Good Job, Brain! - 131: Bibliotheque Discotheque

Episode Date: October 23, 2014

The library is open for an epic mega-nerd sesh as we jam out to trivia and quizzes about books. Earn your book club gold stars with the return of Dana's "Ya Burnt" segment - can you name the classic children's book by their haterade one-star review? Chris plays appraisor again talking cold, hard, cash - the most expensive books on the planet. Sneaky authors and their literary anagrams, book facts, and the incredulous ways people stored books in the olden days. ALSO: @WordsAreSoWeird, NY's official state snack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, snazzy, snappy snoop snorkeling for snickerdoodles and snarge. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 131. And of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And we are your sparkly, sparky, sparring Spartans. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. Cerebral Spartan. You can't add stuff now. You can't add stuff now. Oh, so last week, Chris, you did a quiz about state. Official state things. And then this week I saw a New York got an official state snack. Oh.

Which is. Like official official? Yeah, the governor signed it into a bill of. some or whatever, signed it into law. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever.

Whatever it is that they do it. Yeah. The New York. Blood sacrifice. That's right. Delicious. I believe he has to eat 100 pounds of whatever the snack is. What is it?

To make it official. It's yogurt. Yogurt. Weird. The new state snack. I don't think New York. Yeah. I think most yogurt in America is made in New York, though.

Let's look this up. Yeah. Is that where? Chabani is. Oh, you're right. New York State produced 741 million pounds of yogurt last year. And the two leading brands of thick Greek-style yogurt, Chabani and Fahe, have large production plants in New York. Well, there you go. So there's a reason for it. Yeah, there is. Not just because people like it. I thought it would be like pretzels or pizza. Yeah, but there's no money in pets. Or peanuts. There's no pretzel plants. And they don't

eat a lot of pizza in New York anyway. And I have a addendum cram. also to your official state what's it's quiz Jess wrote in she said that one of the questions mentioned was North Carolina

official carnivorous plant Venus flytrap and we were like oh that seems so random The Venus flytrap is native only to the Carolinas Get out Yes

because of the climate and the weather Yeah not because there's like a That's where they're from That perfect mix of Not too hot Not too cold Insects are just

Just tasty enough. Yeah, just barbecue. Well, they season in the Carolinas, they season their insects with vinegar rather than, you know, sweet barbecue sauce. Like, not a rub. I prefer a dry rub fly myself. Right, right. Yeah. North Carolina has been having problems with Venus flytrap poaching over the past few years,

and the state recently made digging up the plant a felony. Oh. Because someone decided to dig up most of the park's Venus flytrap plants over a single. weekend in 2013 stealing over a thousand planes. Wow. That's a lot of

that seems painful. I don't know. That's either they're not Audrey 2 from Yeah, right. They're staging a revival. They don't take your finger on.

Yeah. Well, they wouldn't be able to take a thousand. Yeah, that's right. So there you go. Well, there is an explanation. All right, North Carolina, your export to the world.

I love it. All right. Without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment pop quiz hot shot here I have a random trivial pursuit card and I'm going to make up a question for this one

Is there a picture on it? Yeah All right Blue Edge for Geography but this is the sub in question So it's nothing to do with geography Oh okay alright The name of this album featured songs Such as You Give Love a Bad Name Living on a Prayer and Wanted Dead or Alive

Chris Or was it Colin? I think we both have it was that slippery when wet correct bon jovie I can see the card and it's got it the picture is the slippery when wet road sign the question was what is this exactly you know the answer is slippery one wet for both questions the slippery and red road sign really looks like you know snakes snakes may be following your car just flash the picture snakes on a car yeah yeah Pink Wedge for pop culture

Who, according to legend, was advised to stick to truck driving because he'd never make it as a singer. Oh. Johnny Cash? Incorrect. That's my first guest, too.

No, it was... Elvis Presley? Correct. Dan is right. Elvis Presley. Yellow Wedge, who was the only U.S. president Never to marry?

Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. Sure. James Buchanan, Thomas Jefferson. or Richard Nixon. Oh. Oh, hey, oh, hey, that's Buchanan. Yeah.

Pat Nixon. Yeah. And Jefferson definitely got married because you can't cheat on your wife if you don't have one in the first place. Snip, snap. As the old saying goes. Too soon. Oh, man. All right, Purple Wedge.

What 2001 book noted that McDonald's was the biggest U.S. buyer of beef, Pork and potatoes. Everybody. Fast food nation. Correct. Fast food nation. It is indeed. Right there behind us.

Yeah. It's in the good job brain library. Yep. Potatoes? Yeah. Just for hash brown? French fries. French fries.

Oh, McDonald's. Oh, McDonald's. Oh, McDonald's. Hey, man. I just ran a half marathon this morning. All right. Come me some slack. Oh, shout out to Christine, who I met.

Nike Women's Half Marathon I hope you had a good race Alright anyways Back to the card Let's see Green Wedge For science Okay Why do male mice sing

Why do male It's like a riddle Why do male Yeah it does sound like a bad Laffy Taffy joke Well you buzzed in right I mean mating ritual I don't know

Yeah To attractive It's always Female mice To attract It says literally To attract female male mice.

Okay. A little note here says male mice produce elaborate ultrasonic vocalization during recording. Oh. And they only sing three blind mice. Yeah. All right. Last question, Orange Wedge.

What organization was plagued by the curse of the Bambino? That was the Boston Red Sox. Correct. Baseball, professional baseball club. It was said in the many years until they won No World Series. Does it say on the card? The note says the quote curse was reversed in 2004 when the team won its first world series in 86 years. Got it.

The curse alludes to the fact that they had Babe Ruth on their team, the Bambino, and traded him away to the Yankees where he went on to have some small degree of success. Wasn't that movie Fever Pitch right around that year? It was that year. It was that year. That was the year they had to change it. No, I mean, yeah, they were filming the movie Fever Pitch. and then it was getting closer and closer seeming like they were going to win

and so they sort of held off on finalizing the ending to the movie but then they filmed the ending to the movie live when they actually won and you can still see them like jumping around on the field like in footage of that game

it's not like CG it's like actually them really there interesting yeah right that is an interesting bit of trivia yeah yeah all right good job brains and so this week we're going the nerd route a little. Okay. Well, traditional nerds.

Traditional nerds. Yeah, I was like, as opposed to our users. Yeah, this is, yeah, this is the old. I think we're always on the nerd room. Well, yes. If the first 130 episodes, like, didn't seem nerdy to you, then hold on to you. Yeah, we're about to step it up. I mean, in what, 130-some episodes,

a lot of, some of our segments in past quizzes have dealt with book titles, authors, biography, Chris, you're a fan of the what line is this from. And so today, we decided to dedicate a whole episode on books. The library is open. I can't be anything. Take a look. It's in a book.

A reading rainbow. A reading rainbow. A reading rainbow. A reading rainbow. grab bag quiz. That was a little jam cash. I have established I have created for you guys a

grab bag trivia quiz of book facts, book notes, book references, literary fun. Literary fun. Yeah. Doesn't it just sound like it oozes fun? Yeah. Sure. All right. Yes. No punny. No punny name for this one unfortunately. All right. Yes. Yes. Like me

you guys have read many, many, many, many, many books and as you know sometimes you're reading a book there's a lot of stuff you got to get through before you get to the meat of the book you know like to really get underway so whoa is that the technical term yeah meat of the book yeah I want you guys to put these elements of a book in the proper order for me all right so you tell me in if a book had all of these what order would you find them oh the prologue okay the preface uh-huh the introduction and the forward okay all right So put them in order Before the book

Yes these are all things before you really get underway And prologue preface Introduction for words And there is an order There is a generally accepted order for these in a book One will come before another One will come before another If you have them, they're not all the same thing

They're not interchangeable Chris Preface Forward Introduction prologue Incorrect You got a couple in the right You got a couple in the right slots

Forward Am I wrong already You're correct so far Yeah That's what I thought Yeah This is like a mastermind Because the foreword

importantly is written by someone else Yes And so it's like they take the whole package And then they're like This is a book about blah blah And you'll see in the introduction la Uh-huh, uh-huh. So nothing comes before the forward.

I think preface, intro, prolog. Is that it? Yes, that's it. Yeah, that's it. All right. Forward, preface, introduction, prolog. So the introduction is by the author. Well, so let's run through them very, very quickly.

Yeah, you guys are absolutely right. Yeah, the foreword, most importantly, is not written by the author of the book. The foreword is, it's generally like someone who has name recognition. Yeah, it is. It's like an endorsement or kind of like. Like about the book, not really about the story. It can be very general. It can be very general.

It's more just like, I'm this famous person you may have heard of. I recommend this. This may be a friend of mine. I liked it. I think you'll like it too. The preface is kind of, how did this book come to be? Like, what was, you know, maybe what was the inspiration? You know, what was the process?

You know, I first was intrigued by this, you know, stumbling through the, you know, whatever, the little sort of the personal story. If you have acknowledgments, they would go in there as well. Oh, yeah. Sometimes I have acknowledgments in a separate section. This would come right after the preface if you did. Wow. Yes.

It's a very strict order here. And then the introduction, also by the author, is kind of like, here's what I'm going to be talking about. Here's maybe a few of the questions I'm going to answer. Kind of like just sort of, you know, telling you what's a, what's, yeah, yeah, set in the stage, a little teaser of what's to come. And prologue is like the story. Right. That's right. You're not supposed to skip it.

I know people who do skip the prolog. Oh, really? Really? Because sometimes it's very self-indulgent. Like, you don't learn anything. Man, that's a lot of stuff before, like, the actual first page of the story. Well, not every book. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

And I am leaving many other potential elements out. You're like, I'm 50 pages in with these little Roman numeral pages. Why is the story going to start? Yeah. The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction honors excellence in fiction by American authors. Oh. Yes. Ideally, they say for stories that deal with the American experience, however you choose to define that.

I did not know that. I know it was just a good piece of fiction. The only requirement is American author. American author, yeah. But beyond that, you know, they sort of have their rough guidelines. So tell me, this Ernest Hemingway novel is the shortest book to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Karen. Old Man in the Sea?

It is. Old Man in the Sea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, with anywhere from 120 to 140 pages depending on the edition. Yeah, it's a relatively slim novel. Yeah, the shortest to ever win the Pulitzer for fiction.

We'll go the opposite direction here. We'll go the opposite direction here. Published in multiple volumes from 1913 to 1927, this landmark work by a French author lays claim to the Guinness World Record for longest novel. Oh, this comes up a lot. This does come up a lot. And I will accept one of three possible names, even. Karen. Is this Proust?

Yes. Oh, research to Tom Perdue. Absolutely is. Yes, yes. And thank you. Bonus points for the French there, Chris. Absolutely, right. All the research de Toms Perdue.

Remembrance of things past or in search of lost time is how it's translated in English usually. Yeah. Oh, I'll already share. I mistakenly masculinized it. Whoops, my bad. Well, we're going to have some literary nerds listening to this show. Yeah, seven volumes, over 3,000 pages, 1.2 million words. This is interesting.

Guinness, for their record, they go by the character count. That's how they quantify this as the longest novel. Okay. So not words. Over 9.6 million characters. I like that because that's more technical. I kind of like it, too. Yeah.

Because you can have a super long word. Or a super short word. Yeah. Right. And they count as spaces as characters as well. Like a lot of things that are in Guinness, of course, there is even a little bit of dispute about this. There is an even older French sort of multi-part novel that some people, by their count, they count it as the longest novel. Guinness doesn't, they don't go by that.

I think their reasoning is that this was more like a serialized novel originally. That's what Guinness goes by. We've gotten this one in trivia several times before. So we'll see how will you guys remember this one. If you list the books of the King James version of the Bible in order, so beginning with Genesis, then Exodus and so on, what is the first book named after a woman? Karen. Ruth. It is Ruth.

Yes. What was the other one that we were thinking? Esther. Esther. Esther comes several books later. Right. Yeah, we're like Ruth or Esther. Yeah, I think we had it down to 50-50.

We got it, though. Are those the only two books named after women? Yes. Oh, okay. And if you want the order, it is, yes, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth. And then, of course, there's famously an album titled Joshua Judges Ruth. Oh, yeah? Yes, good way to remember it.

In bookbinding. Remember what? The Bible or the album? You know, whichever one, whichever one you happen to have handy. If you've got the Bible handy, you need to remember the album. Yeah, that's the beauty of it. It goes both of the ways. I know it's three consecutive ones.

In bookbinding, bookmaking terminology, what is a signature? What is a signature If you were making a Chris A signature is you have a book And then you have all the little mini books Inside that make up the book That are all bound together

A signature is one of those Absolutely right Yes yes yes It's the little mini booklet Usually sewn together If you can crack open your hardcover book You see like it's actually a whole bunch of little Little voluplets

Yep yep little mini booklets Typically you want to go a real deep nerd here you want typically how many pages are in a signature. A hundred. Going way back, way back, the typical is 16 pages. Yeah. You can have many different numbers. All right, last one. In 2013,

in San Antonio, Texas, the new Bexar County Library opened to much fanfare. What was unique about this library? Chris. Didn't have any books. It is the first all-digital public library.

It's just like a terrible A terabyte drive? No, I mean, you can go in and you can, like, borrow e-books on your device, and it signs them out to you, and then, you know, you sign them back to the library, that kind of thing. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. The Bexart County Digital Library, they also, they're quite proud of us, known as the Bibliotech. Get it, like T-E-C-A. Get out of here with your, yeah, yeah.

Get out of here with your capital T in the middle of the word. Yeah, open last year, no printed books. whatsoever and they're they are committed this is their mission uh they've got over 10,000 ebooks uh they've got yeah hundreds of e readers there dozens of computers and laptops if you don't have your own digital device you can basically borrow a device that's right yep you can borrow a device and read it there you can borrow it on your own personal device if you have yep you can check them out for two weeks at a time with the san francisco library local and berkeley too yeah and then they just magically yeah the new york public library famously is adding a lot

more of those two. The bibliotech. Yeah. There are other libraries that have experimented with, like, digital branches, but none of them have been able to sustain and, you know, say, yes, we're going to stay all digital. Yeah, there was one branch for library in Arizona that tried it, and they eventually had to start adding printed material. Just their patrons demanded it. It just was what they needed.

But, no, this library in Bexar County, they have a budget. They're going to add 10,000 ebooks every year and stay all digital. That's what they're committed to. And save so much space. Yeah. In storage and upkeep. It looks really cool and very futuristic, of course, as you might imagine. Why there, do you know?

Like, is it just a county decision? It was by the county. How progressive. All right, well done. So, you guys know I'm a collector, mostly of video games. I own a lot of books that sort of orbit around that collection and other books as well. So, of course, I put together a quiz for you guys about cold hard cash, the most valuable books in the world.

Okay. That's awesome. Well, let's see. Let's see how you guys do. So one of the most valuable books in the world is called the Bay Psalm book, Book of Psalms from the Bible, right? It was originally printed in 1640. There are only five complete copies still in existence.

One of them in 2013 sold for 14.2, million dollars why is the bay psalm book so valuable slash other than the fact that's old there is a yeah there's a reason why this particular book is in high demand karen was it signed by a particular famous person no any copy you had of this book would be very valuable karen is bound in human skin it is not bound in human skin glad that's where your mind immediately went no it is not bound in human and skin, the Bay, B-A-Y, S-A-L-M. The Bay-S-A-L-M. The Bay Psalm, yes, it applies to all of them. It's just the very existence of this book. It was originally printed in the year 1640. 1640. 1640. Oh, okay, so something, I guess something with like, yeah, the Pilgrims, maybe something around there.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like maybe the, yeah, maybe the first one printed in America. Is that your final answer? Yeah. Yes. It is, in fact, the first book ever printed. in America. 1640 is apparently only 20 years after the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. It was fast.

So yes, it is the first book ever printed in what would eventually become the United States of America. Yes, indeed. The Bay song book. That's cool. Bound in human skin. And it's bound in human skin. Another thing that has

to do with America, copies of a book called The Birds of America have sold for $7 million $8 million and $11 million approximately. Who is its author? Dana. Audubon. Audubon.

John James Audubon. The Audubon Bird Study. Barron. He was Mr. Bird. Yeah. Birdman. But his left name was Audubon. Of the various books,

editions of books that have sold for over $3 million, there are not many. There are not many books that have started. sold for $3 million. Of this small group, only one of these books was written in the 21st century. Oh, wow. What is the book? And it's just one particular book.

It is a certain copy of a certain book. In the 20th century. No, no, no, no, the 21st century. 21st century. At the time, there were only seven copies of this book. This was the only one that was being made available. Outside of the author's small circle of friends. And Harry Potter was a good guess.

Yeah, I like that. Like notebook. I give up. It is Harry Potter related. Yeah, that's what I... It is the book Tales of Beetle the Bard. Written by J.K. Rowling after the final Harry Potter book came out, she made seven handwritten copies, and one was sold at auction for well over $3 million.

Handwritten? Yeah, well, it's just a short book. It's the tale, the children's tales from the Harry Potter world. And Amazon, Amazon bought it for over $3 million. Just to keep. Yeah, just have it. Not to sell. They published it to talk about it.

Well, remember, nobody had read this book either. So they actually, they made a whole big deal out about, they wrote a summary. They wrote a review of the book so that people can understand what was actually in it. But then eventually it was published and, you know, more broadly disseminated. But yeah. In 1987, the Japanese bookseller, the very old established Japanese bookselling company, Maruzhen, paid over $5 million. This is in 1987 for a copy of this book, which was printed in 1455. Dana.

The Art of War? No. 1450. Karen. Tales of Genji? Not Tales of Genji. Get out of, get yourselves out of Asia. 1455.

they paid, and this was, at that point, it was more than double the previous record for a printed book. This is 87. This is like, primo time for Japan's economy. They had tons of extra cash. This book represented a major technological leap, if you... Oh, was it Gutenberg's Bible? It was, well, it was... Yeah.

It was a Gutenberg Bible. Yes, yeah. It was Steve Gutenberg's Bible. Right after three men in the... Yeah, yeah. He was big. It was 87. Yeah.

It was one of Johann Gutenberg's original Bibles, one of the first things printed with movable type. Wow. In the year 2010, I wouldn't call this a book, but a two-page written document written by a man named James Naismith sold for over $4 million. What was it? Colin, that would have been the rules for basketball. The rules of basketball.

Oh, of course you have. The original rules of basketball. That's right. Well, you probably heard the name James Nesman at some point, but yeah, it's in the, what is it? It's in the punch bowl, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Finally, the most expensive work, I believe, of narrative fiction ever sold. Most expensive work of narrative fiction ever sold.

So not the Bay Salom book, which is Psalms from the Bible. Most expensive work of narrative fiction ever sold had a plot that revolved around a convoluted dinner bet. What is the book? Convaluted dinner. Dinner bet. Everybody was betting a dinner on something. That sounds familiar. Doesn't it?

Doesn't it? It really does. Doesn't it? Dinner bet? Agatha Christie? It was about people telling stories and whoever told the best story. Everybody was going to buy them dinner.

Oh, Frankenstein? No? Yes, right? Wasn't that? Oh, no, that was the real life circumstances. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Oh, wait, no, that was life, not art.

This is a summation of the plot of the Canterbury Tales As everyone was going to Canterbury They all made a bet Says whoever can tell their tale the best Everybody else will buy them dinner later That was the premise I just remember a bunch of people on a journey

Right right right That was all a dinner bet Sold for $7.5 million in 1998 As I said It was the last first edition of the Canterbury tale Still remaining Still remaining in private hands Everything else at that point was in a museum

It's pricey books. I too have a book quiz for you guys. Oh, we're quizzing it and booking it. Booking it. Quizzing it and booking it. Did you guys do, did you have the, the booket thing when you were in, like, middle school? Maybe. Maybe this was just East Coast, but I think, I think some people.

Like scholastic bookwaters? Yeah, no, it was like, book it. And it was like, you had to, like, read as many books as you could. And, like, they had a big chart. Yeah, yeah, we had a star. You can get a star for every book to read. Yeah, we did have that. like really easy books

they make you game the system it is it is it's like encouraging you to game the system because it's not it's not how many pages you read it's how many books I wouldn't even enjoy it like they kind of ruined it by my strategy was I would find books that were like three or four volume sets or something

like that you know because they would usually be a little bit thinner yeah I read I would be like remember those horror stories like tales of terror or whatever with a really creepy watercolor it's a book it's a book I was like it's a book Yep. But did you guys have Scholastic Book Order? Yeah, we had. Oh, yeah, we did.

I always get the non-books. I really look forward to that day. It was great. That day is great. Throughout history, Royals across the world were notorious for incest. They married their own relatives in order to consolidate power and keep their blood blue. But they were oblivious to the havoc all this inbreeding was having on the the health of their offspring, from Egyptian pharaohs marrying their own sisters to the Habsburg's notoriously oversized lower jaws. I explore the most shocking incestuous relationships and

tragically inbred individuals in royal history. And that's just episode one. On the history tea time podcast, I profile remarkable queens and LGBTQ plus royals explore royal family trees and delve into women's medical history and other fascinating topics. I'm Lindsay Holiday, and I'm spilling the tea on history. Join me every Tuesday for new episodes of the History Tea Time podcast, wherever fine podcasts are enjoyed. So a few episodes ago, I did a segment called You Burnt's classic literature. Yeah, on Amazon. Yeah, so it took one-star reviews from Amazon, and they kind of included a a summary of the story. You guys had to guess what the story was. And so this is your burnt part two, but with children's literature. And instead of Amazon, I found Goodreads has amazing reviews.

They're just fascinating to read, like if you're bored. Look at the Goodreads reviews. So are they, yeah. Is this children reviewing the books or are their parents? Oh, no. The best ones are the parents. Sometimes kids do it, but the, the really, like, sarcastic cut to the bone. Oh, that's sassy. Like, you come from parents who are. super bored with the book, but I had to keep reading it. These are classics. You guys, you guys know what these are. So let's get this started. I'll read you part of a review, a one-star review from Goodreads, and you guys buzz in and tell me what story they're describing it. And these are all negative reviews. These are one-star. I did not enjoy this story so much. I'm going to

write a review about it, kind of reviews. All right. A disturbed young man in a devilish costume chases a dog with a sharp object then threatens to cannibalize his mother when she objects. No, it's not an episode of True Blood. This is actually the opening scene of an inexplicably beloved children's book. This sounds like

where the wild things are. Where the wild things are. Marie Sindack. I mean, this person hated it. It goes on and on. That's just a sampling of their vitrual. Not to be mean to anyone, but why,

Why does everyone like this book? Not that I don't like animals, but why does everyone love this book so much? I can write a book about a cat saving a monkey. Would you automatically buy it? My point is, what's so good about a spider saving a pig? The movie is not one bit better. In fact, it has to be one of the worst books I've ever read. No.

Well, of course. Charlotte's Webb. There are a lot where it's like, I don't get it. This pig, the pig was stupid. The spider was smart. And it's like, yeah, that's the, that's how much. It was like a generous spider. You got it.

Anyway, okay. How about this one? Mice are still pest. This one in particular wants to be weighted on hand and foot. Stewart Little? No. If you give a mouse a cookie. Yeah.

Because it's like if you give a mouse a cookie, like you want some milk and then blah. If you give him milk, he's probably going to have some chocolate for the milk. I don't know that one. There's another one for this one. It's, I just don't get it. It's a stupid mouse. Tell him no.

doesn't have to get everything he wants. When's someone going to stand up to this mouse? In a word, trite. I know that sounds snobby, but come on. Anne is the epitome of a Mary Sue character. All poor things. She's too skinny, and her red hair is too unique, and she's just so quirky. Isn't she just the perfect little flawed heroine?

Actually, no, she's obnoxious. Even as a child, I couldn't buy into this garbage. Little redhead, Anne of Green Gables? Green Gables? Yes. Anne of Green Gables. I thought she was a little bit annoying, too. You need to be able to separate your feelings about the character

from your feelings about the book. Yeah. Classic Mary Sue. Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. There's, I mean, many of these reference Mary Sue's. Mary Sue's, if you guys don't know, are in certain literature.

When you think that the author is, like, projecting themselves into the story or they're setting up, like, a perfect life for this perfect character. Right. That you see yourself in as well. It's self-insert fan fiction when they're too self-conscious to put themselves in. And so they're like, instead of like, you know, Chris goes to Hogwarts and solves everybody's problems, it's like, oh, there's a new student at Hogwarts. His name is Christian. Chris.

And he is very popular. He's so handsome. Everybody loves it. It's your own wishfulfillment. It's so good that he got sorted in all of the houses. But he picked, yeah. And then he got sued by J.K. Rowling. Now he lives in a box.

The end. That's a sad Mary Sue fan fiction. Miniature people living in a big old house and making friends with the boy who lives there sounds like a fun adventure. Sadly, this story bored me and I was skeptical about a lot of the size proportions and resources. Wow. Colin. In the Indian. Oh. Oh.

Oh, sorry. I thought it was the littles, but maybe the borrowers. The borrower. Yes. All over. All over. Yeah, well, yeah. Now Arietti, the borrower.

Yeah. Ariety the borrower, the studio jibbley. I like that. I read that book back in the day, though. I was skeptical about the size. He's become skeptical about the size. Well, yeah, because that size the best way is to actually have an exoskeleton

and not have, like, you can't just shrink a person. Should just be an insect. Yeah, exactly, because it's a surface to volume ratio. You know what, I'm going to go up my own one-star review. You're right. Excuse me. You're right. I would like to echo the earlier reviewer's concerns.

to see how fun trolling can be it's true it's a really slippery slope you're right oh my goodness how incredibly lame it seemed like each page I turned got lamer he falls off a mountain that he drew and since he didn't finish drawing there's no other side of the mountain so he's falling in thin air so good thing for him he still had his stupid purple crayon all eyes

that's the Harold Oh, Harold, okay. Harold and the purple crayon. Got it. I was like, Matthew in the purple crayon. Who? Who illustrated that? Who wrote that?

Crocket Johnson. Yeah. Hmm. I would never be able to blow that one out. All right. One more. Okay. Apparently, Scholastics did not read this before they put it on their book list for young children.

If they did read it and endorsed it anyway, we have a problem. The heroine here is a small child, seemingly gifted, who is verbally, mentally, and emotionally abused by her parents. She goes to a school where the headmistress openly states she hates small children and physically abuses them with impunity. What the H. That's what they wrote. What the H?

Matilda. Matilda. Right. Roald doll. Roald doll. Roald doll. Rolled doll. I'll say his books are.

Child abuse was a running theme and a lot of his book. Yeah. It was a running theme. in a lot of people's lives. That's true. That's true at that time. Multifaceted. I feel that way about, like, Lewis Carroll.

Oh, yeah. Just a very interesting life and some questionable parts of it. But interesting, dude. Just, yeah, you're like, okay, I see why you maybe felt the need to channel this into stories. So, Roldall also wrote, like, short stories, like, not for kids. Oh, yes. And those are, you know, what the age. Yeah.

Those are what the age. Yeah. Yeah, real age. I read them. when I was a kid because I was like, I love Rolls doll, and I was like, oh, there's no chocolate factory in here. That's a different kind of factory. Also, also for the record, and I just double check this on the internet, because I just read this and I was like, oh, no, I've been saying it wrong. It's actually pronounced rule, ruled, rule.

Yeah, the D is silent. Is he Welsh? Yeah, he is. Yeah, because he has a plaza in Cardiff. Yeah, I've been there. I was like, oh, they were having a festival for him. Yep. I didn't talk to anybody.

That's why I didn't know how to pronounce his name. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's just. It's where the Torchwood office is. It's hard to figure out. All right. All right, let's take a quick break. A word from our sponsor.

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I do. So the last few weeks, I've been tweeting a weird word every day. You can follow me at words are so weird. October is creepy word month. So all the words are creepy or spooky or about being scared or... Give us a taste. So one of my favorite words so far this month is cacaoithes, which means the irresistible urge to do something inadvisable. Like the little voice in your mind, cacao-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c.

It's C-A-C-O-E-T-H-E-S. It rolls off the tongue. It's so... So along with the words, I make a little picture that goes with it using... Those are awesome. Super funny. Very silly, kind of dry and dorky. And educational.

We learn and laugh and love. So that's... At words are so weird. Follow it. And we're back. You're listening to Good Job, Brandon. And this week we're talking about books. We are.

And we're going to go bookception here. I'm going to read to you guys from a book in a book about books. We are surrounded by the Good Job Rain Library. One of the books I pulled down off of my shelf is a book called The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petrosky. It's so meta. It is a very nerdy, designy kind of broad history book. Very broadly, it's about bookshelves and the history of books and book storage. That's sort of its very high level.

There's that much to write about book storage? Karen, you should know you can nerd out about anything. That's true. You can nerd out about anything. And, you know, the history of bookshelves, it's one of those things like where we take a lot for granted. And as I read this book, I realized how much we take for granted. Just a lot of the simple things that seem obvious to us now about how we would store and keep books were totally not always that way. So I'll show you a little anecdote here from the book that Henry Petroski relates.

Because I think this story kind of touches on a few of like the major turning point. points and how we deal with the books. So in 1444, Oxford University, may have heard of it, they appointed the Duke of Gloucester to help build their new library, all right? So, I mean, you know, even though this is 1444, they'd still an institution of some regard already. And in particular, the problem they were hoping to solve when their new library was overcrowding. Okay?

And the overcrowding was different from what you might think of when you first showed about library overcrowding. I'll read you a quote here. In particular, they were concerned, quote, should any student be pouring over a single volume, as often happens, he keeps three or four others away on account of the books being chained so closely together? Oh, they're chained together? Chained. Why were they chained? Why is this a concern? So what they're talking about this problem is, in an old style library, up into as late as the 14,500's even,

you would have a fairly small collection. Books were, rare. Books were, you know, they were the dominion of universities and monasteries, largely in the West, and they were valuable. And you might only have a single copy of any given book. You probably would only have a single copy of almost all of your volumes. And you wanted to literally keep someone from borrowing it and forgetting to bring it back. Or, you know, in a most extreme case, walking away with it. When he talks about overcrowding and putting away three or four other students, this was because the way you would go study at a book at that time, you would go over to where it's chained to a row on sort of like a half kind of table.

It's like a book prison. You would plop it open. You would move any other books out of the way, and you would sit and do your work there because it wasn't something you could just take back to your dorm room. And because they're so tiny, that means that there's no room to the left or the right of you to work. The other problem was these books were largely stored horizontally, as was the custom. Most books in any library of any size of the time, they were flat.

They were stored flat up. So one of the Duke of Gloucester's main, like a big innovation when helping build this library was introducing a simple couple rows of wood planks as bookshelves. Basically, here's a space for students to put the book on top while they're using another book so someone else can use it. Wow. This was radical. This was like a radical new way of approaching books.

And remember, like, a lot of the books at the time, you know, there's no writing on the spine necessarily. You need to look at the face of the book to see what you're feeling with. And so one of the points that Henry Petrosti makes in the book that's really interesting is that the issue of book storage only becomes a problem when you have too many books, right? You know, that like if you're in a case where the grandest library in your region might have 12 books, they're not worried about how to store them. So it was only when you started getting to someplace like Oxford, you know, or Cambridge or something like that, where they needed a way they were getting so many books and so many people wanting to use them. Now we had to think for the first time, wait, how do we store them when they're not being used? this wasn't an issue before.

They eventually came up with all sorts of elaborate ways to have like longer chains attached to the books. So they're still stuck with chaining because you may only have one copy of something. It goes on here. He says, you know, it may never be known how and when it occurred to a librarian to arrange the books vertically on the shelf. You know, that's kind of lost to the ages. So this obviously frees up more space for books.

It makes it easier to get one without disturbing another copy of the other book. But when they first started putting books on the shelves, it wasn't the way we have them now. it was spine inward. Oh, my God. Yes. So they finally got, okay, let's get them vertical. This makes a little more sense. Okay, baby sense.

But you just see the bare edges of the book pointing out at you. And again, this was because it wasn't necessarily a common thing to have the name on the spine. And that was where the chain was attached. They would attach the chain on the spine, so the chain would go off the backside of the bookshelf. Okay. This is just to show you all the things that, like, we take for granted now. So that's just one small flavor of what this book is about. If you were a book lover or a bookshelf lover, didn't mean to turn it.

this into a book review. But that's just sort of how he approaches telling the tale of where we got to. The things that we take for granted. I want to go back and tell them, hey, we have an all-ebook digital library. Like, what would they think they'd be burning at the stake. You're like, I don't know

what you mean. Those words don't mean anything. Oh, so you're a witch. Yeah, okay. Got it. Yeah, we understand. Yeah. All right, and we have one last bookish goodness. Chris, you got a quiz for us. So earlier this month, J.K. Rowling, author of several books,

she tweeted, she tweeted something. And this is the tweet. This is the tweet that she tweeted. Her tweet was, cry, foe, run amok, fa awry, my wand won't tolerate this nonsense. This is a tweet from J.K. Rowling.

Now, anything with the sentence, Fah, awry, that's F-A-S-A-W-R-Y, is probably an anagram. Somebody working real hard to make the ant-a-R-R-R-R-W. Yeah, shove that anagram in there. Yeah, or something, something's up. Yeah.

And in fact, she had even said previously to this, like in a reply to someone, oh, I should post an anagram about what I'm doing. So, yes, it was an anagram, and she was very clear that, like, oh, this has some relation to something that I'm working on. So Harry Potter fans immediately set to working it out. One of the guesses that got a lot of traction was, Harry Returns, won't say any details now, a week off. No comment.

That's not bad. That's not bad. Well, look, here's the problem. The thing with really long anagrams... It can be so many things. You can make them say whatever you want. For example, the sentence, I can exclusively reveal, that sentence also anagrams to... My own secret author fame news.

Drink only a soy non-fat water. So obviously, it's about healthy, beverage selection at Starbucks. That makes just as much sense. Right, exactly. So the actual, no, she had to get, I mean, she had to get a clue after clue after clue, and eventually they figured out that it was, the sentence was, Newt Scamander only meant to stay in New York for a few hours.

This was the first line, I believe, of her synopsis of the upcoming fantastic beasts and where to find them film or films, because they're going to, the Warner Brothers said they're going to do a trilogy. Oh, of course. Because everything has to be a trilogy. Yeah. They might make more money. And if it's already in a trilogy, it has to be four.

It's going to go to four. They'll take the last button and they'll split it up into a new unsatisfying movies. So then this, now I created that anagram about drinking only soy non-fat water with help from, of course, wordsmith. Dot org. With the internet anagram server is located, helps you anagram things. I am arrangement servant. I rearrangement servant. Yes.

Yeah. Servant. And so they actually also have a page on wordsmith.org that has some trivia about anagrams that have been used in literature. So here is a little quiz, a little mini quiz about anagrams that have been used in works of literature. Fun. All right. This author created the character Vivian Darkbloom as an alter ego of himself. Oh.

Of himself? Vivian Darkbloom. Darkbloom. His initials were Venn. Dana Victor Nabokov Oh Vladimir

Vladimir Vladimir Nabokov yes indeed Vivian Darkbloom shows up in Lolita and that is a stand-in for the author That's a good Antigram right

Yeah that is good In the early goings of the book The Da Vinci Code Robert Langdon Protagonist Tom Hanks Symbologist

Encounter Symbologist Robert Langton Yes, Harvard symbolologist Encounters the phrase is Oh, draconian devil, oh lame saint And these turn out to be the beginning of his journey These anagram to something

Oh, draconian devil, oh lame saint What was he being, what was he being clued towards? He was in the Louvre in Paris at this point It was cluing him towards something Da Vinci Oh, draconian devil, oh lame saint It was the first I was pointing to the

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci the Mona Lisa that's it that's it yep and then of course he goes to the

Mona Lisa and finds that someone is painting on it so dark the con of man this leads him

to Madonna on the rocks okay they're just simple integrams well yeah you think I don't know

you're supposed be able to figure about it you need it you got to be a Harvard yeah he's a Harvard I don't think so

my laptop and the internet yeah right right right right In the French edition of a certain book, this character's name had to be changed to Tom Elvis Jedusor. Karen.

Tom Riddle. Yes. Yes. Marvolo. Right. So, of course, yeah, Tom Marvolo Riddle, anagrams to I am Lord Voldemort. That's how he got his name in the text. And of course, because of this, because of the I am Lord Voldemort,

Gis. Just, sweet Voldemort. Yeah, exactly. Tom Elvis Jedusor Just named Voldemort Now of course In other In every different language

There's a different version There's a different name I like that There's a different name Because I have to keep the connection It asks to Now sometimes they are able to To get really close to Tom Marvel over

It'll just change a couple of things Or in Dutch his name is Martin Asmodam Villagen Which is an anagram of Minnamis Voldemort So they So, I mean, they had to call him Something totally different.

Tom Riddle. From the second book. From the second book. They had to have a new name. Yeah, oh yeah. So beginning from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, they have to start figuring out

how they can do it. Yep. Wow. And to get to Voldemort, which they tend to keep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This popular humorist sometimes goes by the pseudonym

Ray Adverb. Oh. Dave Sedaris? No. Oh. Ray Adver. Dave Barry. Dave Barry.

Ray Adverb. That's right, right adverb. Here's one that is actually a piece of trivia. This is not in the book. This is only in the movie version of Silence of the Lamb. This did not appear in the book. At one point, I know, right? Yes, yep, very highly.

Hannibal Lecter initially tells Clary Starling that the killer that she is looking for, that his name is Lewis Friend. And then this is revealed, she figures out that it is an anagram. for something and she tells them that it is in reference to fools gold or a false solution what did lewis friend anagram into oh l u l u i s f r i e and d it anagrams into a the the official name for fools gold oh so you're looking for what is fools gold actually or right or uh pyrite yeah it's like an element right well not element i mean it anagrams it into it. Yeah, it anagrams into it.

Right. Right. Lewis Friend. Are you looking it up on the internet? No, I'm... Oh, you're typing it out to you look at it. Yeah, just to look at the letters. Yeah, pyrite is the name of the mineral itself, but the actual, like, the chemical name. Oh, I got it, but I saw the answer. Well, yeah, because you looked it up on the internet.

That's okay. It's a chemical makeup. Fools gold. Cary, you want to tell us? Iron sulfide. Iron sulfide is Fool's Gold and, yeah, Lewis Friend. And finally, having absolutely no connection to books whatsoever, maybe she reads books. The musical artist Imogen Heep released an album with this anagramed title. Colin. That was IMegaphone.

I Megaphone. Yep, an anagram for Imogen Heep. Oh, of herself. There we go. Cool. All right, and that is our episode about books. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learn a lot of stuff about bookshelves, about anagrams, about children, parents being sassy at children's books, and more.

You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher on SoundCloud, and also on our website, goodjobbrain.com. And thanks for our sponsor, Squarespace, and we'll see you guys next week. Bye. If you like this podcast, can we recommend another one? It's called Big Picture Science. You can hear it wherever you get your podcast, and its name tells part of the story. The big picture questions and the most interesting research in science. Seth and I are the host.

Seth is a scientist. I am Molly, and I'm a science journalist. And we talk to people smarter than us, and we have fun along the way. The show is called Big Picture Science, and as Seth said, you can hear it wherever you get your podcasts.