Peculiar Book Club Podcast

From Sarah Weinman, author of Scoundrel and The Real Lolita, comes an eye-opening story about the first major spousal rape trial in America and urgent questions about women’s rights that would reverberate for decades...

Ghosts spoke. Women listened. Everything changed.It began with whispers in a dimly lit room. In the 1840s, the Fox Sisters―and the legions of mediums they inspired―ignited the Spiritualist movement that swept through...

The story of the wildest experiments in early photography and the wild people who undertook them.Today it’s routine to take photos from an airplane window, use a camera underwater, watch a movie, or view an X-ray. But...

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of the book Holy Food, we are reviewing the cooking comedy Julie and...

Featured: CHRISTINA WARD, Holy Food: How Cults, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat — An American HistoryDoes God have a recipe? I know who to ask! Independent food historian Christina Ward’s highly...

New laws limit access to abortion and threaten doctors with prison. Religious zealots and opportunistic politicians team up to ban books about sex and to “protect” children from their “corrupting” influence. Sound...

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of having some Halloween fun, we are reviewing the horror comedy An...

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of the book The League of Lady Poisoners, we are reviewing the...

Featured: BRANDY SCHILLACE, The Dead Come to StayBrandy’s back with a sequel! Jo Jones can't catch a break. She'd hoped that trading her city life for the cozy, peaceful hills of North Yorkshire to inherit a crumbling...

From Dr Nicholas Wright, leading neuroscientist and adviser to the Pentagon, discover the new science behind warfare.Why did France lose to the Nazis, despite its defenders having more tanks, troops, and guns? How did...

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of Brandy's book The Intermediaries, we are reviewing the biopic...

Featured: THERESA MACPHAIL, Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing WorldAllergies are a PROBLEM. Hay fever. Peanut allergies. Eczema. Most of us have an allergy to something, but what causes them and why do they...

Al Ridenour, creator and host of the popular podcast Bone and Sickle and author of The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas extends his study of Winter folk celebrations to the Spring, exploring the Old-World Carnival in...

Boy, do I have news for you! On September 11, Mary Roach has agreed to join us to talk about her brand new release: Replaceable You! It’s a fabulous book absolutely enthralling – I am presently reviewing it for the Wall...

Tap into your hidden intelligence and transform your lifeHow are some people so much smarter than the rest of us? Where do visionary creatives and savvy decision-makers like Vincent van Gogh, Steve Jobs, Abraham...

For more than two centuries the United States constitution has given Americans the right to live in a society where church and state exist independently and without conflict. So why is Christianity suddenly being...

Featured: LISA PERRIN, The League of Lady Poisoners: Illustrated True Stories of Dangerous WomenDescribed as a feast for the senses, this sumptuously illustrated book will introduce you to some of the most infamous...

A lively, hilarious, and entirely truthful look at the druggie side of history’s most famous figures, including Shakespeare, George Washington, the Beatles, and more Did you know that Alexander the Great was a sloppy...

Featured: HANNAH CARLSON, Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close Okay, million dollar question: Who gets pockets, and why? It is definitely peculiar and frankly, I have a lot of questions. Why do men’s...

A captivating and insightful deep dive into the world of human intuition, exploring the power of this elusive phenomenon and how it can be harnessed to better know and trust ourselves.We rely on our intuition, even...

A society matchmaker realizes she’s in danger when her clients' weddings are sabotaged in increasingly disturbing ways—an utterly original mystery from New York Times bestselling author Aisha Saeed.Nura Khan is a...

"Required reading for anyone with a head."—Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff and Fuzz"Absorbing, incisive... Zeller captures the profound human and scientific costs of medicine's neglect of these...

The Murder Show is a pulse-racing novel about secrets, old friends, and how the past never leaves us by New York Times bestselling and Emmy Award winning author Matt Goldman!Showrunner Ethan Harris had a hit with The...

From “one of America’s smartest and most charming writers” (NPR), an archaeological romp through the entire history of humankind—and through all five senses—from tropical Polynesian islands to forbidding arctic ice...

Featured: ANNALEE NEWITZ, Stories are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American MindJoining us for a second time, Annalee Newitz, best-selling author of Four Lost Cities, returns with a critical look at NOW—and...