Monthly round-up · All months
Books podcasts were talking about in July 2024
July 2024 programming saw podcasts examining political dynamics, personal memoirs, archaeological discoveries, and human rights. Pod Save America referenced Kurt Vonnegut's dystopian concept from 'A Study Guide to Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron' to critique traditional societal roles, while This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von and guest Bassem Youssef analyzed statements made by Barack Obama regarding the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Memoirs and personal history drew significant focus, with The Megyn Kelly Show highlighting Stephen A. Smith's deeply personal memoir 'Straight Shooter: A Memoir of Second Chances,' and Timcast IRL featuring guest Buzz Patterson discussing the enduring success of his bestselling military book 'Dereliction of Duty.' Science and archaeology were spotlighted on StarTalk Radio, where Neil deGrasse Tyson welcomed Sarah Parcak to discuss her works 'Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past' and her foundational textbook on satellite remote sensing. Finally, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast featured Dr. Carol Swain, prompting Dr. Peterson to reflect on powerful personal accounts of survival and academic policy through Ayaan Hirsi Ali's memoir 'Infidel' and William G. Bowen and Derek Bok's influential study 'The Shape of the River.'
Pod Save America
-
A Study Guide to Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron
Discussed“Exactly; I mean, look, it's the Harrison Bergeron speech that we can reshape and reframe America's future if women just learned their place and went back to what they were supposed to do.”
-
Scrum - A Pocket Guide
Discussed“First, I would encourage everyone to tune in to your excellent show, Veli, which airs 10:00 a.m. Eastern on Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. Also, you have a great memoir out, 'Small Acts of Courage.' It's fantastic.”
-
AmGov
Discussed“Well, he... he met with them at... do... during the transfer of their remains back home, but I think, you know, this was that really tough scene that Jen Psaki actually writes about in her book where I... he tried to talk to them about his loss and losing his son, and I think that helped them connect with some”
-
The Great Gatsby
Discussed“Uh, we love East Fork; I read a book.”
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
-
Barack Obama in his own words
Discussed“There were many tries for peace treaties, but Obama said it best in his book. He said the problem with Israel and Palestine is that one of them is very strong and one side is very weak, and there's nothing that compels me to give you land.”
Timcast IRL
-
Dereliction of duty
Discussed“I retired from the Air Force in 2001 and became a pilot for Delta Airlines, writing a book called 'Dereliction of Duty' which was a New York Times bestseller. Surprisingly, 21 years later, it's still doing pretty well.”
The Megyn Kelly Show
-
Straight Shooter
Discussed“Joining me now for the first time ever is Stephen A. Smith of ESPN; he is the host of The Stephen A. Smith Show and author of the deeply personal book out last year, Straight Shooter: A Memoir of Second Chances.”
-
Ask Not
Discussed“And by the way, we just did an in-depth piece with Moren Callahan, who wrote the book 'Ask Not', which is all about the Kennedy family. She goes in depth on how that whole thing of Camelot, you know, between Jackie and Jack, was made up; it was made up by Jackie just to make their relationship look better after”
-
Upstate
Discussed“Suddenly, I said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Your book? What book?"”
-
Just the Good Stuff
Discussed“Joining me now, Jim VandeHei—he's the co-founder and CEO of Axios, and he's also the author of the recently released book "Just the Good Stuff: No BS Secrets to Success." Jim, welcome to the show!”
-
Project 2025:
Discussed“Whether it's saying Trump was an insurrectionist, dictator, or rapist—now Trump itself has become so popular that they're replacing it with the fill-in-the-blank Project 2025. They have to have some label that affixes an emotional response to that label rather than actually engaging in just an underlying debate on the merits, which is too bad for the country.”
-
Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated
Discussed“There was a guy, forgive me, I can't remember his name, Jesse, who wrote the book 'Bowling Alone' back in '95, around that time. He talked about how our society was getting more and more fragmented and isolated from each other, staying at home and watching TV too much, not going out to join the bowling league.”
-
Ship of Fools
Discussed“I'll watch some of these press conferences; it reminds me of a book they made me read in college called Ship of Fools—a bunch of desperate people sailing into disaster.”
-
How the Right Lost Its Mind
Discussed“This point is made from Charlie Sykes, who wrote a book on Kamala Harris.”
-
Handwriting Without Tears: My printing book
Discussed“One of the things I stressed in my book was that it was horrible that COVID happened during an election year; it was the worst possible timing because as soon as there started to be a difference of approach in the summer, right, and DeSantis was saying maybe we can open up, and COVID was saying, 'No, we can’t,' everyone”
-
Settle for More
Discussed“When I interviewed Olivia Nuzzi for my book last year, she talked about how covering the Trump administration, there was no social penalty if you went after them.”
StarTalk Radio
-
Archaeology from Space
Discussed“And recently you have a book, sensibly titled 'Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past'.”
-
Satellite remote sensing for archaeology
Discussed“And is this true? You wrote a textbook, the first textbook on satellite archaeology?”
-
Night thoughts of a classical physicist
Discussed“One of my favorite stories is from the book 'Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist.' Oh yeah, LS...oh no, that's not it, or maybe it's not; I'm misremembering. Either it was fiction or I remember it as a memoir from Ernest Rutherford, who first showed how empty the atom is by passing...was it neutrons or alpha particles?”
-
Gravitation and cosmology: principles and applications of the general theory of relativity
Discussed“I noticed you have his book right there, right behind Chuck. Yeah, that's right here; that is the book I learned cosmology from. I was an experimentalist at Fermilab, gravitation, and cosmology principles and applications of the general theory of relativity.”
-
The Cosmic Cocktail Three Parts Dark Matter
Discussed“Ten years ago, you wrote a book, 'The Cosmic Cocktail,' three parts, dark matter. I now that I'm looking at it, I thought I remembered I had a blurb. Wow, is that how many blurbs you've written in your life?”
-
Flavorama
Discussed“Good Eats isn't in production right now, but Alton was actually kind enough to, uh, come and do my initial book launch event here in New York at R.I. Bookstore. So is that the Flavorama book? That is the Flavorama book, I have it!”
-
Alien Earths
Discussed“Did you put all that in your book? Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos! Ooh!”
-
Billions and billions
Discussed“You did say billions and billions; the man wrote a book called 'Billions and Billions.' After everybody kept saying it, and then he went on to the show, right, and said 'Okay, now I say it officially.' So do you know who first said 'billions and billions'?”
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
-
Infidel
Discussed“Now it's a weird thing, and I kind of see this with Ayaan Hirsi Ali as well. I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, "Infidel," about 15 years ago, and I thought, "Oh my God, this woman is unbelievable!"”
-
The shape of the river
Discussed“You were asking questions; for me, I think I fell out of favor when Bowen and Bok published "The Shape of the River" and I started talking about affirmative action. I wrote an op-ed piece favoring class-based, race-neutral affirmative action; that was not what the elites wanted and marked part of the beginning of the end for me.”
-
Feminism against Progress
Discussed“I had the chance today to talk to Mary Harrington, author of 'Feminism Against Progress', published in 2023.”
-
Gender
Discussed“I've drawn from Ivan Illich's book from 1980, 'Gender', to understand the transition.”
-
Sex and the single girl
Discussed“But the feminism which falls out of Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl in the 1960s, which is really the girl boss feminism, is the feminism of Cosmopolitan magazine, and it's really a thin ideological veneer over what is fundamentally, as you say, a hedonistic project.”
-
Stranger in a Strange Land
Discussed“Because grok was the mode of apprehension used by, I think, Valentine Smith in "Stranger in a Strange Land," Robert Heinlein's book, and it was basically a sky savior who was humanoid that came from, oh yes.”
Freakonomics Radio
-
The streets were paved with gold
Discussed“One of my favorite stories about this, and this is quoted by Ken Auletta in 'The Streets Were Paved with Gold,' cites Nat Sherman, the famous tobacconist, who said that he paid, I forget what it was, $355 a month for a six-room apartment. He said, 'Isn't that amazing?'”
Speaker EXTRA: Why Rent Control Doesn’t Work (Update) | Freakonomics Radio 2024-07-29 Listen at 8:37 -
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
Discussed“Along the way, he wrote a few books, including 'Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics' and 'Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.'”
-
General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money
Discussed“The single best chapter on behavioral finance was written by John Maynard Keynes in 'The General Theory,' which was written in 1936.”
-
Foundations of Economic Analysis
Discussed“And it was led by people like Paul Samuelson and Kenneth Arrow, and Samuelson in particular, he was a University of Chicago undergraduate and then went off to graduate school, and his thesis was called 'Foundations of Economic Analysis.'”
-
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
Discussed“Lewis's book is called 'The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds.'”
The Ezra Klein Show
-
The Reasoning Voter
Discussed“there's a a book which I preview will recommend later by a political scientist named Samuel Popkin and it's called the reasoning voter”
-
Finding Freedom
Discussed“It's a book called Finding Freedom the untold story of Joshua Glover Freedom Seeker It's by Ruby West Jackson and Walter McDonald”
-
American Carnage
Discussed“he's also the author of American Carnage on the front lines of Republican Civil War and the rise of President Trump and the kingdom”
-
DAYS of TRUMP: The Definitive Chronology of the 45th President of the United States
Discussed“he's also the author of American Carnage on the front lines of Republican Civil War and the rise of President Trump and the kingdom”
-
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory
Discussed“and the kingdom the power and the glory American evangelicals in the age of extremist”
-
Tired of Winning
Discussed“so the first book I'd recommend is from my friend Jonathan Carl over at ABC News and it's the final book that he wrote about Donald Trump the most recent book it's called tired of winning”
-
Kingdom of Rage
Discussed“the second book especially in light of what we saw on Saturday with the assassination attempt is a book by Elizabeth Newman called Kingdom of rage and Elizabeth who's a former counterterrorism official she writes really beautifully and eloquently about the threat of domestic terrorism and specifically looking at right-wing Christian nationalism”
-
Romney
Discussed“um and my third book is actually by a colleague of mine at the Atlantic McKay cins he wrote this biography called Romney a reckoning and spent a ton of time with Mitt Romney”
-
Into the Bright Sunshine
Discussed“I'm going to recommend first a great book into the bright Sunshine young Hubert Humphrey and the fight for civil rights It's by Samuel G fredman and it is basically a biography of Hubert Humphrey up until the 1948 Democratic Convention when he Maneuvers with the Americans for Democratic action to put a civil rights plank a strong civil rights”
-
Hollywood's America
Discussed“and then for a third book this is a little I'd say like left field of these two books which are these two previous books which are very much about Party politics but I I read Stephen Han a story in his new book a liberal America which stretches back to America's the country's Colonial Origins to the Pres to”
-
Southerners, a Journalist's Odyssey
Discussed“so then always our final question what are three books you'd recommend to the audience so the first book I recommend is called Southerners by Marshall Fred”
-
The Company She Keeps
Discussed“the third I would recommend um is the company she keeps by Mary McCarthy this was McCarthy's debut novel”
-
Primary Politics
Discussed“she's been on the DNC rule Rules Committee for many years she's the author of the book on this primary politics and she's a senior fellow at Brookings”
-
Abraham Lincoln and His Mailbag
Discussed“and so it reminds me a bit of something that I love from that Lincoln book Edward acorn's book um the Lincoln miracle and he quotes Charles suner who is a senator at that point sending a welcome message to the delegates whose Duty it is to organize Victory which I just think is such a great quote about what”
-
The Making of the President, 1960
Discussed“I go to next the making of the president 1960 by Theodore White which is about that election and there's lots of background stuff on how John Kennedy won the Democratic nomination and how Richard Nixon won the Republican nomination”
Behind the Bastards
-
Barbara Walters
Discussed“Yeah, get you another turtle, I spent my time expressing issues with Oppenheimer's biography, but I do think his description of this trip, this second death safari, can ask how damned weird it was with professional 35mm cameras, Bobby and Billings documented their African adventure, which also included a rafting trip to Egypt's Valley of the Kings and oddly a”
-
The Sexual Politics of Meat
Discussed“I was recently talking to a feminist vegan named Carol Adams, who's awesome; she wrote this book called The Sexual Politics of Meat. So I'm sure she would love the pig anus discussion we just had.”
-
Ten stupid things women do to mess up their lives
Discussed“I read it. Dr. Laura's book, which we hear from this episode, is Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives.”
-
Girl, Wash Your Face
Discussed“Now he takes things from that book, Girl, Wash Your Face—you remember that one? Yeah, no, Dr. Laura's book is—yeah, that's a different one.”
-
Dr. Laura
Discussed“And she is the author of Dr. Laura: The Unauthorized Biography—a revealing look at the hidden life of radio phenomenon Dr. Laura Schlesinger—which for reasons I cannot explain has an anarchist flag as its background!”
-
After the Revolution
Discussed“Anyway, I have a novel! It's called After the Revolution!”
The Tucker Carlson Show
-
The Naked Communist
Discussed“Uh, it was derived from a book called The Naked Communist by W. Cleon Skousen, who was a CIA agent and had done a lot of study on communism and its effect.”
-
Goodbye, Columbus and five short stories
Discussed“There's a Philip Roth book, Conversion to the Jews, it's a short story!”
Stuff You Should Know
-
The Red Badge of Courage
Discussed“Um, the Red Book, aka the order of battle of the German Army, was a very big deal, and it was basically just an ongoing, um, list of like everything they could learn about the German Army. Um, anytime they would get documents or any kind of plans, that would go into the Red Book or they would, you know,”
-
Dark territory
Discussed“The problem was at the time, Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States, and there's a guy named Fred Kaplan who wrote a book about, um, the history of cyber war called Dark Territory, and apparently, Reagan saw this film, was so freaked out by it that he got the Joint Chiefs together and was like, 'Can this”
-
The Scarlet Letter
Discussed“So you'd think, of course, like I mean they're famous for the Scarlet Letter! These are the people who branded Hester Prynne with The Scarlet Letter!”
-
1491
Discussed“Yeah, so all of the Native Americans, even though their society was completely upended, and I guess here's my chance to mention 1491 again because it covers all of this stuff. Man, it's been a while.”
-
In the shadow of man
Discussed“Yeah, so, um, prior to that, we kind of jumped ahead a little bit, but prior to that, um, she—in addition to that National Geographic cover story—um, less than 10 years later, um, she released her first book, 'In the Shadow of Man.'”
-
The Complete Far Side 1980-1994
Discussed“She wrote a preface for one of his, uh, book collections, and it turned into like this cool friendship.”
-
Awakenings
Discussed“It's very famously associated with dopamine for anybody who has read Awakenings or saw the movie.”
The Jordan Harbinger Show
-
Thank You for Smoking
Discussed“Actually, one of the great thrills of my life was corresponding with Christopher Buckley during writing this book; he wrote 'Thank You for Smoking,' which this book definitely reminds me of.”
-
Hacking Darwin
Discussed“So in my last book, Hacking Darwin, I had a chapter called The End of Sex, which is exactly about this.”
-
Mémoires
Discussed“As I describe in the memoir, one of the best things I ever did in my half-century career was to set aside the theatrics of the demonstrations and listen to what the activists had to say; they were making perfect sense.”
The Daily Stoic
-
Van Gogh
Discussed“Yes, in that 'Mind on Fire' book about... I think it's one of the best books I've read about Emerson too. Yes.”
-
The Minimalist Mindset
Discussed“I woke up this morning, and we're launching my new book today, and the landing page went out, but it didn't work.”
No Stupid Questions
-
This Tender Land
Discussed“Absolutely, and I think that it’s interesting — I was just reading a book called This Tender Land about Native American schools, and there's one child in it who is constantly sent to solitary confinement.”
-
Robinson Crusoe
Discussed“Robinson Crusoe is a book written about a man who shipwrecked and his experience in this shipwreck.”
-
Wild
Discussed“Also, Cheryl Strayed's book, Wild, is about the author's experience hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, not the Appalachian Trail.”
-
Mrs. Miracle
Discussed“In fact, the version of the aphorism, 'the grass is always greener on the other side,' seems to have originated in a line from 'Mrs. Miracle,' a 1996 book by bestselling romance novelist Debbie Macomber.”
-
Ovid: Ars Amatoria, Book III
Discussed“The original maxim evolved from 'The Art of Love' by the ancient Roman poet Ovid, who wrote, 'The harvest is always more fruitful in another man's field!'”
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
-
The Proud Tower
Discussed“What I will blame them for is taking the demonization up to eleven, taking the vitriol all up to eleven because that could poison the mind of someone who's already mentally disturbed and say, 'Okay, well, wait a second, if he is Hitler, why wouldn't I be Colonel van Stenberg for assassinating him?”
The Joe Rogan Experience
-
Open
Discussed“Anytime you think in sports, it's fucking over. I was just reading that Agassi book; it's so good! I didn't realize how good...”
-
The man without a face
Discussed“But like if you read—I was reading a Putin book, and literally every chapter just ends with a guy going out in his hallway and getting shot in the face! And I’m like, this seems like a pretty fucked-up rise to power!”
-
A path here no man thought
Discussed“Words of Carl Sagan, who is the author of Nuclear Winter.”
-
Twilight of the elites
Discussed“Well, uh, Barack Obama talked about how just being in the room with the donor class changes you; just being in the room with—and Chris Hayes wrote a book called 'The Twilight of the Elite' about how all that happens, and then he became the thing he wrote about.”
-
The Undiscovered Self
Discussed“I've had, uh... so I was reading this book called The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung, and it's amazing how it fits what's happening right now today!”
-
Mysterium Coniunctionis
Discussed“I was reading a book called The Mysterium Coniunctio that he wrote, and it took me like a week just... just the opening paragraph just to keep going and I'm like, what the f***!”
-
Moderner Mythus
Discussed“What is Carl Jung's book on flying saucers called? But he had this concept about flying saucers; he thinks they're... they're constructs of the mind, but not necessarily that they're not real!”
-
Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken
Discussed“I think the best book to start with Carl Jung is my memories, dreams, reflections, which is his biography and he wrote... mhm!”
-
In My Time of Dying
Discussed“I will be publicly executed by my publisher if I don't mention my book, *In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife.*”
-
Jack Herer's the Emperor Wears No Clothes
Discussed“yeah the hemperor yeah yeah the hemperor yeah he's a a famous marijuana activist and researcher and and he wrote this book this guy was a like a Goldwater Republican and then uh met this lady and they were smoking a little marijuana together hanging out and like all of a sudden he gets it and he goes oh my”
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
-
Rain
Discussed“But we do owe a shout-out to the amazing author Cynthia Barnett, who wrote "Rain: A Natural and Cultural History." You guys know, longtime listeners, we love books about cartoonishly specific things!”
-
John Dies at the End
Discussed“I just want to quickly give props to a guy, Jason Pargin, who I think you know. He's a writer and wrote that book John Dies at the End and is a thoughtful media critique YouTuber.”
-
Economics For Dummies
Discussed“Yeah, Economics for Dummies, which I think is a mean non-answer when someone asks why the healthcare system is so broken. It's like, 'Let me Google that for you.'”
-
PCs for Dummies
Discussed“No, the dummy series is a very helpful demystification tool.”
-
The Big Book of Paranormal
Discussed“Crop circles have fascinated people for a long time, and depending on when you grew up and what your predilections were like as a kid, you might be most familiar with crop circles in terms of fiction or in terms of books about the paranormal.”
Speaker Crop Circles: Fact and Fiction | STUFF THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW 2024-07-05 Listen at 3:11 -
Buy My Book: Not Because You Should, But Because I'd Like Some Money
Discussed“They took a lot of, they thought it was hilarious that people would study these circles and then with strident confidence come out and say, 'This is what teaches us about the messages from the heavens.' And you know, 'This is ancient technology, buy my book and learn more about it.'”
-
The Stand
Discussed“The one people are referencing when they talk to you about Project 2025 is a thing called Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise. Spoiler alert: it's about as long as the unabridged copy of The Stand by Stephen King!”
The Ben & Marc Show
-
Ab urbe condita
Discussed“Um the problem with that is there's this you know universal phenomenon in our industry that has a you know 50-year history which is you know kind of extremely it's like probably the most clear thing that we know of in terms of how to predict the future in our industry which is called Moore's Law.”
The Rubin Report
-
Seeing Like a State
Discussed“One of the main aims of the state, and this is from the book, seeing like a state, he said that the state tries to make taxpayers legible.”
SmartLess
-
Niagara Falls, Or Does It?
Discussed“No, Hank, Zipser was 28 in total, 28 books, 7 million copies sold. 28 individual novels, you know, then we wrote Here's Hank when he was in the second grade.”
-
You Can't Drink a Meatball Through a Straw #7
Discussed“No, Hank, Zipser was 28 in total, 28 books, 7 million copies sold. 28 individual novels, you know, then we wrote Here's Hank when he was in the second grade.”
-
The Complete Chronicles of Narnia
Discussed“And then the third one we shot was Lazy Sunday, which was a dork rap about me and Parnell having a lazy Sunday going to see The Chronicles of Narnia! So good!”
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
-
Coragem de Ser Imperfeito - Daring Greatly
Discussed“I listened to a lot and read a lot of Brené Brown's work; 'Daring Greatly' was hugely helpful to me because I literally felt like I was going to step off a precipice and talk about this issue.”
-
The Gifts of Imperfection
Discussed“I think the first Brené Brown book I picked up was 'The Gifts of Imperfection,' and I learned to embrace all these places in me that I do see as imperfect.”
-
Awakening joy
Discussed“Many years ago, I read a book called 'Awakening Joy' by James Baraz and Shoshana Alexander. One thing I learned from that book—I carried it in my bag for years—is that you can hold joy and sadness side by side.”
-
Willpower Works
Discussed“You've got a book out called 'Level Up' by Rob Dial from the Mindset Mentor podcast.”
-
Bhagavad-Gita
Discussed“I remember you told me in 2017 to read the Bhagavad Gita, so I literally wrote it down, got it the next week, and read it while we were traveling.”
