beast Creatures of Fact or Fiction by Karen Miller,

with illustrations by Sergio Rousier. And this is uh. This looks at a number of different monsters, including Bigfoot, the Big Bird of Texas, hoop Snakes, Mothman, the Jersey Devil, and then the water Beast, uh, Sea Maiden of Biloxi, chant, the Sea Serpent of Gloucester, and the Cadborosaurus. Uh. This is uh. This is ultimately a skeptics book on monsters for young readers. I mean, I mean I enjoy it, so you don't have to be you don't have to be too young to get into it. But it's uh,

it's wonderfully illustrated. It's it's looking at these creatures from a skeptical point of view, but a fun point of view. It's it's you know, it's not full of negativity. It doesn't say don't love your monsters, because clearly this is a book that loves the monsters. While also saying, hey, I can, I can love this and also a lie a skeptic mind to it. So if you have a young reader or not a young reader in your household that is interested in monsters and and has that kind

of skeptical mindset, then I highly recommend it. Indeed, which is actually a good reminder about your monster series called Monster Science. You should check that out on our mind Stuff YouTube channel. Yes, we have six episodes of it, and we're plotting six more. I'll let you know when those come to fruition. All right, Well what about you, Julia, do you have anything you were planning to read later this summer or later this year? Well, what's what's on

the future? What's on the two? Read shell Um The Martian by Andy, We're in The Leftovers by Tom proto which Nolan, producer told me he is actually being made into a series. I believe. Oh. I've seen the ads for it an HBO and I can't tell what it's about except screaming and pain. And I think it's people who suddenly disappear. Really yeah, yeah. I have picked it up in my hands a couple of times and looked at it, and I have bought it yet, but it's on my list very very good. Uh. Two things I'm

looking forward to reading. One, I don't know when this is coming out, hopefully sometime. It's supposedly coming out this year, sooner the better for my taste. And that is The Unholy Consult by our Scott Baker. I've mentioned Baker before on the podcast, probably way too many times. Actually he uh, he's written. He wrote a Disciple of the Dog, he wrote Neuropath, and he also wrote the trilogy The Prince of Nothing trilogy, followed by the the trilogy The Aspect Emperor.

This is the third book in the Aspect Emperor trilogy. These all these uh, the both these trilogies take place in this dark fantasy world that it's created. You can think, think Game of Thrones, but with more sort of dark love Craft I and Clark Ashton Smithy sort of magic

going on. But also Baker is deeply immersed in um in philosophy and neuroscience, so all all of everything he's creating, it's uh, it really like it's not pure escapism because even though you're reading about say, uh, you know, a barbarian on on the planes of some dark fantasy epic world. Uh that that character is is struggling with with the with his own self in a way that really forces you to reconsider uh you know, your own predicament. It's

it's tremendous stuff. I highly highly recommend it, and I'm really looking forward to reading Beyond Holy Consult when it comes out. A bit of nonfiction that I'm looking forward to reading as of this morning is The Body and Pain The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scary.

I heard about this one listening to the episode Unspeakable Acts on the CBC radio program Ideas with Paul Kennedy, which, for for my money, is just about the best uh podcast or radio show out their Ideas CBC Paul Kennedy, check it out if you haven't. But this this book by Scary, apparently, you know, gets into this idea of

pain and torture in a really deep manner. Looking at pain is is frame breaking, context breaking, our difficulty to understand the pain of others, the terrible power of torture to destroy the language. Uh. There's a quote just from the intro of the book where she says, this book is about the way other persons become visible to us or cease to be visible to us. It's about the

way we make ourselves available to one another. So I'm as someone who has late been been interested in elements of torture and pain, this seems like a must read book for me. Yeah. It sounds like she'll be covering the territory of of objectifying someone and creating that space. Yeah, like a very interesting realm to explore. Yeah, she she

speaks in this uh this Ideas episode. I mentioned unspeakable acts, and it's really really interesting to hear her talk about about pain and in these terms that I hadn't even thought about yet. So so yeah, check check out the Ideas of podcast radio show and and check out The Body and Pain if this is the topic of interest to you as well. What does the author's name again? Elaine scary S C A R R. Y Okay, So dominative determinism at work again? Yeah? Yeah, indeed, part philosophical meditation,

part cultural critique. All right, Um, I bet you guys have some books that you would like to recommend, But please let us know, like, what is the number one thing on your list to read or that you would recommend. Either way, we would love to know you can find us, of course, that's stuff to blow your Mind dot com. Yeah, and that's where you will find all our blog post episodes, our podcasts, our videos, as well as links out to our social media accounts such as tumbler, Twitter and Facebook.

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