Stuff You Should Know

And then I read Nine Stories.

I read almost all of the Glass family stuff.

I read most of the stuff that was popular and widely available and wasn't just like, you know, something in The New Yorker that was never put in book form or whatever.

Uh, Nine Stories came next. Uh, that's a great one too.

Um, most of those were written before catcher was actually published, but that was also a bestseller.

I think that's been confirmed.

Dave turned up a really great analysis of JD Salinger's writing by a guy named Michiko Kakutani.

I imagine there's more Glass family stuff in there.

His daughter, uh, Margaret would write a book that.

Uh, was not very flattering said that, you know, he basically held my mom hostage there.

Uh, he did disturbing things. He drank urine. He spoke in tongues.

Uh, he became a very strange man that she didn't recognize.

Peggy wrote a book called dream catcher, which you mentioned, I think it came out in 2000.

And he was kind of like, hey, wait a minute, everyone. This looks like a giant puzzle if you stand back and look at a map and you're just not standing back far enough.

In that book, 'The Origin of the Continents and Oceans', he's saying not only did the continents move apart because they used to form the supercontinent called Pangea, all the land, they're still moving around today.

But in one in particular that came out in 1888 called 'The Secret Doctrine', she talked about how there were seven root races.

One of the noteworthy things that I found just completely fascinating is H.G. Wells, show off that he was, set an 1897 book called 'The Story of the Stone Age' in exactly that place.

All right. We mentioned earlier that Devin wrote a book. It is called Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendor.

there was an 86 authorized biography, Heart to Heart, spelled with an E this time, not like the TV show, because on the TV show, they were the hearts, the H.A.R.T.s.

HG Wells, the guy who predicted our current rocket program with NASA and wrote The Time Machine and did all sorts of really neat stuff.

It's a classic author. Yeah. So let's let's dig into yours.

And that's what we're going to read now. It's called The Red Room.

And that's what we're going to read now. It's called The Red Room.

All right, so like a lot of these stories you get a little bit of a vague setup and then they sort of dole out what's happening yeah as it goes on pretty much what he's doing here I would say yeah so you got this guy he's going to this castle now right where the person before him that went to sort of ghost investigate through him sounds like he threw himself down the stairs and took his life right with madness I think he I get the impression he was trying to get the heck out of that room and died running falling down the stairs maybe okay either one and then this whole thing was was haunted though by a woman and do I gather that her husband used to like kiddingly frighten her and that led to a death that's what I took it as yeah okay not a nice guy don't do that guys no it wasn't just I'm sure he regretted it pretty deeply afterward if he was even halfway decent right are you taking over now uh yeah that feels like a switcheroo me I think so too all right so this guy's in this room now finally he's all set to go here we go.

and it was not only palpable darkness but intolerable terror candle fell from my hands I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me and lifting up my voice screamed with all of my might once twice thrice then I think I must have staggered to my feet I know I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor with my head bowed and my arms over my face made a stumbling run for the door but I had forgotten the exact position of the door and I struck myself heavily against the corner of the bed I staggered back turned and was either struck or struck myself against some other bulky furnishing I have a vague memory of battering myself thus to and fro in the darkness of a heavy blow at last upon my forehead of a horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age of my last frantic effort to keep my footing and then I remember no more.

I knew that was it a power of darkness is he Sean Connery I think so Sean Connery and James Earl Jones had a baby in this guy's it a power of darkness to put such a curse upon a home it lurks there always you can feel it even in the daytime even of a bright summer's day summer's day in the hangings in the curtains keeping behind you however you face about in the dusk it creeps in the corridor and follows you so that you dare not turn it is even as you say fear itself is in that room black fear and there it will be so long as this house of sin endures.

this is your pick right yeah this is called the misanthrope by JD Beresford and uh you'll see what's going on here it's got got to do with a lot of these stories are the same I feel like yeah horror writing back then these short stories often had to do with people investigating some creepy place where something creepy had happened or maybe that's all horror movies and they were usually approaching it from like a rational mind and they end up like being proven that there's something worse there and yeah it's good stuff all right it works uh so what am I doing again I'm the visitor to the island in the boatman and you're the hermit okay that's right right what why do we bother working this out I don't know I always forget all right here we go everybody pour up a spoopy drink blow out the candles relight them blow them out again and listen to the misanthrope by JD Beresford take it away Josh did you say spoopy

oh man you wouldn't you know you wouldn't care not now he said sharply perhaps just before you go you feel fairly certain then he nodded with disgusting conviction i went to bed wondering whether helen's theory wasn't a true one and if i might not break the spell for poor old copely the boatman came for me soon after 11 the next morning i had shaken off some of the feeling of superstitious horror that held me overnight and i had not repeated my request to copely nor had he offered to look into the dark places of my soul he came down after me to the landing place and we shook hands warmly but he said nothing about my revisiting him and then just as we were putting off he turned backward toward the hut and looked at me over his shoulder just one quick glance uh hold on hold on wait i commanded the boatman and i stood up and called to him uh uh copely i shouted he turned and looked at me and i saw that his face was transfigured he wore an expression of foolish disgust and loathing i had seen something like it on the face of a child who was just going to be sick oh boy i dropped down into the boat and turned my back on him i wondered then if that was how he had seen himself in the glass but since i have only wondered what it was he saw in me and i can never go back to ask him

It is your own choosing, said the man with the withered arm.

It's your own choosing, said the man with a withered arm once more.

The room was now quite brightly illuminated; there was something very cheering and reassuring in these little silent streaming flames...

By jove, said I, allowing recovering from my surprise, that draft's a strong one...

The candles went out one after another and I fled then the man with the shade lifted his face sideways to see me and spoke: That is it, said he.

And it's like an exhaustive comprehensive homemakers overview. It would have been in there. Right. For sure.

In 1919 there was a book by Ruth Edna called Ruth Edna Kelly Ruth Edna Kelly called The Book of Halloween and it didn't mention any kind of trick or treating in there.

What's widely believed to be the first modern detective novel was The Murders In The Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe.

I was left alone by those I never ceased to grieve for.

One of my favorite historians is named Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. She of well-behaved women rarely make history fame, often misattributed to less well-known women than her.

Ulrich's most famous book, A Midwife's Tale, is about one of these women, Martha Ballard, a midwife who lived in what is now Augusta, Maine.

Martha Ballard wrote in a diary almost every single day from the time she moved to Augusta, Maine in 1785 until she died in 1812.

Her diary chronicles the life of women and men in frontier America, along with the inner thoughts of an ordinary and relatable person.

Martha's ordinary life lifts me up, even though she was a very average person, because it shows her working and living like people have always done.

You can check this out in your What to Do When You Get Lost in your Stuff You Should Know, Stuff Kids Should Know book.