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 funerals, national days to neo-pagan necromancy, festivals represent human culture at its most vivid and varied, and the resulting account is both a rich collection of travel writing and an anthropological exploration of the roles that festivals play in society. Through colorful characters, vibrant sights, and varied locales, Daniel Stables takes a curious, humanistic look at festivals across the world, unravelling the universal threads that run through our diverse global celebrations.

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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 manages to scare listeners while making them laugh, preparing them for a wide range of deadly situations and conditions. Each chapter includes stories of her patients pertaining to the chapter’s subject, as well as her related experiences in life and medicine. Sections include categories on sex, poison, drugs, biological warfare, disease, animals, crime, the elements and much more.

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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 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 a mass infection situation.

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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 shadows of this tale–was she really just “an innocent young girl” in thrall to a powerful older man? And was there an equally sinister story behind the death of Crippen’s first wife, Charlotte?Brimming with twists and featuring a carnival cast of eccentric entertainers, star lawyers, zealous detectives, medics and liars, Story of a Murder offers an electrifying snapshot of Britain and America at the dawn of the modern era. Join us for a LIVE discussion with the famed author, Hallie Rubenhold, as we discovery the truth behind the headlines.

Episode was recorded live February 12, 2026.

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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 narrative with research and cultural critique. Unpacking the history of feminism's anti-lipstick sentiments, debunking long-standing fallacies, and digging into how Gen Z is using lipstick to explode gender norms, this book explores how self-adornment can be a source of play, pleasure, and transformation.

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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 to the Confederate H. L. Hunley, which became the first submersible to sink an enemy warship before itself being sunk during the Civil War. The deeper he plunges, however, the more the obsession seems to dovetail with more threatening traits. Following the grisly murder of journalist Kim Wall at the hands of eccentric entrepreneur Peter Madsen aboard his DIY midget submarine, Frank finds himself reckoning with obsession's darkest extremes. Weaving together elements of true crime, history, and the physical and mental side effects of sinking to great depth, Frank attempts to get to the bottom of this niche compulsion. Join us to explore the unexpected overlaps between the desire to descend -- and a penchant for unspeakable violence.

Episode was recorded live January 22, 2026.

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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 Research.

McCann’s debut novel, All Different Kinds of Free, was awarded the Freedom in Fiction Prize. Her second, Peculiar Savage Beauty, was named Arizona Book of the Year and shortlisted for the international Rubery Book Award. Bitter Thaw, McCann’s most recent release, was named 2023 Best Indie Book by Shelf Unbound magazine and received the Gold Award for Historical Fiction from Foreword INDIES.

In all her writing, McCann shares stories of ordinary people overcoming adversity to accomplish extraordinary things. Layered themes of nature, forgiveness, community, acceptance, and perseverance are another hallmark of her work.

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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 the parasite's needs until death's sweet release (and often beyond).

We’ll chat live with the author about the evolutionary intricacies behind zombie ants, mind-controlled beetles, and the fungi and viruses that reprogram behavior from Brazilian rainforests to European meadows. It’s weird. It’s macabre. It’s right up our peculiar little alley. Come ask the hard questions, like why is a bug's world full of zombies, why are arthropods so susceptible to this zombification, and could the creators of zombie bugs ever evolve to do the same to people? It's a must-read for anyone curious about the true terrors lurking in nature's undergrowth and the unnerving beauty of evolution's darker side.

Music for tonight's Comedy Sketch provided by:Shockwave Drift by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

Episode was recorded live January 8, 2026.

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