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The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-of-the-Century America

Alongside H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds and Nikola Tesla’s claim to have intercepted an extraterrestrial communication, Lowell’s fantastical lectures depicting “the pathos and heroism of this great civilization fighting to survive” sparked a Mars craze, which included comics, a new dance (“A Signal from Mars”), and claims from some individuals to have visited the Red Planet as “disembodied souls.” Baron astutely examines the societal shifts that account for the Martian fixation, among them the rise of a yellow press that craved sensationalistic stories, a new wave of exploration and invention (the Wright brothers’ flights; expeditions to the North Pole), and divisive earthbound struggles like the Spanish-American War that rendered Mars—an imagined “Planet of Peace”—as a symbol of hope. While Baron points to the dangers of conspiracy theories and bunk science, he also presents the saga as one of infectious optimism that inspired subsequent generations of science fiction writers and scientists. It’s an enthrallingly bizarre and surprisingly poignant account of humankind’s limitless willingness to believe. Read more

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New Cozy Game, Tiny Bookshop, is Getting Good Reviews

Developer neoludic games celebrates the release of Tiny Bookshop, a new sim that sees you running a small seaside secondhand bookshop. You’ll collect books across different genres in an attempt to satisfy the reading habits of your customers, accumulate decorations for your shop that also affect the mood and purchasing tendencies of your customers, and more. Watch trailer

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Discover the World’s Oldest Surviving Cookbook

The book, originally titled De Re Coquinaria, is attributed to Apicius and may date to the 1st century A.C.E., though the oldest surviving copy comes from the end of the Empire, sometime in the 5th century. As with most ancient texts, copied over centuries, redacted, amended, and edited, the original cookbook is shrouded in mystery. Read more

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‘Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler’

Morris situates Butler’s career amid salient historical events and social movements, and she underscores the deep research that fueled Butler’s imagination, from reading slave narratives in Baltimore archives to studying precolonial West African, Nubian, and Igbo languages and cultures. Butler’s fictions—which Morris reads perceptively—convey cautionary tales warning against fascism, gender-based violence, and the consequences of global warming. All, Morris asserts, are driven by the question: What does it mean to be human? Read more

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Discover One of the World’s First Novels From 1,000 Years Ago

Written more than 1,000 years ago during the height of the Heian period (794–1185), The Tale of Genji was penned by Murasaki Shikibu while she served as a lady-in-waiting at the Japanese court. The manuscript, whose most recent English translation spans 1,300 pages, follows the tender, charismatic Prince Genji, tracing his life and many romantic pursuits against the backdrop of 11th-century Japan. Read more

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