I'm Alan Olga and this is Clear In Vivit, conversations about connecting and communicating.

When you think about it and I did think about it, they commit manslaughter, breaking and

entering, home invasion, jay walking, littering, trespassing, obviously they don't know,

their laws are written for us. So for me it was more of a fun and inviting way to talk

about human animal conflict because human animal conflict is what the professionals call

it and it makes it sound a little dull. So I thought it would be fun to present it in

the form of crimes and criminals.

That's Mary Roach. She makes what some might think of as dull facts into sparkling and

entertaining stories. Her books are characterized by their one syllable titles, the latest is

called Fuzz. But our conversation ranges over several of her other titles as well, including

Goab, Bunk and Spook.

This should be an interesting revelatory, slightly weird conversation we're going to have because

you're such a master at stories that are interesting revelatory and slightly weird.

Yeah, that's my thing. Your stuff travels fast and far because it's so quirky and interesting,

not because it's a conspiracy theory which is the kind of stuff that usually travels fast

and far nowadays. Yeah, I know. What happened to truth?

Well it got boring. Yeah, but it's not boring. That's the thing. Truth is so much more interesting.

It's a bit of a quiz to me. Ordinary reality is interesting to me. Yeah, same here.

Same here. So you've got all these books with one word titles, Grunt, Goab, Stiff, Bunk,

Spook. And then when I guess you couldn't think of more words packing for Mars.

We gave up. We failed. There isn't a good one for that. But anyway, the last book was

supposed to be three words and nine syllables. It was supposed to be animal vegetable criminal.

...