Episode · How I Write · 2024-02-07
Books mentioned on Steven Johnson Explains How He Helped Build NotebookLM
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Discussed“it's a reference by the way to the Italo calino novel if on a winter sign a traveler which I'm sure 1% of the readers actually got that too but it it's uh for people who are really into meta fiction from the 1960s it had added meaning”
Where to get it
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Enemy of All Mankind
Enemy of All Mankind by Steven Johnson is a riveting true story of piracy, power, and history's first global manhunt during the seventeenth century.
Discussed“well another great editor story is um so I wrote a book um maybe my favorite book of all of them except for the new one which is is the new one always the favorite book it is a little bit because you're not sick of it yet you know um but I wrote this book called enemy of all”
Where to get it
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The Ghost Map
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson is a historical narrative detailing the 1854 cholera outbreak in London and the epidemiological breakthrough that traced the source to a water pump in Soho.
Discussed“when I was writing ghost map I had uh a theme about waste recycling and you know just how a city deals with basically human excrement which is like the major problem when suddenly you've grown to like two million people in the space of 50 years or whatever”
Where to get it
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Where good ideas come from
Discussed“yeah and and like um in a way the like the trickiest book like that for me was um where good ideas come from which was ultimately organized in these kind of patterns of innovative environment”
Where to get it
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The Devil In The White City
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a gripping historical non-fiction narrative that intertwines the architectural triumphs of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with the chilling crimes of America's first documented serial killer, Dr.
Discussed“and so I remember thinking that I remember um before I wrote ghost map I read uh Devil in the White City by Eric Larson and which was kind of like I was reading it somewhat to prep myself to write it was the first book that I'd written in kind of historical narrative mode”
Where to get it
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The Splendid and the Vile
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson is a gripping historical non-fiction work detailing how Winston Churchill and the British people weathered the harrowing Blitz during World War II.
Discussed“and so I went back to lon's book actually The Splendid in the vile that he just came out with because um infernal machine has a lot of dialogue because there's so many”
Where to get it
