If you're a dim teenager... maybe.

If you have any basic knowledge of American "popular history", there's very little to surprise you here. Mike the headless chicken, the eggnog riot, lobotomies and so on and so forth. Sadly, there is very little redeeming humour to be found either -- unless you think sarcastically adding "YEAH RIGHT" or "OF COURSE" to mildly (or not even mildly, given the respective time period) unusual facts or conclusions is the pinnacle of wit. If, say, the concept of bloodletting is so familiar to you that you have to suppress a yawn, the lengthy exposition on how TOTALLY WEIRD AND ABSURD, RIGHT? it is will feel like a small child telling you very basic facts he learned in school... in excruciating detail... over and over and over again.

"Did you know huge oaks grow from tiny little seeds and they make air we can breathe?"
"Yes, Timmy. Go away."
"Did you know ducks coat their feathers with fat so they don't soak full of water?"
"Go. Away."

In fact, if small irritating hints that the authors aren't exactly into details and/or haven't enjoyed the guidance of an even averagely knowledgeable editor get on your nerves, there will be plenty of grating nonsense -- like, for example, the fact that the authors repeatedly treat mutton and lamb as the same meat (same animal yes, but I wonder if they call all beef veal as well?). If that sort of thing annoys you or makes you mistrustful of the author's expertise -- stay away.

Lastly: This might have been saved by not letting the authors read the book themselves. All the screeching, shock-jock-morning-radio-show like performance accomplished was to discourage me from ever checking out the podcast the book is based on. Well, not all. It has also given me nightmares that involve being stuck in an elevator with these people. Again: maybe this is your thing if you're about seventeen with a tragically underdeveloped sense of humour. Otherwise it's insufferable.

Think of this as the kind of book that probably does really well lying somewhere in the bathroom to be read in small, very small, snippets. It does not benefit in the slightest from having an audiobook version, and all desperate attempts to add some jokes about it being an audiobook version cannot change that.

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