The following podcast contains explicit language.

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Hi, and welcome to Slate's Audio Book Club for the month of October 2015.

I'm Katie Waldman, words correspondent at Slate, and I'm joined today in the DC studio by Culture Editor Dan Coice.

Hey.

Hello.

And for the first time ever, live from New York, it's books and culture critic Laura Miller.

Welcome to the audiobook club, Laura.

Thank you.

I'm thrilled to be with you.

Yeah, we're so glad to have you. So today we'll be discussing The Martian by Andy Weir, and the normal rules about

spoilers apply. So if you don't want to know whether astronaut Mark Watney gets rescued or

languishes forever on a planet 350 million miles away from the nearest living soul, pause this

podcast right now, read the book, and then come back. Before we get started, I also want to note

that The Martian

has been made into a Ridley Scott movie starring Matt Damon, and Slate has tons of coverage,

both of the film and of the book that we'll link to on our show page. But now, you guys,

let's podcast the shit out of this. Let's podcast the shit out of this science book.

...