In the alternately laugh-out-loud hilarious and curl-up-under-the-coffee-table terrifying A Short History of Nuclear Folly: Mad Scientists, Dithering Nazis, Lost Nukes, and Catastrophic Cover-Ups (Melville House, 2013), author and filmmaker Rudolph Herzog explores the sordid history of the nuclear arms race and the outer limits of human imagination and irresponsibility.

From a plan to blast a second Panama Canal using 300 hydrogen bombs to lost nukes to heart patients walking around with plutonium literally implanted into their chests, Herzog’s extravagantly-researched book reads like pitch-dark fiction. Unfortunately, it’s not.