Episode Details
This episode looks at Hollow Earth history and mythology, its role in maritime lore, the cumulative effects of The Little Ice Age and The Year Without A Summer, and their impact on the search for a Northwest Passage — all while sipping La Fin Du Monde Belgian Triple. Proost!
Click here for the transcript
Books
Hollow Earth: The Long and Curious History of Imagining Strange Lands, Fantastical Creatures, Advanced Civilizations, and Marvelous
Author: David Standish
Publisher: DaCapo Press (2007)
From science fiction to utopian societies and even religions, Hollow Earth travels through centuries and cultures, exploring how each era’s relationship to the idea of a hollow earth mirrored its hopes, fears, and values. Illustrated with everything from seventeenth-century maps to 1950s pulp art to movie posters and more, Hollow Earth is for anyone interested in the history of strange ideas that just won’t go away. (Publisher)
Where the Dead Wait: A Novel
Author: Ally Wilkes
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books (2023)
William Day should be an acclaimed Arctic explorer. But after a failed expedition, in which his remaining men only survived by eating their dead comrades, he returned in disgrace.
Thirteen years later, his second-in-command, Jesse Stevens, has gone missing in the same frozen waters. Perhaps this is Day’s chance to restore his tarnished reputation by bringing Stevens—the man who’s haunted his whole life—back home. But when the rescue mission becomes an uncanny journey into his past, Day must face up to the things he’s done. (Publisher)
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 (Revised) by Brian Fagan
Nature’s Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present by Philipp Blom
Booze
La Fin du Monde Belgian Tripel — Unibroue Brewery, Chambly (Québec) CA
9% ABV
This rich and sophisticated golden tripel has earned several international titles thanks to its refined taste marked by notes of grains, fruit and spice, supported by a slight bitterness.
It is a tribute to Quebec, the land encountered by 16th-century French explorers who thought they’d reached the end of the world. (Producer’s website)
Source Material & References
Symmes’s Theory Of Concentric Spheres: Demonstrating That The Earth Is Hollow, Habitable Within, And Widely Open About The Poles by a Citizen of the United States
Author: James McBride
Publisher: Morgan, Lodge, and Fisher (1826)
The following pages are presented with no other intention, than as a hint to elicit the attention of others, who are qualified to investigate, and improve the subject. Should they, on examination, consider the matter worthy of their investigation, it will doubtless receive the attention which its importance so greatly demands. If it be erroneous, it is hoped they will detect, and expose its fallacy to the world; giving at the same time rational and satisfactory explanations of the many facts, and appearances which Captain Symmes adduces as proofs of his positions. (Author’s Preface)
Other Hollow Earth Books
- Hollow: A Novel by Owen Egerton
- The Smoky God: A Voyage to the Inner World by Willis George Emerson (1908)
- The Book of Earths by Edna Kenton (1928)
- Paradise Found: The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole, a Study of the Prehistoric World by William F. Warren (1885)
- The Kingdom of Agarttha: A Journey into the Hollow Earth by Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre (1886)
- The Hollow Earth by Dr. Raymond Bernard (1969)
- The Hollow Earth: The Narrative of Mason Algiers Reynolds of Virginia by Rudy Rucker
Volcanoes and Climate Change
Volcanic Explosivity Index
Of Books & Booze Episode 003 — When Humans Nearly Vanished — In this episode, we talk about When Humans Nearly Vanished: The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano by Donald R. Prothero while drinking a bottle of the 2016 Brassfield Eruption Red Blend!
The 1257 Samalas eruption (Lombok, Indonesia): the single greatest stratospheric gas release of the Common Era by Vidal, C., Métrich, N., Komorowski, JC. et al. The 1257 Samalas eruption (Lombok, Indonesia): the single greatest stratospheric gas release of the Common Era. Sci Rep 6, 34868 (2016).
Polar Gothic
Haunted Ice, Fearful Sounds, and the Arctic Sublime: Exploring Nineteenth-Century Polar Gothic Space by Associate Professor Katherine Bowers. Published 2017 in Gothic Studies, the official journal of the International Gothic Association (whose URL is globalgoth.org — NICE!)
Abstract: This article considers a unified polar Gothic as a way of examining texts set in Arctic and Antarctic space. Through analysis of [key works] the author creates a framework for understanding polar Gothic, which includes liminal space, the supernatural, the Gothic sublime, ghosts and apparitions, and imperial Gothic anxieties about the degradation of ‘civilisation’. . . . Polar space creates an uncanny potential for seeing one’s own self and examining what lies beneath the surface of one’s own rational mind.
The ‘Custom of the Sea’
Author David Standish
David Standish has been the editorial advisor for 20 Magazine Innovation Projects. He also teaches magazine writing, a class on how to write a nonfiction book, and modules on freelancing and travel writing. A longtime magazine freelancer, he still writes occasionally for magazines but in the last few years has been concentrating more on books. (Northwestern Medill website)
Mr. Standish has another book out there titled The Art of Money: The History and Design of Paper Currency from Around the World. Published in 2000, there are a few first additions on Amazon, or try to find it from your local used bookshop!
Book Designer — Cooley Design Lab
With vast experience in the publishing, design, and advertising worlds, Steve brings a foundation of aesthetics, content, and collaboration to each assignment and project. He combines visual acumen with attention to detail to ensure outcomes that are compelling and effective. (Website)
Jacket by Alex Camlin Design
Alex Camlin [is] a designer and art director based in Boston, Massachusetts and working on projects for book publishers and other clients in the arts and culture industry. (Website)
Music
Out most execellent theme song was created and produced by Arcontas Blank . Find Arcontas Blank on SoundCloud and Facebook
Website Services
Visit SiteByMike.com to see what they can do for you!
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