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PODCAST

Peculiar Book Club Podcast

Peculiar Book Club Podcast

Weird Science, Bizarre History, & Strange Medicine: we host authors of PECULIAR nonfiction! Want to know why animals evolved to suck blood? Or the secrets of sword-swallowers? Curious about Vagina Obscura? Or the astrophysics of a dying universe? We"ve 3 shows to tempt you: the PBC podcast (from Mary Roach to Ed Yong), Peculiar at the Movies with Davey Berris (where factoids meet celluloid); and Peculiar in Mystery (thrillers + true crime!) Join host Brandy Schillace, as seen on THE UNBELIEVABLE

arts books

All Episodes

00:27:35

Let's Party with Daniel Stables and Fiesta

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2026/02/19

A journey through human festivity, told through colorful travel narratives set at some of the world's most eye-catching festivals and interweaved with insights from the fields of anthropology, history, psychology, and folklore, examining why we celebrate festivals in the ways we do.Fiesta explores the vibrant tapestry of human festivity, delving into the extraordinary lengths to which we go to express our cultures and commemorate life's milestones. From drunken pilgrimages to sacrificial

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00:25:09

We're staying alive with Ashely Alker and 99 Ways to Die

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2026/02/16

Dr. Ashely Alker is a self-described death-escapologist--or, in more familiar terms, an emergency medicine doctor. She has seen it all, from flesh-eating bacteria to the work of a serial killer to the more mundane but no less deadly, and her work keeping people from dying (or being unable to) has uniquely prepared her to write this book.99 Ways to Die and How to Avoid Them is an illuminating, darkly funny, and practical guide to 99 of the most terrifying ways to die and how to avoid them. Dr. Alker

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01:01:48

We've been infected by The Faculty (Peculiar Movie Club)

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2026/02/16

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of the book Rise of the Zombie Bugs, we are reviewing the high school horror film The Faculty.Join Davey Berris and Darren Cross as they take a deep dive into this not a zombie, zombie movie. We'll discuss the themes of the weirdest 90's movie high school, the craziest football scene ever on film, and why would you ever go off by yourself in

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01:03:39

It's a sinister tale with Hallie Rubenhold and Story...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2026/02/13

On February 1, 1910, the vivacious, diamond-adorned music hall performer Belle Elmore suddenly vanished from her home, causing alarm among her friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild. Their demands for an investigation would lead to the unearthing of a gruesome secret and trigger a fevered international manhunt for Belle’s husband, medical fraudster Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.Ethel Le Neve, Crippen’s typist and lover, who fled with Crippen in disguise, has always hidden in the

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00:34:46

We're puckering up for Eileen G'Sell and Lipstick

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2026/02/07

Lipstick today is as messy—and fascinating—as changing attitudes towards femininity. Mining the experience of women across culture, class, and generation, this book tosses out expired ideas about beauty and power like so many tubes of melted wax.From Max Factor to Glossier, from Marilyn to Chappell Roan, lipstick is as shape-shifting and elusive as femininity itself. Rather than a staid history of the object, Lipstick is a roving exploration of gender, sexuality, and performance—combining personal

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01:04:55

You better hold your breath with Matthew Gavin Frank...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2026/01/27

Have you ever wanted to build your own submarine? I admit, I was a little shocked to find out how many men and women—but mostly men—who feel almost obsessively compelled to sink into the deep sea. Despite the 2023 fatal implosion of Stockton Rush's much more highly funded submarine, Titan, these amateur backyard enthusiasts are willing to take the risk. Why?In SUBMERSED, author Matthew Gavin Frank explores the origins of this compulsion, from the diving bells of Aristotle and Alexander the Great

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00:40:03

We're getting extra Peculiar with Jessica McCann and...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2026/01/15

Jessica McCann is an award-winning historical novelist and has worked as a professional writer and journalist for more than 35 years. One of her earliest assignments as a freelance writer was covering a new surgical radiation technique for destroying brain tumors, during which she donned scrubs and observed inside the operating room. Since then, her reporting and creative nonfiction has appeared in dozens of magazines, including Business Week, The Writer, Phoenix, Raising Arizona Kids and ASU

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01:05:22

We're bugging out to talk to Mindy Weisberger and...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2026/01/09

You’ve seen the movies. But did you know that zombies are in fact all around us? Insect zombies, that is. In Rise of the Zombie Bugs, Mindy Weisberger explores the eerie yet fascinating phenomenon of real-life zombification. The truth is stranger than fiction: these parasites reproduce by rewriting their victims' neurochemistry, transforming them into the "walking dead": armies of cicadas, spiders, and other hosts that helplessly follow a zombifier's commands, living only to serve

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01:05:01

It's an Unchained conversation with Ghost (Peculiar...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/12/27

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of the book When We Spoke to the Dead, we are reviewing the romance film Ghost.Join Davey Berris and Darren Cross as they take a deep dive into this sexy pottery movie. We'll discuss the themes of the fragility of life, believing in spiritualism, and is Unchained Melody the most epic love song of all time.Website:

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00:28:30

We're forcing you to listen to Sarah Weinman and...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/12/18

From Sarah Weinman, author of Scoundrel and The Real Lolita, comes an eye-opening story about the first major spousal rape trial in America and urgent questions about women’s rights that would reverberate for decades.In December 1978, Greta Rideout bravely testified that her husband, John, whom she still lived with, had raped her. She was the first woman in United States history to do this, at a time when the idea of “marital rape” seemed ludicrous to many Americans and was a crime in only four

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01:08:07

We'll Bring the Christmas Ghosts with the Lady Aye...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/12/12

Ghosts spoke. Women listened. Everything changed.It began with whispers in a dimly lit room. In the 1840s, the Fox Sisters―and the legions of mediums they inspired―ignited the Spiritualist movement that swept through Victorian parlors and presidential campaigns alike. Contacting the dead wasn't merely a parlor trick: It was a political statement, a declaration of self that still echoes. Séances attracted suffragists and scientists, skeptics and charlatans, giving women a voice in a society that

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00:32:29

We're having a smart conversation with Anika Burgess...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/12/05

The story of the wildest experiments in early photography and the wild people who undertook them.Today it’s routine to take photos from an airplane window, use a camera underwater, watch a movie, or view an X-ray. But the photographic innovations more than a century ago that made such things possible were experimental, revelatory, and sometimes dangerous—and many of the innovators, entrepreneurs, and inventors behind them were memorable eccentrics. In Flashes of Brilliance, writer and photo editor

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01:06:01

The conversation is simmering with Julie and Julia...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/12/04

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of the book Holy Food, we are reviewing the cooking comedy Julie and Julia.Join Davey Berris and Darren Cross as they take a deep dive into this dual story of chefs. We'll discuss the themes of finding your purpose, the kitchen is for everyone, and why making a point holding a big knife is an affective way to make a point.Website:

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01:03:39

We're Cooking up Something GOOD with Christina Ward...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/11/14

Featured : CHRISTINA WARD, Holy Food: How Cults, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat — An American HistoryDoes God have a recipe? I know who to ask! Independent food historian Christina Ward’s highly anticipated Holy Food explores the influence of mainstream (and fringe) religious beliefs on modern American food culture. It's the story of true believers and charlatans, of idealists and visionaries, and of the everyday people who followed them—often at their peril. Of course,

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00:26:37

We're feeling free to express ourselves with Andy...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/11/01

New laws limit access to abortion and threaten doctors with prison. Religious zealots and opportunistic politicians team up to ban books about sex and to “protect” children from their “corrupting” influence. Sound familiar? Welcome to America in the late 19th-century under the Comstock Act, a federal law that prohibited the distribution of information about sex, contraception, or abortion through the U.S. Mail. SEX RADICAL, the latest film from award-winning writer/director Andy Kirshner, tells the

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00:55:03

We're howling about a An American Werewolf in...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/10/31

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of having some Halloween fun, we are reviewing the horror comedy An American Werewolf in London.Join Davey Berris and Darren Cross as they take a deep dive into the themes of transformation, anger and rage, and what's the best song with moon in the title.Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://peculiarbookclub.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter:

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01:01:36

We are fighting back with A Vigilante (Peculiar Movie...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/10/27

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of the book The League of Lady Poisoners, we are reviewing the revenge drama A Vigilante.Join Davey Berris and Darren Cross as they take a deep dive into the themes of Domestic Violence being bad, men's obsession with gender roles, and circumstances and skill sets.Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://peculiarbookclub.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter:

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01:03:02

Solve a New Mystery with Brandy Schillace and THE...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/10/24

Featured : BRANDY SCHILLACE, The Dead Come to StayBrandy’s back with a sequel! Jo Jones can't catch a break. She'd hoped that trading her city life for the cozy, peaceful hills of North Yorkshire to inherit a crumbling family estate would finally be her chance for a "fresh start" and a new future. Instead, she's been thrust further into the past than she ever imagined possible. The estate property is littered with traces of ancestors that Jo never knew existed, including the

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00:28:18

We're bringing the big guns with Nicholas Wright and...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/10/17

From Dr Nicholas Wright, leading neuroscientist and adviser to the Pentagon, discover the new science behind warfare.Why did France lose to the Nazis, despite its defenders having more tanks, troops, and guns? How did we bring peace to Germany after World War Two? How do you know if you can trust an ally? How can we make clearer decisions under pressure?In Warhead, Nicholas Wright takes us on a fascinating journey through the brain to show us how it shapes our behaviour in conflict and war. Drawing

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01:07:02

If you bring the cookies we'll bring the Milk...

Peculiar Book Club Podcast ·

2025/10/01

Welcome to the Peculiar Movie Club, a bonus podcast linked to our main show the Peculiar Book Club through common themes in media. This week, in honor of Brandy's book The Intermediaries, we are reviewing the biopic Milk.Join Davey Berris and Darren Cross as they take a deep dive into this moving but tragic film. We'll discuss the themes of fighting for your rights in the face of oppression, the person Harvey Milk was and how he became a great leader, and reminisce about phone

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