Christopher Fowler
By far the best in the series for awhile, The Lonely Hour has Bryant and May at their finest, weirdest, best. Spoiler alert: The memory issues from past books have totally solved/explained and these two octogenarian detectives have their snappy synapses firing at full. There’s plenty of the …
Obsession, Death, and Glory in American’s Most Extraordinary Treasure Hunt
Daniel Barbarisi
Imagine a wealthy art dealer, suddenly facing death. He decides he will have a last hurrah by hiding a treasure chest stuffed with gold, jewels, money and more. Clues to the hoard will be hidden in a biography …
Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2
Jane Poynter
The controversial creation of Biosphere 2 still lives on today. This radical experiment to have eight people live in a sealed environment for two years was the brainchild of ecologist John Allen, and funded by billionaire Ed Bass. Based on …
OSS – The Director of Strategic Services
This fascinating little pamphlet was written in 1944 by the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the FBI), and is filled with basic instructions on slowing and thwarting the enemy. There are no plans for rigging bombs, making poison or stealing state secrets. …
Cassandra Peterson
Everyone knows Elvira, even if they don’t know where they know her from. A long-running host for schlocky late night horror movies (the ones MST3K loves to mock), the “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” brand grew to international fame. With a combo of blatant sexiness, chutzpah and cheesy …
Chuck Klosterman
For Gen-Xers like myself, the 90s were just a few years ago. We lived them, so how could we possibly not know all about them? And yet, Chuck Klosterman, the pop-culture philosopher for our generation, once again does a phenomenal job pointing out all the obvious things we …
A.J. Jacobs
The Puzzler is the best new book from Jacobs since The Year of Living Biblically. Less of a personal experiment than his past titles, Jacobs delves into the world of puzzles – be it crosswords, jigsaw, sudoku, puzzle boxes or scavenger hunts. Fortunately for the Jabobs family, …
Text and captions by Donald J Johnson
Old photos are always fun to look at, but this collection is especially fun as so many locations in Madison (WI) are still in existence. The collection starts at the very earliest days of Madison’s history and follows it through major events, such …
Dean Jobb
While the name Jack the Ripper still resonates over a century later, Dr. Cream has fallen into obscurity. Yet, in his day, he was as infamous a murderer as Jack. Like his predecessor, Dr. Cream primary targeted prostitutes. However, his crimes were more subtle, as they were done …
A Food Adventurer’s Guide
Cecily Wong and Dylan Thuras
Fans of the website Atlas Obscura, a guide to the world’s many bizarre and hidden wonders, will love this huge collection of food novelties. While in theory, you can eat or drink everything in this collection, many are definitely unappealing. …
Inside the Homes of the World’s Most Creative People
Sam Lubell
This solid collection is a slow read to carefully work your way through. The content itself is not dense – one to three pictures of a home interior along with a page description. But nearly every room and its …
The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History
Edward Brooke-Hitching
There are some really weird books in the world. Some, like the Voynich Manuscript and the Egyptian Book of the Dead are somewhat familiar. But these are only the tip of the iceberg. Brooke-Hitching examines categories of unique …
My Remarkable Life in Show Business
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks has been an icon of comedy for 70+ years. From his early Borscht Belt days, through years as a tv comedy writer and into his movie career, Brooks has brought us some of the biggest laughs in show biz. His …
Brent Spiner
Brent Spiner, the actor best known for his part as Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, has written a…thing. Don’t get me wrong, it is a totally enjoyable…thing. But it definitely defies categories. Perhaps “whackadoodle” would be the best word to describe it. Imagine if Spiner had …
Caroline Cox
“Street” fashion, the organic creation of style influenced by location, culture, politics, religion, social unrest and availability of materials, has always influenced “high” fashion. And vice versa. Author Cox makes an excellent attempt to cataloging and describing some of these various “strains” of fashion that have developed over …
Amanda Montell
Cults, like porn and art, are something we feel we’ll know when we see. There is no agreed upon definition and the line of cult-land is nebulous. Montell, a linguist, suggests the core of a cult is driven by language. A vocabulary of inclusion (the way WE talk) …
