I’m a trained microbiologist who received my doctorate from the University of Washington and who has long been fascinated by the natural world—whether microscopic or gigantic, within us or all around us. For more than 20 years, I’ve also been an award-winning science writer who has written for publications like The New York Times, Nature, Wired, and Scientific American. Ever since I wrote about the incredible ability of fecal transplants to cure a deadly bacterial infection, I’ve been obsessed with books that explore how the seemingly gross or ordinary things we often dismiss as lacking value have the power to transform both us and the planet.
One of the many things that astonished me about Lina’s lovely book is that although I put off reading it until I had finished my own book, for fear of too much overlap, I need not have worried.
She deftly uses different yet compelling examples for an exciting read that convincingly makes the case for giving a crap about crap. She also uses her own family’s history and experience as immigrants to provide some surprisingly moving scenes in support of her larger points.
Even after all the poop-related research I had done, I learned plenty more, which was a nice revelation: something that I thought I knew still had the ability to surprise me in profound ways.
The average person produces about four hundred pounds of excrement a year. More than seven billion people live on this planet. Holy crap!
Because of the diseases it spreads, we have learned to distance ourselves from our waste, but the long line of engineering marvels we've created to do so-from Roman sewage systems and medieval latrines to the immense, computerized treatment plants we use today-has also done considerable damage to the earth's ecology. Now scientists tell us: we've been wasting our waste. When recycled correctly, this resource, cheap and widely available, can be converted into a sustainable energy source, act…
Born and raised in Russia, I watched my grandfather fertilize our family’s organic orchard with composted sewage every fall. “You have to feed the earth the way you feed people,” he said, essentially describing what today we call a circular economy. I thought the whole world did the same—until I grew up and learned that most people flush their humanure down the toilet. That hurts the planet’s ecology in multiple ways. It depletes farmlands that must be replenished by syntenic fertilizers which are polluting to produce, and it overfertilizes rivers, lakes, and the ocean, causing toxic algae blooms. I wanted humans to know about People’s Own Organic Power aka POOP!
I love this book because it turns everything we think we know about poo on its head. If there was one definitive pathogen-laden substance your mother told you to never touch, poop is it! We’re all naturally disgusted by it. But feces, whether human or animal, are as natural as air, and are absolutely essential for thriving ecosystems, for soil health, and even for climate change. In nature, what’s one species trash is the other species treasure, and no one portrays this better than David Waltner-Toews, as he describes why dung beetles feast on doodies and why some animals eat their own droppings. The planet has a use for everybody’s poo, including ours, so you will have a newfound appreciation of excrement after reading this book.
The Origin of Feces takes an important subject out of locker-rooms, potty-training manuals, and bio-solids management boardrooms into the fresh air of everyone’s lives. With insight and wit, David Waltner-Toews explores what has been too often ignored and makes a compelling argument for a deeper understanding of human and animal waste. Approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives ― evolutionary, ecological, and cultural ― The Origin of Feces shows us how integral excrement is to biodiversity, agriculture, public health, food production and distribution, and global ecosystems. From the primordial ooze to dung beetles, from bug frass, cat scats, and…
I’m a trained microbiologist who received my doctorate from the University of Washington and who has long been fascinated by the natural world—whether microscopic or gigantic, within us or all around us. For more than 20 years, I’ve also been an award-winning science writer who has written for publications like The New York Times, Nature, Wired, and Scientific American. Ever since I wrote about the incredible ability of fecal transplants to cure a deadly bacterial infection, I’ve been obsessed with books that explore how the seemingly gross or ordinary things we often dismiss as lacking value have the power to transform both us and the planet.
Shawn is fearless, good-hearted, and laugh-out-loud funny.
As an educator, performance artist, and founder of the POOP Project, he has dedicated much of his work to reducing the taboo and stigma of talking about our own bodies, especially the natural act of pooping. Mixing in his trademark humor with historical anecdotes and a genuine love of both people and the planet, this book will make you smile, laugh, and feel a deeper connection with a part of your body that deserves far more attention.
It’s a very fun and inspiring read about rejecting shame and celebrating your own inner power.
Poop is a big deal. All people and all beings do it on any good day. It's basically at the center of everything. Know Your Shit lifts the lid off the potty taboo and breaks the stall doors down in search of the Perfect Poo. Along the way, learn what happens inside your body to make poo, how the process can go wrong, and simple fixes to make sure you stay in the Goldiplops Zone. Now, let us hold these poos to be self-evident; not all are created equal. But it is important…
I've been a passionate lover of all things horror. I strive to take my readers on an unforgettable journey, one that often places them well out of their comfort zone. I believe that horror should make readers uncomfortable, whether through a mounting sense of unease or full-blown exposure to gore and depravity. I do my best to pull readers into my stories so that they can almost personally experience the horrors. If I don’t make them cringe and wince, then I have failed. As outrageous as my books may be, they're not full of violence and gore for the sake of mere shock value. I do my best to create well-developed characters with thought-provoking and immersive storylines.
Some
might say that this is a really crappy story. I will agree only to the extent
that this book does, in fact, center on feces. Sara Todd is pregnant and she’s
not craving pickles and ice cream!
This
book is brilliantly written. McCluskey presents a most vile and disgusting
story—one that is ripe with imagery and depravity. There’s not much that shocks
and disturbs me, to be honest, but this book had me muttering, “No, oh no, no,
no” in anticipation of the nasty deeds. Each one seemed progressively worse. It
will likely turn your stomach and surely disgust you!
Sarah Todd doesn’t believe in cravings. She’s pregnant and determined to live the next seven months giving the baby all they nutrients it needs to grow into a healthy baby boy, or girl. The baby, however, has other plans. How far is she willing to go to succumb to her… CRAVINGS?From the dark mind of D E McCluskey, author of CRACK and The Twelve, comes this disturbing novelette. The baby must have what the baby needs…
Science is truth and always evolving as we discover new things. Like a child, scientists are always asking "Why this? Why that?" Great scientists like great artists are childlike or at least manage to harness the wonder of their childhood self. If a child is interested in the world around them they will never be bored. It will set them up for life and that's a truly precious thing.
...And every child will LOVE this book! Taro Gomi is one of Japan's most prolific children's book creators.
His beautifully simple, childlike paintings of animals and their poos are funny yet informative, and especially for younger readers, they will help them start to develop an enquiring mind.
The beloved, bestselling potty-training classic, now re-released for a new generation!
An elephant makes a big poop. A mouse makes a tiny poop. Everyone eats, so of course: everyone poops!
Taro Gomi's classic, go-to picture book for straight-talk on all things "number 2" is back, as fresh and funny as ever.
• Both a matter-of-fact, educational guide and a hilarious romp through poop territory • Filled with timeless OMG moments for both kids and adults • Colorful and content-rich picture book
The concept of going to the bathroom is made concrete through this illustrated narrative that is both verbally and…
I’m an artist and writer who works with food and eating. I find inspiration for my practice in my own body processes and in caring for and advocating for my friends and family. When my grandfather lost the ability to swallow, I began to understand the fragility and vulnerability of our gastrointestinal systems. After many years of teaching, making, and writing about food art, I started to wonder about what happens after eating. The books on this list join me in arguing for digestion, metabolism, and defecation as vital cultural processes. These authors have changed how I relate to food, guts, and my body.
Laporte’s poetic and sweeping tour of turds made me realize how flushing my toilet produces and reinscribes cultural norms. Read the history behind our collective fascination with “sewer stories,” whether it’s London’s immense blobs of underground fat or urban legends about deadly crocodiles or mutant goldfish.
I love how this book has inspired and influenced contemporary metabolic artists. In 2017, Kathy High and Guy Schaffer created a mixed media project “committed to re-imaging and re-inserting feminist and queer stories into our histories of medicine and science” and called their work History of Shit as an homage to Laporte. I am moved by how High and Schaffer continue Laporte’s work within what might have been his natural lifespan had we not lost him and countless artists and philosophers to the AIDS pandemic.
"A brilliant account of the politics of shit. It will leave you speechless."
Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, History of Shit is emblematic of a wild and adventurous strain of 1970s' theoretical writing that attempted to marry theory, politics, sexuality, pleasure, experimentation, and humor. Radically redefining dialectical thought and post-Marxist politics, it takes an important—and irreverent—position alongside the works of such postmodern thinkers as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard. Laporte's eccentric style and ironic sensibility combine in an inquiry that is provocative, humorous, and…
I’m a trained microbiologist who received my doctorate from the University of Washington and who has long been fascinated by the natural world—whether microscopic or gigantic, within us or all around us. For more than 20 years, I’ve also been an award-winning science writer who has written for publications like The New York Times, Nature, Wired, and Scientific American. Ever since I wrote about the incredible ability of fecal transplants to cure a deadly bacterial infection, I’ve been obsessed with books that explore how the seemingly gross or ordinary things we often dismiss as lacking value have the power to transform both us and the planet.
This superb book was one of the first to raise the issue of how poorly we’ve considered our waste and what to do with it, and it was a big inspiration for me.
It’s thoughtful and incredibly well-researched, packed full of amazing historical details, and provides a compelling case for how and why we should get our shit together—literally. I learned so much from this book, and it really encouraged me to keep digging and exploring how we might reimagine our human output. Just an excellent read and a compelling case for change.
Produced behind closed doors, disposed of discreetly, hidden by euphemism, shit is rarely out in the open in 'civilized' society, but the world of waste - and the people who deal with it, work with it and in it - is a rich one.This book takes us underground to the sewers of New York and London and overground to meet the heroes of India's sanitation movement, American sewage schoolteachers, the Japanese genius at the cutting edge of toilet technology and the biosolids lobbying team. With a journalist's nose for story and a campaigner's desire for change, Rose George also addresses…
I never wrote anything longer than a 5-minute song before I was forty-five years old! My life has been spent on the road as a performing songwriter, dancing and playing, and (after our own twins were born) teaching kids to do the same. But one night I woke up from a dream I couldn’t wrangle into song length, and by the end of the day, I had written four chapters of The Locke Box. I naturally wrote songs as I wrote the book. I got curious about who else was doing that. So here’s a short list…
The Poop Song is a picture book with downloadable music. Eric Litwin is the master of preschool story structure (think Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes, also a musical book). After Eric married his lovely wife, a pediatric gastroenterologist, she convinced him of the need for a good poop song. So there you go. Super, playful illustrations by Claudia Boldt.
A satisfyingly silly picture book sing-along about pooping-a topic kids find hilarious and parents find necessary!
Discover how cats, pelicans, space aliens, and even dinosaurs poop in this rollicking, rhyming verse that's sure to elicit giggles. With plenty of hilarious pictures and a catchy chorus that encourages young children to use the toilet, this laugh-out-loud story is the go-to potty training book that every family needs.
* A playful approach to potty training
* Full of humor that is silly, not disgusting
* From the bestselling author of Pete the Cat: I Love my White Shoes
My name is John Priest and I've been writing children's books, mystery stories, and factual articles since the 1980's. I've been traditionally published and have publshed my own books too. I love writing funny books and rhyming stories. Seeing my 5 grandchildren reading a book and laughing is one of the best sights of all. I've worked in schools and really believe that having your imagination ignited by any book is the start of building your own personality and creating wonderment in your own mind. And who knows? Maybe one day your child will write the next batch of beautiful books!
Danny and the Dinosaur sit impatiently at Granny's dining table. They can't wait for their dinner to end as Granny's cooking wasn't the best in the world! They finish and run into the garden, heading straight for the old, garden swing. But this is no ordinary swing, it can take you into the past and suddenly, they're in a jungle...with a volcano about to erupt! Can Dinosaur save the day?
Discover the pooptastic world of Dino and Danny, from bestselling authors Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter!
When playtime on Gran's old swing sends Danny and Dinosaur accidentally looping back through time to the Jurassic age, there's no knowing what might happen.
Especially when the swing breaks and there's the rumble of a volcano ready to erupt!
Can Danny and Dinosaur make it back to the future with their new dino friends?
A Jurassic classic from the bestselling creators of The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet!, The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas! and The Dinosaur that Pooped a Princess!
I am a chocolate loving writer, goat yoga enthusiast, and author of several successful children’s books specializing in early learning, along with an award-winning line of gratitude coloring journals. I hope to inspire a love of reading through education and laughter. My latest book, Gomer the Gassy Goat has sold over 21,000 units since 2021, and was recently referenced in The New York Times about the importance of using humor in books for kids to inspire a love of reading. “Not every book has to reach a lesson. Sometimes it can just be fun.” - Mr. Price
Who doesn’t love a book about poop... Steve the Dung Beetle rolls this ball of dung past all the animals on the Savanah and along the way he teaches them why the dung beetle is so important to the environment. The illustrations are just fabulous and zookeepers write about the more endangered animals mentioned in the book. But I think the biggest plus are the poop jokes on the back of the book. Guaranteed laughs...
