Edison's Ghosts

February 27, 2023
Mathematician Spalding takes some of history’s most lauded savants down a notch in this gut-busting survey. Combining solid academic research with bawdy humor, Spalding portrays each so-called “genius” in a series of embarrassing vignettes, such as the time Napoleon Bonaparte’s chief of staff released thousands of tame rabbits into a field for a celebratory hunt. Instead of fleeing from Napoleon and his generals, the rabbits “hopp merrily towards them.... Hoping for some snuggles and snacks” and eventually causing the hunters to “beat a hasty retreat.” Elsewhere, Spalding ascribes Sigmund Freud’s conviction that “the universe was sending him messages through the appearance of various numbers” to his prolific cocaine habit, notes that enthusiastic sailor Albert Einstein’s inability to swim or sail proficiently required rescuers to continually fish him out of the water along the northeastern seaboard, recounts how Benjamin Franklin pranked his dinner guests by electrifying their wine glasses, and details Thomas Edison’s plans for a “spirit phone” that could allow people to communicate with the dead. Full of jaw-dropping anecdotes and valuable history lessons, this is a delight.

April 1, 2023
A cheeky tour of history's brightest and most peculiar people. From Pythagoras to Yukio Mishima, first-time author Spalding delivers consistently lively, witty excursions into the sometimes-weird lives and beliefs of the famous. The author writes that Leonardo da Vinci was a compulsive quitter, someone who would take on big commissions and money and then leave, sometimes coming back up to years later to finish or not. "Even his most famous work, the Mona Lisa, he never finished--he took it with him to France and insisted until his death that there was still more to do before it was complete," writes the author. Meanwhile, Galileo "utterly fail[ed] to read the room" when it came to inquisitions about the center of the universe. Descartes was a "weirdo celebrity heretic pseudo-refugee who had a weakness for cross-eyed women, weed and conspiracy theories." Besides his physics, Isaac Newton was "literally looking for the Philosopher's Stone," poking his eye with a needle and blind for three days after staring at the sun too long. "You really wouldn't want to hang out with Karl Marx," writes Spalding, as he was a bit of a bruiser and drunkard. Besides finding and cataloging animals, the always hungry Charles Darwin would then eat them. Sigmund Freud was "more responsible for cocaine's use as a recreational drug than any other person in history." Thomas Edison was a "sort of proto-Elon Musk" who believed his "Spirit Phone" could reach the dead, and though Einstein loved sailing, "he was terrible at it." There are only a few women included: �milie du Ch�telet, a "scientific genius" in the 1700s who studied math and dueled a man in her underwear; Ada Lovelace; Marie Curie; and Maya Angelou, whose life was "bonkers" in a good way. Others scrutinized by Spalding include Confucius, Napoleon, Mozart, Franklin, Byron, and Hemingway. Don't miss the footnotes; they're a hoot. An entertaining and informative collection.

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April 14, 2023
Spalding's first book is a foray into the humorous side of history. Running the gamut from Leonardo da Vinci to Thomas Edison, the text takes a lighter approach, portraying funny situations while also providing further context about the figures. Consider the sketches of war chariots that da Vinci sent to a duke that resembled UFO-looking tanks, not to mention all the statues and artworks he didn't finish. Although the chapter titles promise hilarity, many of the entries were bogged down with too much detail at times. Most of the figures profiled are white men, except Confucius--more diversity of figures outside of Europe would have been a welcome addition to the text. Nonetheless, readers will discover surprising details such as Freud's disastrous cocaine habit and Edison's work on a device that he hoped could communicate with the dead, sort of a ""Dial-a-Ghost"" as Spalding calls it. Ideal for fans of history who enjoy the lighter side, Edison's Ghosts will be an entertaining addition to public library shelves.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.