Title:

Earthly Materials

Author:

Cutter Wood

Category:

Non-fiction

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

September 8, 2025

read a review of Earthly Materials in Bookpage and it sounded like an intriguing book: the subtitle is Journeys Through Our Bodies Emissions, Excretions and Disintegrations. While we think a lot about what goes into our bodies (food, medicines, supplements, etc) we rarely given any thought to all the materials that we expel. Wood delves into twelve different topics, the chapter titles are: Mucus, Urine, Blood, Semen, Menses, Milk, Flatulence, Breath, Feces, Vomit, Hair, Tears. I expected to read a lot of neat facts about each of these human byproducts. When Wood stays on subject, there is interesting material here. Unfortunately, Wood simply cannot stay on topic and completely flubs this book.

There are 21 different types of mucus in the human body - it is a mystery how mucus determines what molecules to pass (so that we can smell) and which molecules are considered dangerous and trapped in phlegm and expelled. I liked reading about how doctor Charles Drew set up the first blood bank. Did you know only primates menstruate (though it has been recently discovered that the Cairo spiny mouse also menstruates)? In the 17th century, Hennig Brandt boiled down his pots of his urine until only a fine white substance remained, and ended up discovering phosphorous (but Brandt was searching for a way to make gold and did not realize the magnitude of his experiment.)

The chapter on semen describes the long process needed to create a sperm cell (it takes weeks). Interesting! But then Wood inexplicably switches to describing a Reddit channel on masturbation. This goes on for pages, with Wood quoting from random posters and then commenting on them. I couldn't fathom why Wood included this material (it is not funny nor informative, it felt like filler to lengthen the book) and I ended up skipping a good number of pages to the next chapter.

In the Milk chapter, Wood describes how and why evolutionary forces may have resulted in mammals creating milk to nourish their young. Interesting! But then Wood jumps to the story about a crime syndicate that sold stolen baby formula and the ordinary-seeming citizens who were responsible. Maybe a better journalist could have made the story more interesting, but I was wondering: isn't the story about a crime ring that steals baby formula a bit off topic here?

It is in the Vomit chapter that Wood goes completely off the rails. After a few initial pages describing how and why we vomit, Wood begins a long, tedious description of a visit he made to a purging temple to ingest Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is a drug that induces violent puking and pooping - but people believe that by ejecting everything in their alimentery canal they are thus "cleansed" and this self-induced sickness will result in a new, purged state of mind as well. Ayahuasca is not legal, so the owners of the "Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church of Mother Earth" declare that this grotesque practice is actually a religious ritual, and so in the name of religious freedom, they are allowed to continue. Wood decides he will participate in the ritual, so he signs a form declaring his religion is Soul Quest and pays $800 for the right to participate; apparently he is curious to subject himself this awful ritual.

The Vomit chapter is 60 pages long, almost 20% of the entire book. What was Wood thinking? I couldn't tell if he thought the writing was funny or clever (it is neither) - I ended up skipping at least thirty pages of this tiresome narrative and went on to the next chapter. Wood's editor betrayed him on this book. A good editor would have told him to stick to the subject matter, and would have excised that entire section regarding Wood's visit to the Soul Quest purging temple.

My rating: two stars - there are perhaps 150 pages of good material in this book. But that is not enough to make it worth reading. I will avoid any further book that Wood writes.