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Books podcasts were talking about in February 2019
February 2019 brought diverse literary recommendations across several prominent podcasts, with hosts and guests highlighting works ranging from culinary history and historical medicine to self-improvement and etymology. On The Rubin Report, Tyler Cowen discussed Bee Wilson's Consider the Fork while detailing his rigorous research methods for interviews. Robert Evans appeared on Behind the Bastards to recommend Robert James Maddox's Pox An American History, using it to illustrate early smallpox vaccination procedures. Self-improvement and business ambitions took center stage on Modern Wisdom, where guest Leon Scott highlighted Brendon Burchard's High Performance Habits and The Motivation Manifesto, noting how the latter inspired his mindfulness journey. Etymology and writing craft also drew attention on The Book Review, where Benjamin Dryer praised Patricia T. O'Conner's Woe is I and Theodore Menline Bernstein's Miss Thistlebottom's hobgoblins as essential guides for writers. During the same episode, John Williams mentioned reading Denis Diderot's classic novel The Nun. Finally, ChooseFI featured Brad Barrett praising Tanja Hester's Work Optional during the introduction of a guest segment, rounding out a month defined by informative non-fiction and practical guides.
Behind the Bastards
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Psychopathic God
Critiqued“Robert Weight, a psychologist, wrote a psychoanalytical biography of Hitler titled the psychopathic god. Now, Weight is like the first guy who got Langanger's OSS report declassified, and he's definitely a member of the Hitler was into weird his conclusions are really debatable”
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The Mind of Adolf Hitler
Discussed“So, uh the root of most of the salacious Hitler [ __ ] myths is that infamous OSS report uh titled The Mind of Adolf Hitler. It was compiled by a doctor named Langanger.”
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The Pink Swastika
Discussed“Um, Kubisc was so emphatic about that because by the 1950s when he was working on his book, there were numerous rumors that Hitler had been gay. This conspiracy theory is best embodied by the book The Pink Swastika from 1995.”
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The Vaccine Book
Critiqued“As the solo author of the vaccine book, Making the Right Decision for Your Child, his in-depth knowledge of vaccines and the diseases they prevent, has helped parents nationwide get a better understanding of this complex and confusing issue.”
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American History
Recommended“Here's a quote from the book Pox An American History, which I really recommend. "With a willing patient, the vaccine operation, as doctors called it, lasted just a minute or two.”
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Computer Viruses, Worms, Data Diddlers, Killer Programs, and Other Threats to Your System
Discussed“And in 1989, he wrote a book called Computer Viruses, Worms, Data Diddlers, Killer Programs, and Other Threats to Your System. Damn, that's a lot of threats.”
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A Texas look at Lyndon
Discussed“And while he's doing all that he comes across a book called a Texan looks at Lyndon. Now this book was self-published by a self-described ultra-conservative named Jay Evott Haley.”
The Joe Rogan Experience
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The Pickwick Papers
Discussed“and like it says in the pickwick papers you don't taste it with a sip we tasted you got a gulp you got a quaff you got a something”
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I Love You, Forever and Always
Discussed“like this week I had on Pam Myers who wrote live spotting. I've spent a lot of money is that a book on liars my spotting”
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Drug Lord
Discussed“an interesting story going back then to the 19 late 1970s story in a book called drug lord by Terrence popper who interviewed a a drug trafficker in the eighties”
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Transformation of War
Discussed“and they directed me to one book by an Israeli historian called the transformation of war and this was written back in the early 1990s”
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The Third Wave
Discussed“did you guys read the third wave years ago was that a book you ever got no no that was the prediction of all this really yeah and it's in the early 80s and it was a prediction and the one thing uh third wave predicted was that the next generation”
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America: The Farewell Tour
Discussed“the chris hedges wrote a book he's a interesting guy he wrote a book called america the farewell tour”
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Family of Secrets
Discussed“and in that book there's some amazing stuff about this book that you gave me is family family of secrets there's a guy russ baker who's a legit journalist”
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Blank Spots on the Map
Discussed“so a Trevor Paglen wrote a cool book called I think it was him called blank spots on the map and it just talks a lot about the black budget and I mean we so we know it exists”
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Congo
Discussed“is a part of that Michael Crichton book Congo”
Pod Save America
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Mick McCabe's Story 1959-1965
Discussed“another interesting anecdote is apparently in McCabe's book he talks about trumpet briefings saying that venezuela is the kind of place you should go to war with because they have lots of oil”
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Prisoner
Recommended“Ben Rhodes and I sat down with Jason rezaian who is the former Tehran bureau chief of the Washington Post who was taken captive by the Iranian regime for 544 days... it's such a great conversation because Jason wrote a book about his experience... great book Read The Prisoner”
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Team of Vipers
Discussed“and then with Cliff Sims it had been basically I read this book uh his new book team of vipers which is about his time working in the White House and the sort of portrait that he puts forward of the president in his administration was interesting to me”
The Book Review
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How to Disappear
Discussed“those books are Akiko Bush's how to disappear notes on invisibility in a Time of transparency and Jane Brock's silence a social history of one of the least understood elements of Our Lives”
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Silence
Discussed“those books are Akiko Bush's how to disappear notes on invisibility in a Time of transparency and Jane Brock's silence a social history of one of the least understood elements of Our Lives”
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The threat
Discussed“I reviewed uh the threat which is the book by Andrew McCabe as people remember was the deputy director of the FBI who was fired last March just before his retirement you know it 24 hours or something before retiring”
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Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
Discussed“so I reviewed a book by the scholars s Hartman it's called Wayward lives beautiful experiments”
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Lose your mother
Discussed“she's written a book about her family called lose your mother which is you know which she travels back to Ghana”
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The Great Dictionary English - Dutch
Discussed“Benjamin dryer will be here to discuss his bestselling guide to writing Dryer's English”
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Landfall
Discussed“Thomas malan will be here to talk about his latest book landfall”
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Henry and Clara
Discussed“I actually found that to be the opposite If Only from a reader's point of view because the further you go back the less the reader knows as well as the writer knows and in some ways I found it easier to write about the Civil War in an old novel of mine called Henry and clar”
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Dewey defeats Truman
Discussed“that was the novel I wrote before Dewey defeats Truman which was set in the late 40s and I didn't have any living memory of the Truman years”
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Merchants of Truth
Discussed“and then last week we had the question surrounding Joel abramson's book Merchant of Truth”
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The oldest April
Discussed“there is another book that was extremely similar to his book The Woman in the window and that was saving April which was published in March of 2016 several months before Mr mallerie sold his novel”
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Woe is I
Recommended“I Like Woe Is I and I love a book by Theodore Bernstein called Miss thistle Bottom's hob goblins”
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Miss Thistlebottom's hobgoblins
Recommended“I Like Woe Is I and I love a book by Theodore Bernstein called Miss thistle Bottom's hob goblins which is really one of the best books about being in the trenches with writing”
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The Nun. by Diderot. Translated from the French. ... of 2; Volume 1
Recommended“I'm reading a novel called the nun from a very long time ago by Deni dito the philosopher novelist art critic maybe most famously encyclopedist”
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Bowlaway
Critiqued“the new one's called bow away and it's just out you know I don't like it as much as her previous fiction”
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Nobody's Looking at You
Critiqued“nobody's looking at you it's a collection of essays”
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Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Discussed“Marlon James will tell us about his new novel black leopard Red Wolf”
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Conversations with Ogotemmeli
Discussed“so things like conversations with aat stuff like getting into all the the dogon and Egyptian cosmology”
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Old Filth
Discussed“Jane gom's old filth is actually a Trilogy of novels told from different points of view”
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The Giant's House
Discussed“the first one is called a Giant's house or the Giants house came out in the mid 90s”
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An exact replica of a figment of my imagination
Discussed“yeah it's called an exact replica of a figure of my imagination I believe and it's about a child she lost”
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The Lost Man
Discussed“so the books that you reviewed are the lost man by Jane Harper as long as we both shall live by Joanne Cheney the plotters by unu Kim watching you by Lisa Jewel the current by Tim Johnston and the Paragon hotel by Lindsay Fay”
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The Plotters
Discussed“so the books that you reviewed are the lost man by Jane Harper as long as we both shall live by Joanne Cheney the plotters by unu Kim watching you by Lisa Jewel the current by Tim Johnston and the Paragon hotel by Lindsay Fay”
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Watching you
Discussed“so the books that you reviewed are the lost man by Jane Harper as long as we both shall live by Joanne Cheney the plotters by unu Kim watching you by Lisa Jewel the current by Tim Johnston and the Paragon hotel by Lindsay Fay”
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The Current
Discussed“so the books that you reviewed are the lost man by Jane Harper as long as we both shall live by Joanne Cheney the plotters by unu Kim watching you by Lisa Jewel the current by Tim Johnston and the Paragon hotel by Lindsay Fay”
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The Water Cure
Recommended“so I'm reading the water Cure by Sophie Macintosh which in K Jimson reviewed for us it was longlisted for the man Booker last year and when I picked it up I was not sure it was going to be my cup of tea”
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Hold still
Recommended“I'm reading a memoir by the photographer Sally man called Hold Still it was published in 2015”
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Notes on a Nervous Planet
Recommended“and that is a little book by a British writer named Matt ha who is a big bestseller in the UK this new book is called notes on a nervous planet and it just came out”
The Jordan Harbinger Show
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The Alter Ego Effect
Discussed“he uses this to a lot of the people in your book of course are ya people that figured this out maybe on their own yes um yep circular way”
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Cesar Millan's Lessons from the Pack
Discussed“I know you're learning a lot from dogs because I read the book the lessons from the pack but if 60% of training the dogs is training the people you're kind of more human trainer than dogs”
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Deep Thinking
Discussed“It reminds me of something Gary Kasparov told me told me I think it's from his book deep thinking”
The Rubin Report
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Plato's Symposium
Discussed“I go crazy over prepping so for Agnes Callard I read Plato's symposium five times in a row”
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Homer's Odyssey: Books I-XII
Discussed“Emily Wilson she just tree translated Homer's Odyssey”
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Consider the Fork
Recommended“I'm gonna read some of the books of this whole book on the history of the four and it's a wonderful book it's called consider the fork Forks are important”
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Fashionable Nonsense
Discussed“and so this is why I did it ended up writing a best-selling New York Times bestselling book called fashionable nonsense talking about how these guys use these fashionable terms and just say the right political things and it's all nonsense”
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God Is in the Crowd
Discussed“and you know from that point I kind of dug into everything I could took every class that had to do with Judaism I read them the Old Testament I could never became a believer in the kind of classical sense in the god of scripture”
Modern Wisdom
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High Performance Habits
Recommended“is it Brendan butcher's I can't high performance Alex that's one that's a really good book in terms of business”
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The Motivation Manifesto
Recommended“where my first book was mayor motivation manifesto by a random butcher and it was like I read that and everything just that had been so clear and makin sense”
ChooseFI
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WILTON WEDDING CAKES
Discussed“so for the cakes I went down and I bought a Wilton wedding cake book and it has instructions in the back so I you know that's the old version of YouTube I learned from the instructions in the back and just practiced at home”
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Work Optional
Recommended“I just read an early copy of Tanya's book called work optional retire early the non-penny pinching way and yeah it's fantastic”
a16z Podcast
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Different
Discussed“there's a fun book by a Harvard Dean I called different and it basically says almost all consumer goods are these small incremental improvements that everyone copies”
Freakonomics Radio
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Saving capitalism from the capitalists
Discussed“And I had sent her my first book, Saving Capitalism from the Capitalist. It happened to arrive at the time they were looking for a new chief economist.”
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Fault Lines
Discussed“In 2010, Rajan published a book called Fault Lines about what he saw as the underlying causes of the financial crisis.”
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
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WHERE'S MICHAEL JACKSON?.
Discussed“where's my it's where's michael jackson actually and i'm not joking bring it up please”