I talked to Terry Gross!

A brief update about the publication of "Tripping on Utopia" before we return to regularly scheduled posting

Hello all, I have been taking a breather from writing this newsletter since December, but will be back with regular posts starting next week. The reason for the break was twofold:

1. My wife Roya, myself, and our toddler all got Covid in December — nothing too serious, but enough to sideline some writing I had in mind.

2. My second book, Tripping on Utopia, was published today! The lead up to publication involved quite a lot of work and several interviews (on which more below) so I just didn’t have bandwidth for other things over the past couple weeks.

Publicizing a book isn’t fun, exactly, but there are moments when it can be pretty fascinating, and others that are downright exciting. Having a chance to speak to the legendary Terry Gross for today’s episode of the NPR show Fresh Air was both.

It’s no surprise that Terry is an amazingly gifted interviewer, but still: it was fascinating seeing how she works “up close” (a figure of speech — it turns out almost all Fresh Air interviews are conducted remotely). And, of course, it was more than a bit surreal to be the one talking to someone I’ve been listening to for my adult life… especially about things like John C. Lilly’s ill-fated attempts to speak to dolphins, Margaret Mead’s long-forgotten “LSD memo” from 1954, Cary Grant’s enthusiasm for psychedelic therapy, and all the other things I cover in Tripping on Utopia.

You can listen to the complete interview on Fresh Air and read an edited transcript here.

I was also thrilled that the book received a generous New York Times review today, which you can read here. There’s also this interview with David Lipset in the Los Angeles Times.

Needless to say, I would be honored if you would consider buying the book — you can order a copy from the publisher, bookshop.org, Amazon, or from my local bookstore, Bookshop Santa Cruz.

Talk in Los Angeles, January 17th

A final note for anyone reading this in the Los Angeles area: I’ll be talking about the book in conversation of Danielle Carr of UCLA at Chevalier’s Bookstore tomorrow evening (Wednesday, January 17). Here’s the event page where you can RSVP. I’d love to see some of you there.

Onward!

And with that, I begin the transition out of book publicity mode and back to regular posting on this newsletter.

Thank you if you’ve read this far, and please let me know if you have any questions about Tripping on Utopia. At some point I’ll also be making a dedicated space on my website where I will publicly post corrections. Mistakes are inevitable, and I have been increasingly interested in ways that historians can improve the accuracy of our work and, just possibly, increase trust in historical research by being more transparent about correcting mistakes of interpretation and fact. Seems to me that listing errors (and discussing/analyzing gray areas) is a good start.