Robert Ripley and His Motley Mix of Marvels

Online:

• The Iconic Mr. Ripley – Ripley’s Believe It or Not
• The Unbelievable Mr. Ripley – Vanity Fair

Print:

• A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It or Not!” Ripley, by Neal Thompson

The Marvel of the Printing Press

Print:

• Mechanick Exercises, Or the Doctrine of Handyworks Applied to the Art of Printing (1683), by Joseph Moxon
• Adventures of a Tramp Printer: 1880-1890, by John Edward Hicks
• Newspapering in the Old West: A pictorial history of journalism and printing on the frontier, by Robert F. Karolevitz 
• A Short History of the Printed Word, by Warren Chappell
• A Catfish in the Bodoni: And Other Tales from the Golden Age of Tramp Printers, by Otto Boutin
• The Lost World of Craft Printer, by Maggie Holtzberg-Call
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

What Are These Wonders, And Why Are There Seven?

Online:

• Hanging Gardens of Babylon existed, but not in Babylon – Christopher Klein
• Mausoleum of Halicarnassus – Jona Lendering
• Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, to return – Daniel Millward
• Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria – Jimmy Dunn
• The significance of the number seven in ancient Greece and its relation to Endocrinology – Menalaos Batrinos
• Number Symbolism – Encyclopedia Britannica 
  
• What Are the Seven Wonders of the World? – Oliver Smith

Print:

• The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, by Peter Clayton
• From The Biographical Writings and Letters of Venerable Bede, translated from the Latin, by J. A. Giles (online at Archive.org)

Tentacled Monsters of the Deep

Online:

• The Kraken: When Myth Encounters Science – Rodrigo B. Salvador & Barbara M. Tomotani
• The Cephalopod Page 

The Amazing Aquatic Acrobatics of the Beckwith Frogs

Online:

• Agnes Beckwith – The Greatest Lady Swimmer in the World
• Kinship and Community in Victorian London: the ‘Beckwith Frogs’ – David Day
• The Royal Aquarium, and Imperial Theatre, Westminster, London
• Victorian London – Entertainment and Recreation – Gardens and Spas – Cremorne Gardens – Victorian London

Print:

• Downstream: A History and Celebration of Swimming the River Thames, by Caitlin Davies
• The Swimming Instructor: a treatise on the arts of swimming and diving, by William Wilson (writer on swimming.)
• The Story of Your Life: A History of the Sporting Life Newspaper (1859-1998), by James Lambie

The Epic Boulder Canyon Project & the Rise of the Hoover Dam

Online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4NOSp3gMFE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU1v_xXd53o

Print:

• Colossus: The Turbulent, Thrilling Saga of the Building of Hoover Dam, by Michael A. Hiltzik

• You wouldn’t want to work on the Hoover Dam!, by Ian Graham

• Dreams of Iron and Steel: Seven Wonders of the Nineteenth Century, from the Building of the London Sewers to the Panama Canal, by Deborah Cadbury

• Hoover Dam: An American Adventure, by Joseph Stevens

For each salon, we invite our speakers to share the resources and interesting reading they came across in researching their talk, so that we can all dig more deeply. This reading list was compiled by Odd Salon with Aimee Pavy, Ivan Gulkov, Jonathan Pirro, Hallie Yeager, Barbara North, and Egan Hirvela. Thank you!