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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas.

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Speaker 1: We're always talking about books on here. We read books

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Speaker 1: when we're researching podcasts. We're fairly big readers, so we're

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Speaker 1: reading books outside of the office as well. You'll hear

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Speaker 1: us mentioned a title here title there. As the subjects

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Speaker 1: between our work life and our entertainment and personal enrichment

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Speaker 1: reading kind of overlap. So every now and then we

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Speaker 1: throw up book recommendations. You guys write in and ask

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Speaker 1: us about this book or another asked for us spelling

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Speaker 1: on an author's name, and we chat back and forth.

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Speaker 1: And we've been talking about doing a summer reading episode

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Speaker 1: for a while now where we just go ahead and

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Speaker 1: eliminate any other content from a short episode of Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind and just talk about a few

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Speaker 1: books that are both near to our hearts but also

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Speaker 1: near to the heart of the show and close to

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Speaker 1: the themes that we often discuss and Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind. Yeah, and the presumption is that it's summer's

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Speaker 1: coming up, and we're all gonna laze around for at

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Speaker 1: least two weeks, uh, you guys over in Europe, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, a month or two. We'll have some time

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Speaker 1: here to tackle a reading list and hopefully you guys

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Speaker 1: will be interested in some of the stuff that we

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Speaker 1: have to recommend. Yeah, you know, so you can hunt

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Speaker 1: these down, check them out from your library, load them

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Speaker 1: up on your kindle. I can't speak for your list.

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Speaker 1: I know on my list all these things are pretty

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Speaker 1: readily available, so you shouldn't have to do any deep

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Speaker 1: digging to find them. I like dusty books, like to

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Speaker 1: crack them open, so but I'm assuming that most of

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Speaker 1: the stuff is available. Yeah, I mean I do too,

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Speaker 1: though I just switched. I finally jumped on the bandwagon

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Speaker 1: and have a kindle. Now. Yeah, I'm going to get

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Speaker 1: there soon, but it just hasn't happened yet. Put it

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Speaker 1: that way, I mean, they don't smell near is nice.

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Speaker 1: I'm just a cheap jerk and I'm not there yet.

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Speaker 1: Like when it drops to fifty nine, probably without any

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Speaker 1: further ado, let's roll this baby out. Well, I'll go

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Speaker 1: first then, and I'm just gonna let you know most well,

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Speaker 1: all my choices here are actually fiction sci fi kind

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Speaker 1: of books, and you're gonna bring more of the non

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring the nonfiction. There's definitely some nonfiction books

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Speaker 1: that I've been reading or I've read recently, but they're

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Speaker 1: not necessarily things that I would say, yes, you should

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Speaker 1: plow through this as well, because there are books that

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Speaker 1: are informative and enriching and well worth the time you

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Speaker 1: spend with them, but it's not necessarily the kind of

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Speaker 1: thing you might want to take on a vacation with

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Speaker 1: you or you know, squirrel away for a little personal

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Speaker 1: enjoyment reading. Although you might be a nonfiction reader like

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Speaker 1: I am. Mostly I enjoy great fiction, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of times I just like to cozy up to something

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Speaker 1: that's really going to stirre my brain. Said, I don't

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Speaker 1: feel like I'm trapped in a certain world for a

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Speaker 1: certain amount of time, because I tend to when that happens,

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Speaker 1: you know, I get a really good piece of fiction,

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Speaker 1: I want to squirrel myself away for seventy two hours

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Speaker 1: and not eat or drink or talk to anyone else.

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Speaker 1: So that's a really big time commitment for me. So

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Speaker 1: nonfiction I really love because it's a balanced way to

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Speaker 1: consume some really cool bits of information. Okay, Well, my

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Speaker 1: first pick is a non by an author by the

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Speaker 1: name of our Scott Baker. Sometimes he's just so listed

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Speaker 1: as Scott Baker, depending on if you're getting a like

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Speaker 1: a Canadian, British, shore Us version of one of his books.

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Speaker 1: He's the author of a really thought provoking epic fantasy

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Speaker 1: series called well overall. It's called The Second Apocalypse, and

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Speaker 1: that includes the novels The Prince of Nothing. The Darkness

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Speaker 1: That Came Before is the first trilogy in that series,

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Speaker 1: and it's all very thought provoking stuff. He's a philosophy guy.

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Speaker 1: He invokes a lot of neuroscience in his worlds, even

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Speaker 1: if he's writing about a world full of magic. But

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Speaker 1: those fantasy books are not always as accessible, I think

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Speaker 1: to some readers. Luckily, he has written a couple of

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Speaker 1: non fantasy books, and one of these is a book

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Speaker 1: called Disciple of the Dog, and that's the one that

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna recommend here. It's a really fun read. It's short,

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Speaker 1: and it is about a sleazy, pothead private investigator with

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Speaker 1: an abnormal capacity for memory. He cannot forget anything that

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Speaker 1: it's said to him. The capacity doesn't allow him to

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Speaker 1: remember everything that he's read. But if somebody has said it,

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Speaker 1: if he's seen it, then it's cemented in his mind.

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Speaker 1: Is that similar to some people who have ability to

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Speaker 1: recall dates like from twenty years ago or in in

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Speaker 1: the events connected to them. Yeah, that kind of thing

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Speaker 1: should be helpful if you're a private investigator and you know,

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Speaker 1: we've seen this kind of investigator before. To a certain incidentally,

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Speaker 1: give me Sherlock Holmes is the classic investigator character. And

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Speaker 1: certainly with Sherlock, you have a character that has just

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Speaker 1: a phenomenal brain and it distances himself from various human

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Speaker 1: experiences and makes him kind of an enigma to normal people. Well,

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Speaker 1: the character and disciple of the dog who's the character's name,

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Speaker 1: is a disciple manning just kind of gimmicky but fun.

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Speaker 1: He is kind of screw up because of his condition.

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Speaker 1: Like his condition is he cannot forget anything, so anything

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Speaker 1: that traumatizes him is there forever. So he's a character

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Speaker 1: that has had some severe bouts with depression and self

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Speaker 1: loathing based on this ability, but he's also managed to

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Speaker 1: use it for financial gain as a private investigator. And

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Speaker 1: so our Scott Baker injects a lot of philosophical pondering

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Speaker 1: into this because we get into questions that we've raised

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Speaker 1: in the podcast before, to what extent are we shaped

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Speaker 1: by our memory? And what to what extent are we

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Speaker 1: shaped by our memory errors. We discussed the seven Deadly

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Speaker 1: sins of memory, the various ways that we misremember something

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Speaker 1: or alter the memory of something in our head, and

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Speaker 1: these are things that the character Disciple Man and cannot do.

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Speaker 1: So it's interesting to see Baker play that out in

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Speaker 1: the novel and Disciple the Dog. The character is looking

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Speaker 1: into a missing person's case that concerns a new age

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Speaker 1: cult where the believers are of the opinion that it

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Speaker 1: is actually the year A D fifty million, and life

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Speaker 1: as we know it is all just the dream of

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Speaker 1: a quantum computer, and the sun is actually about to

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Speaker 1: swallow the earth as it goes into a red dwarf stage.

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Speaker 1: So you also end up with ponderings about what is

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Speaker 1: our future and the idea that you know, when yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: what would it look like? And ideas that what is reality?

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Speaker 1: You know, what is it possible that reality could be

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Speaker 1: the dreams of a quantum computer? And then this is

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Speaker 1: all just a backward fantasy. The world around this is

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Speaker 1: just this backward fantasy that we project for ourselves. So

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Speaker 1: there are various levels of, to my mind, mind blowing

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Speaker 1: ideas that Baker has fun within this. And then on

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Speaker 1: top of that, it's entertaining because you have a wonderfully

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Speaker 1: sleazy but likable protagonist and you have this now air

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Speaker 1: setting like industrial Jersey, so it's not really a new

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Speaker 1: war setting, but it's got very much a new war

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Speaker 1: kind of vibe to it. Classic detective case, what's gonna happen?

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Speaker 1: He's gonna find the missing girl who's the heart of

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Speaker 1: the conspiracy and all of this. So it's short, gets

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Speaker 1: the point, have some fun with the character and brings

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Speaker 1: with it a lot of floor ideas. I like the

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Speaker 1: dichotomy of a pothead with a really long memory too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a sharp memory. Well, pretty great because it's like the

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Speaker 1: sharp memory is bringing him such trauma. It distanced him

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Speaker 1: from so many people. He kind of has to self

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Speaker 1: medicate through it. Yeah, what's on your list? Okay? Um, well,

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Speaker 1: I have the best nature in science running. That of

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Speaker 1: course is a series, and this particular one is the

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Speaker 1: guest edited by Mary Roach. She's at the Helm there, yes,

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Speaker 1: so she's made a lot of the selections here. You'll

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Speaker 1: probably remember her from books like Stiff Pecking from Mars Bunk.

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Speaker 1: She's just got a really great science journalism pedigree, and

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Speaker 1: I think anybody familiar with her work knows that she

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Speaker 1: has a great sense of humor and the ability to

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Speaker 1: really deliver very accessible points of entry into some weighty subjects.

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Speaker 1: If you go back through the catalog of our podcast

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Speaker 1: far Enough, you're fun an interview with her from back

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Speaker 1: when the podcast was stuffed in the Science Lab. So

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Speaker 1: she's got the selection of different pieces of essays and articles,

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Speaker 1: about twenty five of them. Actually. Some of them are

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Speaker 1: from well known writers like Oliver Sacks and Leonard Lednov

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Speaker 1: and Stephen Hawking, and others not as well known, although

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Speaker 1: definitely up and coming, like Brook Hollard Builder, people making

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Speaker 1: a name for themselves for their ability to reframe our

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Speaker 1: understanding of the subject. In fact, Brook Hard Builder is

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Speaker 1: the writer of the article that has to do with

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Speaker 1: food safety, which right there sounds like incredibly wing. But

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Speaker 1: this guy went into underground food movements like fermenting, which

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Speaker 1: we talked about in a podcast, raw milk, the paleo diet,

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Speaker 1: all these very different sort of movements going on right now,

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Speaker 1: and what could have just been like a story about

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Speaker 1: the safety of food became this incredible matrix of cultural

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Speaker 1: ideas and scientific theories that are proven and disproven. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: that that's why I really love this series is that

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Speaker 1: it does take this sort of everyday stuff and reframe

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Speaker 1: it for us. Another really good example is an essay

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Speaker 1: by jarn Lanier. It's called the First Church of Robotics,

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Speaker 1: and it explores our fascination with robotics. If certainly we

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Speaker 1: have a fascination with it, We've talked about it quite

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Speaker 1: a bit, and our need to project ourselves onto these

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Speaker 1: machines and personify them. And he said that this is

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Speaker 1: all going on at the same time we are increasingly

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Speaker 1: treating our fellow humans like machines. So it's kind of

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Speaker 1: interesting that you have this shift in the way that

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Speaker 1: we are communicating with one another. We're communicating in way

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Speaker 1: set rely on algorithms of technology instead of our own

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Speaker 1: personal humanity. So if he's saying, hey, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: more like a cautionary tale, like it's very compelling. He's saying,

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Speaker 1: let's not deify a machine quite yet doing so just

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Speaker 1: makes us sort of like these grotesque ventriloquists. So that's

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Speaker 1: just another example of one of the more mind blowing

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Speaker 1: aspects of these different essays. Kind of a buffet, right

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Speaker 1: ideas with this you do you do? You could say

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Speaker 1: it's sort of a snapshot of the year of eleven

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Speaker 1: in journalism, and that would be absolutely true. But the

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Speaker 1: fact of the matter is just that a lot of

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Speaker 1: this has to do with topics that have been around.

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Speaker 1: It's not just like, hey, this is the zeitgeist moment

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Speaker 1: right here for this subject. I knew that there's a

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Speaker 1: one essay or that talks about prohibition and about the

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Speaker 1: government's role and actually poisoning ethanol and in doing so

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Speaker 1: taking the lot of many Americans during prohibition, And this

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Speaker 1: is something that's probably not widely known, but here's a

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Speaker 1: piece of journalism sort of bringing up the past and saying,

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Speaker 1: did you know that at one point probhibition and it

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Speaker 1: had taken hold so much of the government that they

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Speaker 1: were actually trying to discourage people by making them really sick,

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Speaker 1: by mixing together ethanol and other chemicals and in doing

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Speaker 1: so poisoning them, which resulted in thousands of deaths. So

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Speaker 1: it does it takes everything from subjects like can animals

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Speaker 1: be gay? To prohibition to even space junk, which we've

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Speaker 1: talked about. And it's very entertaining because it does allow

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Speaker 1: you to enter into these subjects in a way that

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Speaker 1: are very accessible. And I was even thinking about Leonard

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Speaker 1: miledna Of and Stephen Hawking and their essay about m theory,

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Speaker 1: membrane theory or string theory, right, which is this idea

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Speaker 1: that we can get this theory of everything together. They

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Speaker 1: asked the reader to imagine themselves as goldfish looking through

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Speaker 1: the distorted glass of their enclosures, and in order to

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Speaker 1: understand the limitations of this theory of everything that we're after,

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Speaker 1: and they say, imagine the goldfish as they formulate scientific

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Speaker 1: laws from their distorted frames of reference that would always

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Speaker 1: hold true and enable them to make predictions about the

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Speaker 1: future emotions of objects outside the bowl. So they're taking

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Speaker 1: this really cool analogy of us being fish in the

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Speaker 1: bowl and having a distorted view of reality and then

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Speaker 1: this theory of everything and again a really good entry

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Speaker 1: point into this subject matter. So that is why I

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Speaker 1: recommend that book. Well, that does sound like a good one.

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Speaker 1: My next entry in this list is a book called

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Speaker 1: The Wind Up Girl by a Paolo Bassa Gallupi, and

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Speaker 1: this is a really fun sci fi novel and a

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Speaker 1: really thought provoking sci fi novel, and that it takes

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Speaker 1: a lot of our fears associated with our use of

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Speaker 1: science today and extrapolates those into a very engaging, until

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Speaker 1: our extent nightmaric vision of the future. It takes us

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Speaker 1: to the futuristic time. It's a post oil world, so

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Speaker 1: we've used up all of our natural resources as far

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Speaker 1: as oil goes, So the petroleum based system crashes to

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Speaker 1: the ground and suddenly traveling across the globe is severely limited.

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Speaker 1: The world in a way becomes much larger because when

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Speaker 1: we have less ability to travel it and to intraverse it,

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Speaker 1: the distances become vast because we can't just fly around

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Speaker 1: the world in a day anymore. There's no more oil. Also,

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Speaker 1: you have genetically modified organisms, specifically genetically modified crops have

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Speaker 1: backfired in this world to the point where you end

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Speaker 1: up with massive starvations, massive famines, and it's really crippled

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Speaker 1: the world. So in the Wine Up Girl, we find

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Speaker 1: ourselves in Bangkok, Thailand, and this is one of the

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Speaker 1: few places it's us shut itself off from the rest

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Speaker 1: of the world. It's managed to maintain a certain degree

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Speaker 1: of non genetically altered vegetation, that has a certain amount

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Speaker 1: of genetic purity to most of its vegetables, and it's

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Speaker 1: able to feed itself. And you have these outside corporations

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Speaker 1: that are interested, these colary companies they are called, that

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Speaker 1: are interested in infiltrating Thailand and Bangkok and actually finding

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Speaker 1: some of these examples so they can take them out

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Speaker 1: genetically tinker with them. Well, yeah, I mean really, I mean,

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Speaker 1: the bad guys in this the villains are basically sci

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Speaker 1: fi versions of some of the large companies like Monsanta

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Speaker 1: that we have today. And then you also have a

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Speaker 1: character in this book called Imaco, and Imaco is a

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Speaker 1: wind up girl they call it. She's one of the

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Speaker 1: new people. She's a genetically engineered human. She's a very

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Speaker 1: interesting character too, because she's originally bred as basically a

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Speaker 1: pleasure person, like a roxy robot, but flesh human flesh

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Speaker 1: one yeahs trying to say it in an acceptable way,

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Speaker 1: but she's bred for this kind of life, engines up

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Speaker 1: abandoned in Bangkok by her former master, and she's not

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Speaker 1: engineered to really survive all that well, she's been conditioned

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Speaker 1: to be this submissive, servant to businessman thing of pleasure.

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Speaker 1: Her horrors are extra small because it supposedly looks nicer

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Speaker 1: for her to have very poor, less skin, but it

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Speaker 1: also means that she has trouble managing her body heat.

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Speaker 1: And so the author does a gred job of exploring

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Speaker 1: what life might be like for this genetically modified person,

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Speaker 1: what kind of flaws are engineered into her. They call

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Speaker 1: her a wind up girl because she's engineered so that

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Speaker 1: she walks funny, with the idea being that new people

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Speaker 1: will stand out if they're just seen on the streets,

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Speaker 1: so there will be this threat of the new people

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Speaker 1: taking over. And it heart's also just a story about

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Speaker 1: a spy trying to steal something about political corruption and

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Speaker 1: about the crimes of humanity and how they may fall

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Speaker 1: out over the decades to come, what it is to

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Speaker 1: be human too, yea or even subjugated. It sounds like,

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Speaker 1: are there any wind up men? I have to ask?

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Speaker 1: I forget if there are. I feel like there's mention

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Speaker 1: of mercenaries, none that are engineering. It's been a year

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Speaker 1: or two since I read it, but I seem to

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Speaker 1: remember there was a detail about that technically the book

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Speaker 1: is I think they called biopunk, which I'm kind of

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Speaker 1: a critic of overuse of the cyberpunk terminology where someone

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Speaker 1: just puts in another steampunk Yeah, well yes, steampunk, diesel punk.

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Speaker 1: The more something fits one of those classifications, the less interesting.

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Speaker 1: I think the biopunk stuff is really cool though. Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean the potential, I mean people are doing some

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Speaker 1: really cool things with that. But any but but at heart,

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Speaker 1: this book is really interesting because it's entertaining, because it

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Speaker 1: is action and intrigue characters should care about. But it

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Speaker 1: also takes a look at modern day a logical concerns

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Speaker 1: and uses them to create this sci fi future that

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Speaker 1: really speaks to readers today. That sounds really cool. I

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Speaker 1: like the premise of that a lot. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: put that on my list. I gotta say, so, do

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Speaker 1: you go? All right? Well, I think we let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick break and when we get back we will

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Speaker 1: talk about a book called Super Sad True Love Story.

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Speaker 1: All right, we're back, So Super Sad True Love Story.

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Speaker 1: You've mentioned this one before. I have. I've talked about it,

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Speaker 1: like sort of sputtered about it. But I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: this is a good opportunity to talk about why I'm

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Speaker 1: always bringing it up. It's by Gary Steingart and just

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Speaker 1: to fly our little futurists freak flag a little bit higher.

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Speaker 1: It is again, a dystopian futuristic novel not too far

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Speaker 1: in the future that I think they're talking about, maybe

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Speaker 1: fifty years in the future. It is a fiction of

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Speaker 1: work of fiction, of course, and it centers around a

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Speaker 1: character not any enough, Lenny Abramof and he is a

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Speaker 1: mid level drone for a massive multinational corporation in the future.

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Speaker 1: By the way, the not too distant future, like everything

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Speaker 1: is small talent national conglomerate, so it's like kmart g E,

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Speaker 1: something ridiculous, something other, sort of like large company all

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Speaker 1: melded together, which is just again it's extrapolating like what's

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Speaker 1: happening in the present in the fifty years and sort

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Speaker 1: of taking it to the nth degree, which is why

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Speaker 1: it makes it such an interesting novel. Lenny is working

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Speaker 1: in a division of this multinational corporation which promises to

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Speaker 1: help the super rich live forever thanks to nanotechnology and

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Speaker 1: super anti accidents and various other over hyped technologies. At

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Speaker 1: this point, he falls in love with a beautiful young

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Speaker 1: Korean woman named Unice. She lives with him, but and

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Speaker 1: she really provides the perspective of the youth at that point.

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Speaker 1: She's obsessed with consumerism. She's shallow, but she's not shallow me.

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Speaker 1: She's drawn actually pretty well as a character. She's oversharing.

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Speaker 1: She's obsessed with electronic media culture, in which everybody when

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Speaker 1: you go out in public in this future world, everything

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Speaker 1: is revealed about you via this sort of like iPhone

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Speaker 1: looking device hanging around everybody's next and it projects to

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Speaker 1: everybody else's iPhone device. I think it's called apparatus or

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Speaker 1: something like that. Your credit score, your hotness score, every

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Speaker 1: single thing about like, think about every piece of information

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Speaker 1: about yourself that's out there that you could then just

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Speaker 1: automatically transmit to someone. This is what's happening. So something

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Speaker 1: you just posted on Facebook or Twitter. So you walk

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Speaker 1: into a bar and all of a sudden, you can

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Speaker 1: look down at your apparatus and you can see, like

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Speaker 1: what your own hotness score is based on everybody at

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Speaker 1: that very moment looking at you and entering it. So

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Speaker 1: the premise of it is just really interesting. Everyone is

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Speaker 1: divided into high network net work individuals and low net

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Speaker 1: worth individuals um and basically you have a collapsing America

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Speaker 1: which is hugely in debt to China, and it definitely

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Speaker 1: has traces of Brave New World in four And it's

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Speaker 1: the reason I really like it is it could have

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Speaker 1: been watered down satire, but shine Gard is really a

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Speaker 1: very spressive writer, and he builds a very convincing world.

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Speaker 1: So you can easily imagine yourself walking through the streets

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Speaker 1: of New York in this future America where the National

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Speaker 1: Guard is ever present. You've got a collapsing banking system

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Speaker 1: and yet this technology that really turns people inwards so

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Speaker 1: that they're sort of ignoring all these different things happening

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Speaker 1: around them, and really nice cohesive world building by shin Guard.

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Speaker 1: There's also a running gag where the National Guard stops

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Speaker 1: people at checkpoints and they're forced to deny and imply.

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Speaker 1: They deny that a conversation ever took place, and they

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Speaker 1: imply their consent for an invasive search. It is funny

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Speaker 1: because so many times and when you're online you're just

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Speaker 1: agreeing to something. It's very much in that same sort

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Speaker 1: of like, hey, you're agreeing to this right, but you're

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Speaker 1: not really reading it and all right, let's go on

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Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. Document you need to

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Speaker 1: read it before you visit a website, and you just yes, yeah.

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Speaker 1: So again he's taken that idea to the degree and

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Speaker 1: said that you know, you're now you are living in

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Speaker 1: this this very public sphere where everything you do is

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Speaker 1: being met with this idea of you deny and imply,

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Speaker 1: and you're entering into these contracts that you don't even

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Speaker 1: know about and the afterwards. Scheinert says that he read

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Speaker 1: Ray Kurt's Wheels The Singularity Is Near while he was

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Speaker 1: working in the book, as well as our friend Aubrey

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Speaker 1: de Gray. I say our friend because I imagine this

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Speaker 1: as friends, the bearded one, the biogenontologists. His book ending

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Speaker 1: aging the rejuvenation breakthrough that could reverse human aging in

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Speaker 1: our lifetime, and he definitely takes these ideas which are

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Speaker 1: really cool and very cutting edge, but he does look

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Speaker 1: at it through a lens of pessimism. He says, in

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Speaker 1: this future, sure all of this would be accessible, but

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Speaker 1: only to the super rich. Everyone else would be labeled

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Speaker 1: impossible to preserve or I t P in this world.

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Speaker 1: So that's why I think it's interesting. It touches on

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Speaker 1: so many things that we've discussed, and it's done really well. Cool. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's when I really need to add my reading list

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Speaker 1: as well. You've mentioned it, i think in several times

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Speaker 1: in relation to topics we've discussed, and it sounds like

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Speaker 1: it's kind of funny too. Yeah. He's got a great

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Speaker 1: sense of humor and it really is. Actually, I mean,

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Speaker 1: the title is apt It is a love story, but

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Speaker 1: it's it's heartbreaking and it's beautiful, important and terrifying at

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Speaker 1: the same time. Well, my next pick isn't very funny

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Speaker 1: in fact, even though this is an author that I

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Speaker 1: understand has written some things that have a lot more

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Speaker 1: humor and absurdity to them, this is not one of

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Speaker 1: those books. The book is Embassy Town by China me Evil.

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Speaker 1: As we're recording this podcast, it is on the list

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Speaker 1: of nominees for two thousand and twelve Hugo Award. I

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00:20:28,080 --> 00:20:30,240
Speaker 1: have a suspicion it might win it. We'll see how

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Speaker 1: that plays out. This is a science fiction novel takes

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Speaker 1: place in a far future. Humans of colonized distance space

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Speaker 1: and they travel through these kind of a warp situation

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Speaker 1: where they kind of they move through a an alternate

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Speaker 1: dimension to emerge into real space again, and one of

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Speaker 1: the stopovers, well not only stopped over, it t really

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Speaker 1: The Distant Frontier is a planet that has an alien

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Speaker 1: race on it called the Araiki. And in this story

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Speaker 1: we have a human colonist named Abbess returning to this

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Speaker 1: planet in the town their Inbassy Town after years of

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Speaker 1: deep space adventure, and she ends up getting sucked into

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Speaker 1: this adventure and they sell this intrigue between the human

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Speaker 1: colonists and the Iraqis that live there, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of it ends up having to do with language, in

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Speaker 1: the nature of language, and not just ideas of like

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Speaker 1: how might aliens communicate versus humans and how would humans

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Speaker 1: communicate with aliens, So there is a lot of discussion

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Speaker 1: of that. It also gets into just deeper ideas of

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Speaker 1: what language is. For instance, the Arakis in their language,

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Speaker 1: they do not have lies, like they cannot tell lies

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Speaker 1: because built into their linguistic machinery and not just lies,

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Speaker 1: but they cannot speak things that cannot be physically proven,

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Speaker 1: so they end up having to like just to form similars.

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Speaker 1: They end up having to an list actors and sort

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Speaker 1: of construct them out of minor dramas and uh and

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Speaker 1: so it's just thought provoking in terms of it's use

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Speaker 1: of language, and it really makes you think about what languages,

429
00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:58,320
Speaker 1: what lies are, and what the ramifications for these things

430
00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:01,040
Speaker 1: could be when it comes to in contact with a

431
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:04,640
Speaker 1: potential alien species. So I recommend giving that one to read.

432
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:07,040
Speaker 1: It also has a strong female protagonist, which is always

433
00:22:07,080 --> 00:22:09,320
Speaker 1: a nice change for sci fi, and like I said,

434
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:11,200
Speaker 1: it might want a Hugo Award this year. So one

435
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:13,560
Speaker 1: of the more remarkable science fiction books of the last

436
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:16,679
Speaker 1: few years. I really like the idea that aliens couldn't

437
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:19,119
Speaker 1: why because it's not part of the skill set that

438
00:22:19,160 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: they need. And I know we talked about this before

439
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:24,800
Speaker 1: we did a podcast online and how with humans it's

440
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:27,840
Speaker 1: like integral to the way that we enter into social contracts.

441
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:30,360
Speaker 1: You cannot actually be a human really without lying at

442
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: some point however you define lying. Yeah, So that's that's

443
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 1: an interesting premise. Is this added level to where in

444
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:40,520
Speaker 1: order to actually communicate with them, you can't just have

445
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:43,439
Speaker 1: one person trying to speak the Araki tongue. You have

446
00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:46,480
Speaker 1: to have two individuals who essentially have the same mind

447
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:50,560
Speaker 1: that are performing a duet. So, like I said the other,

448
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:52,640
Speaker 1: but in an tremendous amount of thought and research into

449
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 1: language and what language is. So if you're at all

450
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 1: interested in alien linguistics, then definitely give this book a read.

451
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 1: Very cool. Okay, So I have a nonfiction book called

452
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: The Magic of Reality How We Know What's Really True?

453
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: By Richard Dawkins. We've talked about him before, and he's

454
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 1: offered many books. He's a big money time, selfish gene

455
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 1: is one that probably a lot of people know. I

456
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,000
Speaker 1: love this book. I picked it up actually for my

457
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,639
Speaker 1: daughter because I'm creating sort of a library for her

458
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 1: when when she gets older. And she's only three, so

459
00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:26,159
Speaker 1: it's just going to be the official library, or is

460
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:29,399
Speaker 1: this the secret library that you're actually tricking her into reading.

461
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: It's just a bunch of books that she can pick up.

462
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:34,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not gonna say like today we're going

463
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:36,359
Speaker 1: to pick up Richard Dawkins and you're going to go

464
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 1: to page twenty six. It's just a book that I

465
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:42,160
Speaker 1: think would be really helpful for her as she develops

466
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: at different stages in her life. So this book is

467
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 1: actually built for all ages. But I kind of see

468
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:50,400
Speaker 1: this more is like maybe a really precocious, tent and up.

469
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 1: But the reason why I selected this is because Dawkins

470
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 1: basically takes sort of like this whole, like, Hey, here's

471
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: the universe and we're gonna explain it to you now

472
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 1: in no, in certain terms, I mean, it's really cool.

473
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 1: Like he he starts out by talking about magic, because

474
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: magic and magical thinking is very much a human construct, right,

475
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 1: We've talked about this so many times. It can lead

476
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 1: to errors on our thinking, it can lead to beautiful

477
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 1: works of art. And he says that when it comes

478
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 1: to science, that reality is actually much more magical than

479
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:25,880
Speaker 1: magic itself. I'm just going to read this little bit.

480
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:28,320
Speaker 1: This is actually a description of the book. Says magic

481
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: takes many forms. Supernatural magic is what our ancestors used

482
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 1: in order to explain the world before they developed the

483
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:38,240
Speaker 1: scientific method. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting

484
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: the goddess Nut swallowed the sun. The Vikings believe the

485
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 1: rainbow was the god's bridge to Earth. The Japanese used

486
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: to explain earthquakes by conjuring a gigantic catfish that carried

487
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: the world on its back. That's not true, oh man,

488
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: I've been I think I wrote that into an article.

489
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: Bok you all right, I know what you're gonna be

490
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 1: reading right after this. Yeah, it's not true that earthquakes

491
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 1: occurred each time it flipped its tail. Oh man, yeah,

492
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: you're telling after revise your articles. My whole world view

493
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:13,440
Speaker 1: is completely twitched around now that. Yeah. Yeah, these are magical,

494
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: extraordinary tales, and they're wonderful. But there's another kind of magic,

495
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 1: and it laws in the exhilaration of discovering the real

496
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: answers to these questions. It is the magic of reality science.

497
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: So there are twelve different questions or topics that he tackles,

498
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 1: and they're all introduced with the supernatural explanation that we

499
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: all know and love, and then Dawkins sprinkles his magic

500
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: science dust on top and makes you realize that the

501
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: rigors of scientific method uncover the old adage that the

502
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: truth really is stranger than fiction, and it makes that

503
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: even more glorious. Some of the areas that he covers

504
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,880
Speaker 1: are what is reality? Who was the first person? Um?

505
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: He talks about DNA, and he talks about three million

506
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: years ago. You can point to this lizard and say, hey, man,

507
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,159
Speaker 1: you and me we share a lot in common. What

508
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 1: is an earthquake? There really is stone left unturned in

509
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: the section, the last section he takes on miracles. Uh,

510
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 1: and he ends by saying, and I won't go into

511
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 1: all the different things that he talks about in terms

512
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: of what is a miracle that he ends the section

513
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: by saying. The eminent science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark

514
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: summed up the point as Clark's third law. Any sufficiently

515
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. If a time machine

516
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 1: were to carry us forward a century or so, we

517
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:32,359
Speaker 1: would see wonders. Today we might think impossible miracles. The

518
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 1: truth is more magical in the best and most exciting

519
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: sense of the world than any myth or made up

520
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: mystery or miracles. Science has its own magic, magic of reality.

521
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: So again he's going back to sort of the basics

522
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 1: of very mind blowing stuff to us that we've talked

523
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: about before, in terms of how did our planet form?

524
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: Talking about stardust, talking about how how do we really

525
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 1: know that dinosaurs existed? Well, okay, you know, we've got

526
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 1: fossils into um and and it's amazing even talks about like, okay,

527
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 1: some of the things might have sounded like myth when

528
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: scientists wore proposing them, especially with sci fi writers he

529
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: talks about, he says, but they take these ideas and

530
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 1: they create theories out of them, and then they create

531
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: a model to test them. And DNA is the perfect

532
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: example of this. This was an idea that was then

533
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 1: modeled and then you know, through a series of different

534
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: things of research and data that came up, we came

535
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: to realize that this was a truth. That's why it's

536
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: so entertaining because he really he takes on these really

537
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: heavy concepts and he writes very eloquently and very humorously,

538
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:39,120
Speaker 1: but very clearly. Because again, this is for all ages.

539
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:41,640
Speaker 1: And I do recommend it to adults because I think

540
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: that you would get a lot out of it. But

541
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:47,199
Speaker 1: I also think it's really worth its weight in gold

542
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:51,479
Speaker 1: because it talks about the skeptics. I not as someone

543
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 1: who like, you know, let's pick apart everything and take

544
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,239
Speaker 1: the magic out of things, but more like, let's not

545
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: be run by our superstitions or magical thinking. Let's you

546
00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: the magic of reality just in day to day life

547
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,159
Speaker 1: and be able to sort of to look at the

548
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: invisible world and see how incredible it is. And I

549
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: think that's a huge message to kids well into adults

550
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 1: as well well. The final book on my list of

551
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,679
Speaker 1: four summer reading recommendations is a book called The Player

552
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 1: of Games by Ian M. Banks. And this is a

553
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,439
Speaker 1: book from the Culture series, which I've mentioned before. I

554
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:29,919
Speaker 1: generally bring it up because it takes place in a

555
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 1: distant future where humanity and machines live in a symbiotic relationship.

556
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: So it's a post technological singularity world where we see

557
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: the more positive ramifications. Not to say there's not some

558
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: darkness in this world, oh yeah, yeah, this is the

559
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: benign singularity. Definitely a benign singularity situation, though you do

560
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: have some dark things that end up happening in this universe.

561
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: And this book deals specifically with a clash between the

562
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: culture again, robots humans living in harmony. Basically humans doing

563
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: whatever they want while robots look after them and do

564
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: the hard work, and so humans end up living lives

565
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: of complete freedom. In this book, we have a human

566
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: by the name of Gurga, and he has used his

567
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: life to become a master of games. He's the Player

568
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 1: of Games that we referenced in the title, So he's

569
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: the master of all these different board games and travels

570
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: around just having a good time and playing them in competition,

571
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: very obsessive about winning, and he ends up being recruited

572
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: by the culture, by the robots that run the culture,

573
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 1: to serve as an emissary to this civilization that exists

574
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: outside of the culture in non culture space, called the

575
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: Empire of Azad, and they are at cruel, incredibly wealthy,

576
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: destructive alien race. But at the heart of their culture

577
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: they have this one super complex game and it serves

578
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: as the backbone not only their empire and its laws,

579
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 1: but also the very cognitive development of the race. So

580
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: imagine a civilization where there's one game, then, in all

581
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 1: its complexity and reasoning, is the backbone of everything they

582
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: hold deer and everything that they are. And so the

583
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: culture wants to send him in, and he's on this

584
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: long journey, so he has plenty of time to practice

585
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: and learn the game and play it against one of

586
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: the AI's on the ship, and then when he gets there,

587
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: he's expected to compete with members of this cruel alien race,

588
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: the idea being that by playing a human in the scenario, though,

589
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: somehow achieve a balance and they'll avoid war with the

590
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: Empire of his odd So it's a great introductory read

591
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 1: to the Culture series, because the Culture Series is not

592
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: one of these series where you need to like start

593
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: with the book one and then read through book eight.

594
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: Most of them, to my understanding, stand on their own.

595
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:37,479
Speaker 1: I haven't read them all, I've only read a handful,

596
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 1: but everyone seems to exist well on its own, and

597
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: the player of games certainly does that. It's a fascinating

598
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: look at what a post singularity world might consist of,

599
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 1: when some of them were positive visions of that. It's

600
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: a great analysis of what games mean to a civilization.

601
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: And Ian and Banks is great about throwing in some

602
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: really cool science and stuff, like he's clearly clearly has

603
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: a very scientific mind, so he'll do things like for

604
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: instances of planet in this book, where the only land

605
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 1: on the planet everything is water except for the single

606
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: strip of land that goes all the way around the equator,

607
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: and you have a firestorm that moves along that strip

608
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 1: of land, so that the ecosystem on this planet is

609
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: a fire based ecosystem. And in the same way that

610
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 1: you have plants that depend on forest fires to reproduce,

611
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: all the life on this planet has evolved to deal

612
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: with this ce cyclical firestorm that goes all the way

613
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: around the world. So he'll throw in things like that

614
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 1: when he's thinking about life and other worlds or planetary

615
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: physics or whatever it happens to be. Andy'll incorporate that

616
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: even if it's just a fascinating nugget along the way.

617
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: And unlike some of the other authors that I mentioned,

618
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 1: Ian Ebanks tends to write with a certain degree of

619
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: humor that is not necessarily prevalent in the other three works.

620
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: So if you want something that is at times lighter

621
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: and might get a giggle out of you, I find

622
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: Ian in Banks tends to fit the bill on that. Yeah,

623
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: and I'd say too, that seems like, uh, you know,

624
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: one of the commonalities between all of these or most

625
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 1: of these, is that there is some sense of humor.

626
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: That author enters into the the information with a good

627
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: stance of humor. It sounds like, so, but you know

628
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 1: it's important to us, all right, very cool. I was

629
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: going to mention a book that I'm going to check out.

630
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: It's called Internal Time, The Science of Chronotypes, Social jet

631
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: lag and more. You're so tired, And I thought it

632
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: was really interesting because we are at a point in

633
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: our history where we are not I think because of

634
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: technology as tied to time as we used to be,

635
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: and so it does seem like there is a bit

636
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: of a shift in the way that people are approaching

637
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: their schedules. Not only that, you know, as everybody knows,

638
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: despite that and some sort of flexibility, we seem to

639
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: be cramming so much into our time and really suffering

640
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: for it. So I I really am interested in finding

641
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: out more about this, these chronotypes that supposedly all of

642
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: us possess a different chronotype and internal timing type. So

643
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: some people are early risers, some people are late risers,

644
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: and this seems to be Historically we thought, okay, well

645
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: that means that you're lay about if you get up late,

646
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: or you know your go get or if you get

647
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: up at six am or whatever. Those are just very

648
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: arbitrary terms that have been abscribed to people. That this

649
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: idea of chronotype is something that is more hardwired into us.

650
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: So I'm going to check that out. And then two

651
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 1: quick mentions. I won't go into them too much. Some

652
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: we love, some we hate, and some we eat. We've

653
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: talked about this book. It's great. I am A relationship

654
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: with animals. A relationship with the animals are ten years

655
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: relationship with animals, how confused we are kind of butt

656
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: over tea kettle when it comes to us, right, and

657
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 1: how we receive animals, and as the title says, some

658
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: we love, some we hate, and some wheat. So I'm

659
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: going to check that out a little bit more this

660
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: summer because there are some things I want to revisit.

661
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: Especially there's a chapter on animal cruelty and this myth

662
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: that serial killers start off as killers of animals, that

663
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: this is actually not true, that children do this as

664
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: sort of a mastery of their own places in the world,

665
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: and this idea of trying to figure out what power

666
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: is over another person or thing. So I want to

667
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: check that out. And the next book, last book, The

668
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,240
Speaker 1: Family Fang. It is a fiction book. It's about Caleb

669
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: and Camille Fang, their performance artists, who use their two children,

670
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: Annie and Buster are otherwise known as Child and Child

671
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 1: be as parts of their performance pieces. And it seems

672
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: like it's going to be like a pretty smart debate

673
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: about the human cost of sacrificing everything for art and

674
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: this idea of family. Everybody always thinks that they have

675
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,800
Speaker 1: the freakiest family, so it'll be interesting to see that

676
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 1: that idea played out with the family fang cool. Well,

677
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 1: for my part, I'm I think this may be the

678
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: summer I finally read Dan Simon's Hyperion. Oh yeah, classic

679
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: SciFi booked at our our our boss. Many people's always

680
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:50,399
Speaker 1: read that, yet Yeah, I think I have a friend

681
00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 1: who's gonna try reading it, So hopefully this will be

682
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: the summer. On that, I should also point out real

683
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: quick that the fiction books that I mentioned here, if

684
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: you're obviously, if you're a parent, you're involved then and

685
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 1: whatever your kid reads, that's your own deal. But I

686
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: would like to point out that the author Polo basaka Loopy,

687
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: the author of The Wind Up Girl, he also has

688
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:10,839
Speaker 1: a couple of young adult novels. One in particular that's

689
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 1: out as we're recording. This is called The Shipbreaker, and

690
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: it deals in the same setting, a post oil, ecologically

691
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 1: ravaged world, but it's aimed to the younger audience, so

692
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,239
Speaker 1: you don't have to worry about there being anything inappropriate

693
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: in there. I would list that as an alternative or

694
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 1: if you're just I mean end up playing of adults

695
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: who prefer young adult novels. I mean, there are a

696
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 1: lot of great young adult novels out there that can

697
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 1: be enjoyed by any age. So because I take those

698
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 1: as alternatives, so we present you this list of books.

699
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: You can use this if you're trying to think of

700
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 1: something you want to you want to read. So if

701
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: you do happen to pick one of these up, if

702
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: you read something that we have recommended, or if you're

703
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: reading something that we're planning to read this summer, or

704
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:47,800
Speaker 1: if you've you've read it already and have some thoughts

705
00:35:47,840 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: on it, if you would like to encourage us in

706
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,879
Speaker 1: these choices that we have made, or say, actually, you're

707
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: making a huge mistake by reading Hyperion or whatever, let

708
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: us know. We'd love to hear from you. You can

709
00:35:58,120 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: find us on Facebook and you can find us on Twitter.

710
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 1: On Facebook, we're stuff to Blow your Mind on Twitter.

711
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 1: Our handles Blow the Mind, and you can drop us

712
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:17,439
Speaker 1: a line at blow the Mind discovery dot com. Okay,