Books recommended on Stuff You Should Know
Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant and guests brought up 40 books across 8 recent episodes, 4 of them explicit recommendations — each with the episode, the minute, and what was said.
Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant · US · YouTube · Jump to episode by episode ↓
Latest mentions
Books mentioned on this show
- 1 The OutsidersS. E. HintonAmazon 3 episodes
- 2 Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode · 1 recommended
- 3 Freckle JuiceJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode · 1 recommended
- 4 Otherwise Known as Sheila the GreatJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode · 1 recommended
- 5 Wide Awake and DreamingJulie FlygareAmazon 1 episode · 1 recommended
- 6 A Memory of SolferinoHenry DunantAmazon 1 episode
- 7 A Modest ProposalJonathan SwiftAmazon 1 episode
- 8 Alfred Hitchcock and the Three InvestigatorsHarry KaneAmazon 1 episode
- 9 Black PostcardsDean WarehamAmazon 1 episode
- 10 BlubberJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 11 Catch-22Joseph HellerAmazon 1 episode
- 12 City on a gridGerard T. KoeppelAmazon 1 episode
- 13 Creamy & crunchyJon KrampnerAmazon 1 episode
- 14 Don QuixoteKathy AckerAmazon 1 episode
- 15 Fight ClubChuck PalahniukAmazon 1 episode
- 16 In the unlikely eventJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 17 Moby DickHerman MelvilleAmazon 1 episode
- 18 My Life With Bonnie And ClydeBlanche Caldwell BarrowAmazon 1 episode
- 19 Nancy DrewDaniella BurrAmazon 1 episode
- 20 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen KeseyAmazon 1 episode
- 21 Ramona QuimbyBeverly ClearyAmazon 1 episode
- 22 Smart WomenJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 23 Summer sistersJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 24 SuperfudgeJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 25 Sweet Valley HighKate WilliamAmazon 1 episode
- 26 Tales of a Fourth Grade NothingJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 27 The Chocolate WarRobert CormierAmazon 1 episode
- 28 The Feminine MystiqueBetty FriedanAmazon 1 episode
- 29 The Genius of JudyRachelle BergsteinAmazon 1 episode
- 30 The gift of the MagiO. HenryAmazon 1 episode
- 31 The Hardy boysLeslie McFarlaneAmazon 1 episode
- 32 The Loneliness of the Long-Distance RunnerAlan SillitoeAmazon 1 episode
- 33 The monkey's pawW. W. JacobsAmazon 1 episode
- 34 The One in the Middle Is the Green KangarooJudy Blume 1 episode
- 35 Then Again, Maybe I Won'tJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 36 Tiger EyesJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 37 Tom SawyerMark TwainAmazon 1 episode
- 38 True Story of Bonnie and Clyde (The Fugitives)Nell Barrow CowanAmazon 1 episode
- 39 WifeyJudy BlumeAmazon 1 episode
- 40 ZhuangziZhuangziAmazon 1 episode
Episode by episode
Terry Fox: Greatest Canadian Hero | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW · 2026-09-02
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“Because there like that whole like the the as Iron Maiden put it, the loneliness of a long-distance runner never built up for her.”
Rope, yeah ROPE! | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW · 2026-08-22
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“I think all everything in life is telling me to finally read Moby Dick and maybe listen to this podcast as I go along would be a good way to do it.”
Isn't It Ironic, Dontcha Think? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW · 2026-08-19
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“The Outsiders was written by a teenage girl. Name is S. E. Hinton.”
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“Randle P. McMurphy, Jack Nicholson's character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, is considered uh philosophically ironic by being a sane person in a mental hospital”
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“Jonathan Swift came up with a modest proposal in 1729... in it he basically talks about how the Irish just need to eat their babies, and that will solve the hunger issue”
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“I think we've talked about the Zhuangzi before. The Daoist text... there was a story about a tree that was so twisted and gnarly that it couldn't be used for lumber”
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“Tom Sawyer using reverse psychology to trick his friends into taking over painting the fence for him because he talks about how much fun it is”
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“Don Quixote is um maybe the first modern novel. There's a lot of irony in that. The biggest one is just that Quixote himself is a very elevated sort of ideas about his adventures”
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“my favorite ironist of all time is O. Henry. He was well known as the master of the ironic twist, like the gift of the Magi. Doesn't get any better than that.”
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“And then another one that always stands out to me is The Monkey's Paw. Um granted wishes but those wishes always came with an ironic consequence”
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“We should probably definitely mention Catch-22 because that's a satire... the whole title is an ironic paradox”
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“in Fight Club, apparently, it was meant to be ironic in that like these guys were rebelling against society... they ended up creating their own fascist society”
Selects: The Manhattan Grid | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW · 2026-08-18
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“Dave got a lot of his information from a really wonderful book called City on a Grid: How New York Became New York by Gerard Koeppel.”
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“She also wrote a great book about her experiences with being diagnosed during law school called Wide Awake and Dreaming.”
Bonnie and Clyde | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW · 2026-08-12
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“I tried to buy Dean's guitar off of Instagram a few weeks ago. It's the one that's on the cover of his book, Black Postcards”
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“Did you know that S.E. Hinton was a teenage girl when she wrote The Outsiders?”
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“There was a book from Bonnie's mother and Clyde's sister who got together and wrote a book called Fugitives: the story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.”
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“She served 6 years, was paroled in '39, and wrote her book My Life with Bonnie and Clyde”
Selects: How Peanut Butter Works | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW · 2026-08-03
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“this guy named John Krampner, and he wrote a book called the creamy and crunchy, all about peanut butter”
The Beloved Judy Blume | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW · 2026-07-29
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“I did. It was a good one. I'm going to say that about all of them.”
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“I did read that.”
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“I read that. That was a good one.”
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“Blubber is the one, aside from Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, that I remember the most.”
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“I read Then Again, Maybe I Won't.”
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“I also read um Superfudge. Oh, I did, too. I read Superfudge.”
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“I also read a lot of Ramona Quimby books. Did you read any of those?”
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“S. E. Hinton, her um uh her book The Outsiders takes place among high schoolers.”
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“Her first published book was a children's picture book called The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo.”
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“Can you just imagine starting your career out with a stone-cold classic like that?”
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“Robert Ludlum's Chocolate War.”
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“Betty Friedan talked about in The Feminine Mystique is embodied in the writing of Judy Blume.”
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“Tiger Eyes is um about a girl whose father is killed during a robbery of the 7-Eleven that he works at.”
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“Starting with Wifey in 1978 about a woman in a traditional marriage who wanted to break out of that.”
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“Smart Women was about women navigating dating and relationships after post-divorce.”
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“One that came out in '98 called Summer Sisters. It's about a female friendship.”
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“In the Unlikely event from 2015, she wrote about a family going through those actual plane crashes.”
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“I'd like to read the entire catalog of Sweet Valley High.”
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“Nancy Drew books. She still has her collection from her mom and read all of those.”
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“My sisters read those and the Hardy Boys a little bit.”
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“I was a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators. Remember them?”
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“In 2024, there was a biography, The Genius of Judy, by Rochelle Bergstein.”
What's the deal with Swiss neutrality? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW · 2026-07-25
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“He wrote a book called A Memory of Solferino, and talked about these experiences and the creation of these committees that would train volunteers, and that's the stuff that would become the first National Red Cross Society.”