This week we're replaying our favorite shows about writers and the printed page. In this episode from September 2022, National Read A Book Day brings to mind an article from HowStuffWorks called “What is the oldest book in the world?” Plus: Ithaca, New York is home to a tribute to the world of growing, eating, sharing and decorating gourds of all kinds.

What Is the Oldest Book in the World? (HowStuffWorks)

Ithaca is ‘gourd-geous’: Welcome to Gourdlandia, where the world’s most versatile vegetable is transformed into art (Roadtrippers)

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This week we're replaying our favorite shows about writers and the printed page. In this episode from March 2020, Sri Lankan author Sybil Wettasinghe set a world record for the most alternative endings in a single book. Plus: in the early days of COVID-19, a pilot in Austria goes up in the air to do his part for social distancing.

Children’s book gets Guinness record with 1,250 alternative endings (UPI)

Pilot writes message for world in the sky: ‘Stay home’ (CNet)

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This week we're replaying our favorite shows about writers and the printed page. In this episode from May 2019, one of the most interesting moments of Walt Whitman’s life, the time he reviewed his own book in the newspapers. Plus: Plymouth, North Carolina hosts the North Carolina Black Bear Festival.

“Walt Whitman and His Poems” by Walt Whitman (Whitman Archive)

“Promoting Himself” (Library of Congress)

North Carolina Black Bear Festival

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This week we're replaying our favorite shows about writers and the printed page. In this episode from January 2020, the New York Public Library didn’t have a copy of one of the most iconic children's books of all time for decades, because a librarian didn’t like it. Plus: two pranksters added silent records to a jukebox, but customers decided they liked the quiet.

Top 10 Checkouts of All Time (New York Public Library)

The Quintessential Librarian Stereotype: Wrestling With the Legacy of Anne Carroll Moore (School Library Journal)

The Restorative Pause of Silent Record Week (New Yorker)

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This week we're replaying our favorite shows about writers and the printed page. In this episode from November 2020, we look at book dedications. Most are straightforward, but there are surprises. Plus: a scientific report sheds light on the pelagornithid, perhaps the largest flying bird ever.

Brilliant Book Dedications (Sad and Useless)

Scientists Reveal What May Be the Largest Flying Bird Ever (Smithsonian)

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A Harvard study finds that the thousands of dams humans have built over the last couple centuries have locked up so much water it's actually affected Earth's poles! We'll try to explain. Plus: starting today in Michigan City, Indiana, it’s the Singing Sands Sand Sculpting Festival.

Water storage in dams has caused minute shifts in Earth’s poles (Harvard's Advancing Earth and Space Sciences) 

The Singing Sands Sand Sculpting Festival 

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Today in 1972, a break-in at the Watergate hotel that kicked off a huge political scandal... and also, somehow, gave a gelatin dessert the name "Watergate salad." Plus: in 2022, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington hosted an exhibit called “Watergate: Portraiture and Intrigue.”

Jell-O Journalism: Investigating the Origins of Watergate Salad (Mental Floss)

Watergate: Portraiture and Intrigue (National Portrait Gallery)

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There's a new musical work that is, maybe, kind of, sort of from a composer who’s been gone three years. Plus: rice farmers in Gyoda, Japan turn their paddies into large-scale works of art.

Musical Composer’s Brain Matter Is Still Making Music Three Years After His Death (My Modern Met)

Tanjiro Emerges in the Fields as Gyoda Unveils 2025 Rice Paddy Art (Spoon + Tamago)

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Today in 1923, the birthday of Cordell Jackson, a guitarist who rocked out exactly the way she wanted to for over half a century. Plus: today in 2023, a Florida woman apparently took a fire truck out for a ride.

Jackson, Cordell (Women In Rock Project) 

Woman accused of impersonating firefighter after stealing firetruck, Florida cops say (Miami Herald)

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A decade before Mariner 4 got to Mars (on this day in 1965), a company famous for its advertising jokingly offered its customers a chance to go to the Red Planet - and a very serious customer tried to get them to follow through. Plus: a design studio in France builds a walk-through installation out of nearly 800 old baguettes.

Did Burma-Shave Offer to Send a Contest Winner to Mars? (Snopes)

780 leftover baguettes turn into public pavilion by MERO studios in montpellier (designboom)

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