Damn History | Issue 76 | March 2024

^{Damn History | Issue 76 | March 2024}

I’ll have a new book coming out a year from now. Titled Face in the Mirror: A Surgeon, a Patient, and a Second Chance at Life, it tells the story of Andy Sandness, a young man who underwent a face transplant at the Mayo Clinic in 2016. It delves deeply into the history of face transplantation. The publisher is Mayo Clinic Press.

The book’s forthcoming release has me thinking about book talks, radio and podcast interviews, and all the other ways authors get word out about a newly published book. I’ve been remembering an odd phenomenon I noticed after the publication of my last book.

Often, at public readings or events, someone in attendance would refer to my work as a novel, even though it was clearly a nonfiction book. When that happened, I would correct the person who misspoke and say that I write factual books only and do not make up anything.

Many times, that approach left the other person looking confused, and I did not know why. Later I realized that a segment of the reading public refers to all books, fictional or factual, as novels. If its pages are bound between covers, they think a book is a novel regardless of its content.

This time around, I’ll ignore the misappellation. Readers will understand that what’s in Face in the Mirror cannot be invented.

Here in Damn History you'll find, as usual, recommendations on good and popularly accessible historical reading, with tips on writing and links to my own work.

 — Jack El-Hai

Follow me on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Jack_ElHai

Contact me at [email protected]

Personal Notes

Time Capsule: The Silver Chain is a new podcast based on an article I wrote for GQ about a 1970s swingers club in Bloomington, Minnesota. It will change what you think about swingers clubs.

I sometimes joke that I like writing about history because dead people can’t sue for defamation and libel. Or can they?

"That is the power of popular history, when it is done well."

For a bountiful collection of my popular-history book, article, and audiobook recommendations, search X (formerly known as Twitter) for the hashtag #popularhistory.

Recent Popular History from All Over

You may find some of these articles behind a paywall if you’ve exceeded the publisher’s allowance of free views.

What’s a hero without a villain? Adam Worth was the real-life criminal mastermind who inspired Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis Professor Moriarty.

The history of ! explained.

Henry Heard, tap dancer: "With one arm and one leg, he upended assumptions that disabled people could not lead fulfilling lives."

One of the world’s strangest sea mysteries.

The history, myths, and legends of the Chinese-restaurant menu.

A measles outbreak in 1879 led to the invention of telephone numbers.

A volume about cats is the oldest children’s book in English still in print.

A case study of the 1912 lynching of Mary Jackson in Harrison County, Texas.

Sticky controversies spread over the history of peanut butter.

Nobody enjoys the spectacle of a rotting highwayman.

Resources 

The film business is beholden to the business of books.

To be successful as a writer, develop tenacity.

A dreary list, constantly growing, of scams directed at writers. Don't fall for them.

Popular-history author Erik Larson says his newest book is very much a story of the present.

Learn how to be more systematically curious.

In an intriguing interview, popular-history author Steven Johnson talks about NotebookLM, the AI research and note-taking tool he’s developing with Google Labs. He also discusses other aspects of writing research-intensive books.

See flying saucer photos from the U.S. National Archives!

"You need to get used to the task of writing. You must make an effort to learn to regard it not as something painful but as routine. But most people tend to give up halfway." – Akira Kurosawa

Housekeeping

To subscribe to Damn History, sign up here. 

More next month, and thanks for taking a look. And you are welcome to forward Damn History in its entirety to anyone.

About me: I'm a journalist whose beat is history. I've contributed hundreds of articles to such publications as Smithsonian, The Atlantic, Wired, Scientific American, Discover, GQ, The Washington Post Magazine, Longreads.com, and many others. My books include The Lost Brothers: A Family’s Decades-Long Search, The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines, and The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goering, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WW2. I often give presentations to groups of writers, readers, and others.

Please feel free to get in touch.