10/01/2020
When her love of the strange and intriguing facts behind a story outgrew the Your Brain on Facts podcast, LaBouche decided to write a book. Bypassing widely known tales that center white men, the author instead looks at more obscure accounts, often involving people of color, those with LGBT identities, and women, such as Frances Oldham Kelsey, whose keen judgment prevented Thalidomide from being approved in the United States. The author explores the mating habits of banana slugs and scientists who experimented on themselves: Testing laughing gas sounds more fun than ingesting hookworms. Sections range from a few pages to a few lines. Horror movies cursed by accidents, internet truisms (the Streisand effect: Attempting to suppress or remove something from the web will make it more popular than it would have been on its own), and hangover cures are just a few of the other topics she examines. VERDICT An irreverent and entertaining look at a hodgepodge of facts—though not all readers will appreciate LaBouche's humor, which often pokes fun at traditional thinking.
