Person
Ben Bowlin's book recommendations
Ben Bowlin appears on the podcast Stuff They Don't Want You To Know as an inquisitive researcher exploring mysteries, conspiracies, historical anomalies, and speculative futures. Across multiple episodes, he has recommended and discussed a diverse array of books. He recommended Richard Wolfson's Nuclear Choices for the 21st Century as a helpful guide for understanding modern nuclear options and mentioned Robert Harris's novel Conclave after seeing the film adaptation. Bowlin recommended the graphic novel Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark to illustrate a dystopian future run by corporations, and he pointed listeners to G. Edward Griffin's The Creature from Jekyll Island for exploring the history of the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, he discussed Judith Schalansky's Atlas of Remote Islands to highlight how media attention can accidentally push books out of print, referenced Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum to compare online conspiracy construction to the novel's plot, examined Arnold Wion's Lignum Vitae regarding papal prophecies, and brought up the ancient Indian epic The Ramayana to illustrate early concepts of diplomatic immunity.
Books Ben Bowlin recommends
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Conclave
Recommended“Now, I actually started reading that novel, too, that the that the film's based on, and I was really impressed with the author, Robert Harris, so far. I haven't finished it, but um he he put boots on the ground like he went to the Vatican, they walked him through the process.”
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Lazarus
Recommended“there's a great graphic novel called Lazarus for anybody who likes graphic novels it explores the dystopian end spectrum of corporate run Global government”
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Nuclear Choices
Recommended“Um let's also shout out Nuclear Choices for the 21st century, a citizen's guide. Uh that's written by Richard Wolfson.”
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The Creature from Jekyll Island
Recommended“So, I believe it's the creature from Jackal Island. That's a good search term if you wish to go down that rabbit hole.”
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Amelia Earhart Lives
Discussed“so in a book by Joe class from the the 1970s I'm not quite sure exactly what year came out called Amelia aart lives um this gentleman makes the case that aart was in fact captured”
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Atlas of Remote Islands
Discussed“And I love that you're pointing this out, Matt, because we want this to be exactly the same kind of misstep that we made earlier when we kept shouting out one of my favorite books, The Atlas of Remote Islands, which now is out of publication and relatively unaffordable.”
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Deep Learning
Discussed“Um, but anyway, it's it's really fascinating stuff and Goodfellow, our friend Ian Jay Goodfellow actually wrote a book on this subject. Yeah. A book called his book about deep learning is called deep learning.”
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Foucault's Pendulum
Discussed“sort of similar to uh that novel uh Fakose pendulum wherein people create a conspiracy and then it becomes real for them and it has real world consequences.”
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Gravity's rainbow
Discussed“what was that excellent gravity's rainbow do you guys remember that one it's one is notoriously hard to finish people that finish it say it's weird it's to get to the end of the rainbow is hard it's like infinite Gest it's like one of those books that's just notoriously like a little bit of a log but supposedly quite”
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I Heard You Paint Houses
Discussed“It's based on a book right by this guy named Charles Brandt, right? It's called what is it? I heard you paint houses. I heard you paint houses which is a fantastic title.”
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Julius Caesar
Discussed“uh and then later a guy named William Shakespeare real up incoming writer had a thing he wrote called Julius Caesar and and that's where there's a line in that where they say beware the eyeses of March”
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Lignum vitae, Ornamentum, et Decus Ecclesiae
Discussed“It's important to note this wasn't published on its own. Um, it is published as part of Arnold Wy's uh work Lnum Vite.”
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The Hoffa Wars
Discussed“the author uh Dan Mula, he wrote the book The Hoff Wars and he's been researching the disappearance of this gentleman for god 40 years.”
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The Jungle
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a muckraking novel written in 1906 that exposes the horrific working conditions, extreme poverty, and severe sanitation failures of the American meatpacking industry.
Discussed“this is uh this is overall something that uh Upton Sinclair would would applaud right the author of The Jungle right and that that uh piece of Journalism played a huge role in the consumer protections that exist in the United States today”
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The Prime Minister was a Spy
Discussed“This is a real pitch made by a British author named Anthony Gray in his book uh they published in 1983. named in a burst of creativity, the prime minister was a spy.”
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The Ramayana
Discussed“History has proven that concepts like diplomatic immunity are surprisingly ancient. You can go to uh Indian epics like the Ramayana.”
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The Things They Carried
Discussed“for instance uh you know a great a great debate uh covering the things they carry is whether that should be evaluated as a cohesive novel or whether it's a series of interrelated short stories”
Where to get it
Books Ben Bowlin wrote
Appearances
Other mentions (10: passing, ad reads, own books)
Passing How to Read the Bible
“And it reminds us also of that line from Apaca Lipto where people are talking about how humans have a hole inside them, right? The cats in the movie? The Bible talks about that.”
Passing The Lord of the Rings
“And Tolken was not writing about nuclear power actually in Lord of the Rings. He he found it irritating when people said so. So we want to bust that myth on his half on his behalf postumously.”
Passing A Canticle for Leibowitz
“Uh recommend your favorite nuclear disaster works of film or fiction. Thinking things like Canacle for Liowitz, The Day After Tomorrow. Uh hey, you hit us to your favorites.”
“And this idea like of almost like what they call parcel tongue in the Harry Potter universe, you know, the idea of uh sort of these whispered backwardsy incantations that by learning to speak backwards like Allah David Lynch um you could you know in some way cast a spell.”
Passing Babe
“Start by watching Babe. True to the Mad Max film.”
Passing 1984
“and it just feels another like a very 1984 kind of thing.”
Passing The Key of Solomon the King
“Ba'am would be perhaps considered like one of the lesser demons kind of like in the what is it? The key of Solomon.”
Own book Stuff They Don't Want You to Know
“We did. We talked to his son when we were researching researching a book named in a burst of creativity stuff they don't want you to know the book that's because we had the title for the show earlier anyway”
Passing The Stand
“I mean not for nothing did Stephen King pick influenza as as the big bad of the stand. Its mutation is unpredictable.”
Passing Holes
“you need to start doing the holes thing and carrying like a baby C up a mountain now or a pig or whatever it was in that book”