Hello and welcome to Slate's Audio Book Club for Thursday, April 28th.

I'm Hanna Rosen, the double X editor at Slate.

I am joined here in the Washington, D.C. office by David Plotz, Slate's editor and also the husband of Hanna Rosen.

Hi, David.

Hi, sweetie.

And in New York, we have Dan Engber, who's Slate Senior Editor and also an ABD in neuroscience,

which makes him the only one who knows what he's talking about on this podcast.

We are going to discuss Moonwalking with Einstein, which is the bestseller by Joshua 4,

about his attempts to become a U.S. memory champion and what he learned along the

way about memory and brains and why memory is important. Before we get going, I just want to

mention what our book club is going to be for next month. For once, we are not discussing a new book.

Yay, to celebrate the Cesquist Centennial. Is that how you say it? Cesquistentennial. Anyway, all the Civil War

Mania, we are going to discuss Michael Sharah's 1974 book Killer Angels, which everyone who's read

said is amazing. It's a fictional retelling of the Battle of Gettysburg. I'm sure you can borrow a copy

from your father, uncle, whoever is the Civil war buff in your life, which in my case

is my husband, David Plotz, who raves and raves about this book. So join us in about a month

for Killer Angels. Now let's get back to Moonwalking with Einstein, which is a truly charming

book. David, do you want to say how this book got started? Like, why did Josh go down this path?

This whole podcast needs sort of like credit card statement, footnotes, and small print

because Josh Ford is a former Slate intern. He worked here maybe eight or ten years ago as a

very young, I think maybe even in high school. His brother, Frank Four, is also a former

slate colleague of ours and in one of my best friends.

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