Having no idea what Nerd Night was, but having a strong appreciation for fungi I requested this book and was looking forward to reading it. I was very pleasantly surprised and wanted to learn how to host a Nerd Night in my neck of the woods.

It's a wonderful book for little bites of reading. One to have on your coffee table or in the car for people who just have little snatches of time and want to avoid the screen. I would definitely purchase it as a holiday gift for those in my family. The topics were interesting and varied and it's always great to add a little more knowledge to the pile.

I am late in my review due to the St. Martin's Press lack of accountability towards their reviewers and wish them to continue reviewing and updating their policies to protect those who provide them with marketing benefits. Particularly to those who are Palestinian or, quite frankly, any minority. I'm still not sure of the trustworthiness of the leadership of SMP.

(3.5/5 stars)

How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi is a fun collection of STEM essays from the folks at Nerd Nite.

I love science journalism and this was a very interesting and somewhat bawdy read. It's really fun when you can tell just how passionate these folks are about the topics they wrote about.

I'd highly recommend this for folks who love fun facts or trivia.

How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi is a delightful and eclectic collection of short essays that brings the world of science, technology, engineering, and math to life in a refreshingly accessible way. This compilation, born from the popular Nerd Nite events, is a testament to the power of storytelling when combined with complex subjects.

The book tackles a wide range of topics, from the science of hangovers to the implications of the Webb telescope on movie special effects. Each essay is a brief, engaging exploration, written in a conversational and often humorous style. The contributors, a diverse group of experts, manage to make even the most intricate concepts understandable and entertaining.

<blockquote><b>Nerd Nite is an event usually held at a bar or other public venue where usually two or three presenters share about a topic of personal interest or expertise in a fun-yet-intellectual format while the audience shares a drink. It was started in 2003 by then-graduate student (now East Carolina University professor) Chris Balakrishan at the Midway Cafe in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. In 2006 Nerd Nite spread to New York City, where Matt Wasowski was tasked with expanding the idea globally.</b> - from Wikipedia</blockquote><blockquote><b>Be There and Be Square</b> - Nerd Nite logo</blockquote>There was a nerd magazine in 2012, a Youtube presence, and occasional podcasts. This is the first Nerd Nite book. <blockquote><b>Misophonia can attach itself to any repetitive sound, but the most common ones are things, like chewing, breathing, sniffing, and throat clearing. It can be hard for sufferers to talk about because of how difficult it can be to tell someone politely that the sound of them keeping themselves alive is repulsive to you.</b></blockquote>There are 71 entries, taken from live presentations done by the authors of each piece. (TED talks for those with short attention spans and a need for alcohol?) Nerd Nites have been held in over 100 cities across the globe. The material here covers eleven scientific areas. (see below) All the entries are brief, so if one does not appeal to your mental tastebuds hang on a couple of minutes for the next one, or just skip past.

You can digest this book a few morsels at a time, and not have to worry about the fate of a fictional hero or put-upon victim. Nope. The heroes here are the scientists, the presenters. One of the great failings of popular science books, IMHO, is the absence of humor, or poor attempts at it. Not here. There are many moments in this one, and humor in almost all of them. That made me very happy. Of the 71 pieces, almost all are very pop-sciency, understandable by most readers, even me. There were only one or two that made my head hurt. It makes an excellent bed-side read. It was an upstairs book for me, to be read before nodding off, hopefully. Sometimes that takes a while. This is not an all-inclusive list of the articles, but lets you know what might be in store in its eleven sections

1 - Creature Features - on weird animals
2 - Mmmm...Brains - strangeness with how we learn and adapt
3 - Bodily Fluids - on things like coping with poo in space. (In space, no one can hear you fart?)
4 - Doing It - like it suggests, on sex, human and non-human, (no, not with each other. Don't be weird.)
5 - Health and (un)Wellness - human smells (See Paul Giamatti in <a href="https://www.wbal.com/paul-giamatti-says-his-the-holdovers-character-may-smell-bad-but-he-doesnt/" target="_blank" >The Holdovers</a>) - on therapeutic maggots, adolescent medicine, et al
6 - Pathogens and parasites - on birds, bacteria in birds, zombies, the scotch tape test (don’t ask), viruses
7 - Death and Taxes - mass extinction, cancer, algae
8 - Space, the Big and the Beautiful - ignorance, asteroid avoidance and use, life on Europa?, artificial gravity, studying a pristine meteorite, Webb telescope
9 - Tech (High and Low) - GMOs, dating app, human powered flight, cyborging humans, domesticating bacteria, nuclear fusion
10 - Math is fun - a seminal experiment, the math of gossip, the golden ratio, infinity, cryptography
11 - Careers – things removed from dogs, useless inventions, myths about death, animals CSI, amputations, fermentation, flames. <blockquote><b>there are approximately 100 trillion microorganisms (mainly bacteria), representing as many as 30,000 different species, living in every crevice, nook, and mucosal cranny of your body that you can imagine.</b></blockquote>I would include a list of my favorite articles, but it would wind up as long as the parts list above. But ok, because I have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old, the one that made me laugh the most was <i>To Boldy Go: Dealing with Poop and Pee in Space</i>. Apollo 10 astronauts were gifted with the visual, and no doubt olfactory, treat of a turd meandering about in their capsule. This begins a talk about how one handles bodily waste in zero G. Another on bladder control, or the absence thereof, was sidesplitting. Others, on camel spiders and hangovers, generated a fair number of LOLs.

Some were fascinating, like one having to do with making a brain on a chip. (Can it be served with Salsa?) The pieces on bacteria and their importance to human life, heck, to all life on Earth, were fascinating.

There is plenty of weirdness, about diverse forms of milk, the proper use of maggots in healing, zombie parasites, asteroids, artificial gravity, and here we go with another bloody list. Sorry. Take my word, there is a wealth of material here that will broaden your knowledge base, and serve up plenty of conversational hors d'oeuvres for cocktail party chatter.

It worked quite well for me. There is a downside, though. Because all the articles here are very short, one is often left hungry for more. On the other hand, that limitation might provoke you to sate that desire with a bit of extra research, which is always a good idea. So, never mind.

If science piques your curiosity, if learning new and diverse things makes your heart race, or if you like to laugh, then this book is for you. <i>How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi</i> is a very filling read, one nibble at a time.


Review posted - 06/14/25

Publication date – 02/01/24


I received a hardcover of <i>How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi</i> from <i>St. Martin’s Press</i> in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks.

Well, Nerd Nite is a must now!

This was fantastically quirky, yet enthralling. I learned so much, but in such a fun way. The book was engaging and easy to read.

Don't let the non-fiction category scare you. You want to read this!

Thank you to the publisher, author, and netgalley for the advanced copy! All thoughts are my own.

"How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from Nerd Nite" is a tasty smorgasbord of nerdery that combines the smooth delivery of a TED talk with the vision and gravitas of Scientific American. Covering a wide range of technical, engineering and scientific topics with a healthy and downright nerdy focus on sex, destruction and chaos this book is full of entertaining and edifying vignettes that should appeal to nerds of all stripes. The merits of this book will be obvious to anyone who has every experimented with pyrotechnics in a home kitchen, wondered how dinosaurs got past all the heavy armor plating to do the deed, does not see rocketry as an exclusively outdoor activity or has memorized the periodic table just for yucks.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for an eArc in exchange for my honest review.

This was SO interesting! It was so informative while also keeping my attention and keeping me entertained. Highly recommend!

I love books with most random bits of information and witty details. How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi was right up my alley. It reminded me of the What If books, but done in a witty, funny way. It is a great coffee table book or to have around when you want to pick up and read a chapter or two and learn something new, like lessons from The Oregon Trail or the science of a hangover. Great gift for someone who is hard to find the perfect gift!

I had never heard of Nerd Nite before now and it's truly a shame. Nerd Night is essentially like Ted Talks for science. This book is a collection of short informational essays written by authors working in STEM fields who have a history of appearing at Nerd Night across the world. The big idea is to make science comprehensible for the layman. And make it funny too.

Luckily, because this book comes from multiple authors, if there was one particular essay that was above my head (looking at you "Getting to Know Infinity" by Dr. Zajj Daugherty) then I could always take a brain break by reading one of the other, more accessible essays.

If I'm being totally honest, a small background in science will help you understand more of these. Overall, excellent.

How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi was a fun read and i learned a lot of facts about mushrooms !

Thank you very much to the publisher and NetGalley for my review copy!

Admittedly, I was not familiar with Nerd Nite prior to reading this compilation. I certainly will be now! I am a verified Nerd, and to have levity along with learning about our world and all that is in it; it's a great combination!

I would highly recommend!

I'm a fun gal and based on the title, I was expecting more of my sporulating and non-sporulating friends. What I got was a menagerie of written Ted Talk like science snippets. While it was too much randomness to read in one sitting, I slowly worked my way through revisiting the book when I had 3-10 minutes of dead time. The snippets are broad, quirky, interesting, and thought-provoking. This would be the perfect bathroom book for anyone who loves science or maybe just needs to learn a little more science. Great for a high-schooler or college kid's Easter basket, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and any random holiday your gift giving nerd wishes to celebrate!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Very eclectic and funny. Nerd Nite would be awesome to attend! Loved this one.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

I received a gifted copy of HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE FUNGI by Dr. Chris Balakrishnanm and Matt Wasowski from St. Martin's Press.

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE FUNGI: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from Nerd Nite is the first book brought out by the co-founders of the global science organization Nerd Nite. This is an organization that has delivered interesting STEM topics to in person audiences around the world for the last twenty years. This book collects some of those same topics with a wide variety of subjects from strange happenings in the animal world, the science behind hangovers, and of course zombies.

I didn't know much about Nerd Nite going into this, but I enjoy a good quirky read and learning interesting facts, so the title and the description caught my attention. I had thought this would be a book I'd likely pick up here and there throughout the month, but I wound up binging the whole thing in one go.

This book does a great job of mixing humor and intelligence, giving interesting information from the world of science with a focus on keeping things fun. The topics are very much all over the place and the collection of experts on each subject the same. The book includes extra graphics and such to help deliver information in an interesting way. I also picked up the audiobook from the library and the use of different narrators was well done to distinguish the shifts in topics. I also enjoyed that the narrators gave us a bit of information about each of the subject matter experts.

This was a really fun read and one I would recommend!

This is collection of quirky scientific, tech, engineering and math facts. This collection is from series of Nerd Nite talks. From story about fermentation to civil war amputations to mathematics of gossip to dating apps to how and why cancer to artificial gravity. This is instant feel-smarter book where you read a chapter and instantly feel smart! While some of us retain information, I retain very little and so smart quotient might not be a lot but this was super entertaining!

This was a cute compilation of Science Talks given at Nerd Nite at bars around the US. Part Story Collider or The Moth and part Jorge Cham or XKCD. You will learn something and you will laugh. You will learn things you wish you could unlearn and you will cry. Each story has a personal connection to the storyteller’s identity or research and each science fact could be useful and impactful in your everyday life.
The arrangement in the book is very logical to me and there’s a nice flow of lighter and deeper topics and stories. This is an excellent bathroom read or gift for the nerd you love.

Mostly very interesting. I learned a lot
my library did purchase this book. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

A collection of entertaining and accessible science. Co-creators of Nerd Nite bring pop culture, the mysteries of science, and STEM to the masses in a palatable format and makes it easy to enjoy.

With perfect bite-sized bits of cleverly summarized, conversational nerd-topics “How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from Nerd Nite” founders Dr. Chris Balakrishnan & Matt Wasowski (4 stars) (Pub Date: Out Now!) is a thematically grouped collection of in-person Nerd Nite’s presentations, augmented with hilarious but helpful drawings of the strange, fascinating, and sometimes naughty content within.

Good Things: The content is grouped by themes, allowing for a “skip-around” experience when reading. Not in the mood to read about space? Flip back to the scintillating “Doing It” section for fun facts about the impact of microbes on your sex life. Each entry is nicely titled with the Nerd Nite/Location/s and the expert or author. This allowed me to go look up specific books or research by some of these folks (Hey there Dr. Jane Gregory, your 2023 book about misophonia is now on my list!) The prose is conversational and really does feel like you’re sitting at a nerdish Open Mic of the Mind. The drawings included in some of the sections were also LOL funny, and helpful.

Opportunities: This collections strength is also its weakness, although it’s not really a weakness to keep things short and snappy on purpose… BUT, I felt like I was just getting engaged with the theme or the content and it switched to the next and the next. So what might have been a longer and more involved reading experience really was just a “read an essay in the bathroom” kind of experience. I would have liked “to learn more go HERE” links or content at the end of each essay, so that I could have gone deeper on demand.

Final Thoughts: This will make a great gift, and it’s one I will queue up for a number of folks this year, as it’s light reading with a broad array of topics for quick and fun consumption, I particularly liked the idea of going to a Nerd Open Mic, instead of the open mic nights I remember from my “I want to be a poet” days where the bands sucked and everyone talked over my spoken word “Monday Night Rant’s” <similarly brief blurbs about ridiculous people, places, and events>, Nerd Nite sounds like the kind of thing I should have heard about before this book, and it’s certainly something I”ll be looking into in my city.

I appreciate the opportunity afforded me to have an early read of this story by netgalley and St. Martin's Press. The opinions in this review are expressly those of ButIDigressBookClub and are intended for use by my followers and friends when choosing their next book. #butidigress #butidigressbookclub #howtowinfriendsandinfluencefungi #nerdnite #nerd #stem #stmartinspress @StMartinsPress #netgalley #netgalleyreviewer #arc #arcs

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Review Shared on Goodreads - www.goodreads.com/leah_cyphert_butidigressbookclub
Publishing Review 2/24/2024

I’m almost embarrassed to say that before reading this book I had never heard of Nerd Nite. Which shocks me as it’s something that would be right up my alley. How to Win Friend and Influence Fungi is a collection of stories/scientific essays on a myriad of subjects raging from camal spiders to antigravity in science fiction to dating apps and much more. And as the title would suggest there is more than a bit of humor involved. If you enjoy other ‘funny and silly scientific’ books like What If? there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy this one as well. I’d like to thank St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1VQU8I6B77DCW/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv