Featured: RILEY BLACK, When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution's Greatest RomanceA favorite author returns! Once again featuring the marvelous Riley Black, author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, whose latest book takes a long look at prehistoric plants! It’s so rare that we see this type of book, one that gives us the actual landscape of history. Fossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from billions of years of evolutionary backstory. Each petrified leaf and root show us that dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and even humans would not exist without the evolutionary efforts of their leafy counterparts. It has been the constant growth of plants that have allowed so many of our favorite, fascinating prehistoric creatures to evolve, oxygenating the atmosphere, coaxing animals onto land, and forming the forests that shaped our ancestors’ anatomy. It is impossible to understand our history without them. Join us as we travel back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Ask Riley questions, live! Scramble with us up the Tree of Life—with another of out alum, Bethany Brookshire (author of PESTS). Two authors for the price of one! Maybe we can get two cocktails. Hmm… A VIP event, only on the Peculiar Book Club! (Join Patreon to be live with us!)

Episode was recorded live May 9, 2025.

Email: peculiar@bschillace.com

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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 Humans: a Monstrous History, we are reviewing the classic monster movie from 1986 The Fly.

Join Davey Berris and Darren Cross as they take a deep dive into this body horror classic. We'll discuss the themes of obsession, the effects of terminal diseases on people and their relationships, and the Goldblum-iness of the movie.

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Uncredited proves that not only have there been hundreds of ground-breaking women in all professions, but that their accomplishments have been overlooked, denigrated, or downright repressed by their male colleagues or historians. Uncredited explores why women have not been properly acknowledged for their accomplishments, both historically and today.

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Featuring : SUREKHA DAVIES, Humans: A Monstrous HistoryGuess what? We are featuring one of our own! Surekha Davis, long time peculiar, debuts a book on monsters. I mean on humans. Well. I mean both. Why do humans make monsters, and what do monsters tell us about humanity? Davies reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. With rich, evocative storytelling that braids together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein's monster and ET, Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: it defines who gets to count as normal. In an age when corporations increasingly see people as obstacles to profits, this book traces the long, volatile history of monster-making to chart a better path for the future. The result is a profound, effervescent, empowering retelling of the history of the world for anyone who wants to reverse rising inequality and polarization. This is not a history of monsters, but a history through monsters. THINK of the cocktail potential here, people! It’s going to be a wild night of history and monster mystery—so don’t miss out! Join us as an author-host is Bill Schutt, most recently author of BITE, and I can’t think of a better pairing for our VIP show!

Episode was recorded live April 24, 2025.

Email: peculiar@bschillace.com

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A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

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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 Killer Whale Journals, we are reviewing a movie from our childhoods, 1993's Free Willy.

Join Davey Berris and Darren Cross as they take a deep dive into this childhood favorite. We'll discuss the themes of the importance of family, respect and love for whales, and greed.

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://brandyschillace.com/peculiar/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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When Julia Mann, a bad-tempered ex-actress and professional thorn in the side of authority, runs into Natasha Mason at an AA meeting, it’s anything but a meet-cute. Julia just found a dead body in her swimming pool, and the cops say she did it (she already went to jail for murder once, so now they think she’s making a habit of it). Mason is eager to clear Julia’s name and help keep her sober, but all Julia wants is for Mason to leave her alone.

As their investigation ranges from the Hollywood Hills to the world of burlesque to the country clubs of Palm Springs, this unconventional team realizes their shared love of sarcasm and poor life choices are proving to be a powerful combination. Will secrets from their past trip them up, or will their team of showgirls, cat burglars, and Hollywood agents help them stay one step ahead? Are dead piranhas, false noses, and a giant martini glass important clues or simply your typical day in Los Angeles? And will they manage to solve the crime before they kill each other, or worse, fall off the wagon? Trying to keep it simple and take it easy is one thing—trying to find a murderer before they kill again is a whole other program.

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Featuring : HANNE STRAGER, The Killer Whale Journals: Our Love and Fear of OrcasORCA! It’s about time one of our Book Club shows featured these fascinating animals! When Hanne Strager, then an intrepid biology student, volunteered to be the cook on a small research vessel in Norway's Lofoten Islands, she couldn’t know the trip would launch a decades-long journey into the lives of killer whales―and an exploration of people's complex relationships with the biggest predators on earth. Killer whales' incredible intelligence, long life spans, and strong family bonds lead many people to see them as kindred spirits in the sea. But not everyone feels this way―like wolves, orcas have been both beloved and vilified throughout human history. Now an internationally renowned science writer, Strager gives us a book full of fascinating adventures, personal experiences with orcas, behavior, biology, and ecology. So grab a warm drink and join us for a journey into Arctic seas to decode whale-song, observe Inuit hunters in Greenland, and witness the dismantling of black market Russian "whale jails." It’s a BIG story, true tales of killer whales!

Episode was recorded live March 28, 2025.

Email: peculiar@bschillace.com

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://brandyschillace.com/peculiar/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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