99% Invisible

It's an English translation of the 1965 book Take Ivy.

Originally, it's published in Japanese for the Japanese market Take Ivy is mostly pictures of beautiful young white men walking to and from class, lounging in archways, going to sports practice and you lose track of which college is which and it all blends into a beautiful mid-century homoerotic American dream.

I just tell people you start with this book called Take Ivy and in Take Ivy they are wearing khakis like loafers and like a pair of madras shorts, chunky knit sweaters and sweater vests.

So Take Ivy is an amazing document because these guys really look fantastic and it's not for the clothes themselves. The garments are pretty conservative. It's about how the students are wearing this stuff.

Take Ivy as you will come to learn in the course of this story was made as a form of propaganda for the company that published this book.

Sophie Tanhauser is the author of Worn: A People's History of Clothing.

Two Wheels Good the history and mystery of the bicycle

I'm the author of Two Wheels Good, the history and mystery of the bicycle

For much more on the history of the bicycle, check out Jody Rosen's book: Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle.

If you want to learn more about Dorothy Arzner, you should definitely check out her book. It's called Directed by Dorothy Arzner.

In his book on the history of reggae music called Bass Culture, Lloyd Bradley relates a story that he was told about one DJ who was out to pulverize the competition

Frank Broughton is the co-author of the book Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, A History Of DJ

Here's Frank reading a little bit from the book. He co-authored Last Night a DJ Saved My Life.

It transformed playing records into a live performance and it showed how music could be propelled into whole new genres by the needs of the dance floor.

And even though these kinds of ideas developed independently in other music scenes, Broughton says Jamaica did them first.

This is Michael Branch who wrote a book called On the Trail of the Jackalope

One of the most important non-political political books I've read in the last decade or more is The Social Conquest of Earth by the great biologist E.O. Wilson, who passed away last year at the age of 92.

And then it was about all the people that were digging up our ancestors' history. And she got very interested in the design of prehistoric civilizations. So she did another book, which I went back while I was getting ready for this and I looked at it again. I hadn't looked at it in so many years. It's called The Sand Dollar and the Slider Rule. Her name is Delta Willis.

For example, Stephen Johnson's book, The Ghost Map, is about the discovery of the real cause of the cholera outbreak in London.

The Memex would make search easier. It would look like a desk. There'd be a keyboard, viewing screens, and storage space for all of human knowledge, as long as it was on microfilm and could fit into a desk drawer.

Vannevar called this process of linking two keywords together trail building.

Paul Kahn, someone who wrote a whole book about Vannevar's Memex

That's Ben Young He's a historian at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of Guns, Gorillas and the Great Leader North Korea and the Third World

Quite honestly, the only country that really does socialist realism is North Korea That's historian Ben Young again

They co-edited a book called Dingbat 2.0 the iconic Los Angeles apartment as projection of a metropolis

The Secret Life of Plants Which we referenced in the main story. It was a book that came out in 1973 and adapted a few years later into a movie

It's really more of a vibe than a documentary There's long stretches of time-lapse photography of plants growing and a beautiful Stevie Wonder soundtrack

penny sparks book about houseplant history is called Nature Inside it is also great

in her book a Potted History the historian Katherine Horwood writes that by the end of the 20th century houseplants had become quote just another burden yet One more thing to look after once work was finished the house cleaned the dog fed and the children put to bed

Because just like foregoing carbohydrates or vampire erotica or throwing out whatever doesn't spark joy This fad also started with a book Written by a man named Orson S Fowler This is the book he wrote that popularized octagon houses Nationwide,

Fowler published his book The Octagon House a home for all in 1853 and it became a sensation Hundreds of octagon houses started popping up all over the country.

This is Mark Leibson, historian and author of the book "Flag: An American Biography"