The Book of General Ignorance
by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
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Book Reviews of The Book of General Ignorance
Book Review: Lots of fun!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a gimmick book--but a pleasant one at that. The front jacket matter includes the following comment that lays out the essence of this work: "Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British best-seller." Or, as the author puts it (page xix): "This book is for the people who know they don't know very much. It contains hundreds of things that the average person doesn't know."
Let's get to the book, then. One nice way of giving the reader a sense of what's involved is simply to note some of the questions and answers. Enough to give a taste, not enough to spoil reading the book.
"What speed does light travel at?" (Pages 56-57) It depends. In a vaccum, 186,282 miles per second. In 2000, a team at Harvard University managed to stop light, shining it into a bec (not clear what that is!) of the element rubidium. "Where do most tigers live?" (Pages 66-67) In the United States! These are captive animals. In the wild, numbers are dropping dramatically. "Where do camels come from?" (Pages 93-94) North America. Here's a new one for me (among others): "What Edison invention do English speakers use every day?" (Page 131-132) According to the book (and this is one on me), the word "Hello" was an Edisonian invention.
"What rhymes with orange?" (Pages 208-209) Orange is a dread word for poets. According to this volume, there are two words--Blorenge and Gorringe, both of which are proper nouns.
So, there you are. A lot of fun. I don't pretend to know if all the answers to the questions posed are correct, but it's quite enjoyable to run through the questions and test your knowledge against the answers provided in the book.
Book Review: An entertaining offshoot of the best show on TV
Summary: 5 Stars
The British panel game-show "QI" is, I think, the best show on television, even given the sad fact that it *isn't* on television in the US, and could well be runner-up to the fabled "Mystery Science Theater 3000" for the best show in the history of television. That sets a pretty high standard, therefore, for books associated with the series, and "The Book of General Ignorance" by and large stands up to the pressure.
Drawing from the TV program's custom of giving large negative-point penalties to contestants who give answers that "everyone knows" are true but are in fact incorrect, Johns Lloyd and Mitchinson list a bunch of questions that have conventional-wisdom answers (Who invented the theory of relativity? Why is a marathon the distance it is?) or have popular urban legends attached to them (What did Thomas Crapper invent? What man-made objects can be seen from the moon?) and show why "everything you think you know is wrong." Some of their information is debatable (for example, in response to the question "How many states does the USA have?" they answer 46, saying that Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts are technically not "states" but commonwealths), but even the most educated reader would probably come away from these pages having learned a few things.
More to the point, she'd also come away entertained. While this book doesn't have the outright comedy of the TV show (granted, it's not meant to), the pedigree is still evident, which puts this a step ahead of much of the raft of "interesting stuff you probably never knew" books out there. Combine this with a series of Cecil Adams books, and I bet the connoisseur of obscure knowledge and shooter-down of urban legends will come out very well armed indeed.
Book Review: what a fun book!
Summary: 5 Stars
i loved this book!
it's a collection of short (like, 1 page) mini-essays about things we commonly believe to be true, but aren't. each is written as a question. then the correct answer is revealed, with a load of back up and ancillary information.
a few of the snippets weren't interesting. but overall, i kept finding myself thinking, "ok, i'll read just one more... just one more... ok, another... ok, just one more." i also regularly thought, "wow -- that's fascinating. i wonder if i can remember that!" but i have -- even since i finished reading the book -- found myself foisting my knew and robust knowledge onto my wife and other unsuspecting people, when a pertinent subject came up in conversation. i'm sure they now think i am substantially more brilliant. or annoying. maybe both?
like -- did you know that the tallest mountain in the world is NOT everest? everest is the highest, but the tallest (when including the part under water) is mauna kea, the high point on the island of hawaii.
or, that america is not named after amerigo vespucci (as i'd always understood), but richard ameryk, the wealthy bristol merchant who funded john cabot's voyage to what is now canada, in the late 1400s.
think you know who invented the telephone? you're probably wrong.
how many dog years equal one human year? not seven.
what a rhino's horn is made of? not hair.
how we measure earthquakes? not the richter scale.
what color is a panther? trick question: there's no such thing as a panther.
you get the idea. it's a factoid lover's candy story, a belly rub for the "did you know?" dog in you.
Book Review: Facts, damned facts and inescapable facts
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book in great gulps. Filled with fascinating facts about history, science, geography and literature, this book is certain to overturn many long-held beliefs and make you look at the world differently. The first entry -- What is name of the tallest mountain in the world? -- brings forth the almost reflexive answer "Everest." But this launches the authors on a discussion of how do we measure tallness? From sea level? From the "bottom of the mountain" whatever that is? From the center of the Earth? Depending on the gauge, the answer is different. Other items, from the largest creature in the world (a fungus) to the existence of King's Tut's curse (sorry!) to whether feminists burned their bras (no) are presented with confirmatory proof, including references to documentation from the time the events occurred. Many facts will stay with you -- like the fact that hangovers are not caused by your brain being sore (it has no sensory nerves) but that a brain dehydrated by alcohol pulls on its covering membrane (it does). And that the Canary Islands (Insula Canaria) are named for dogs, not yellow birds. You won't learn that *everything* you know is wrong, but you will learn that far less is sure than you might have once believed.
A fun book or those not afraid to have their pet certainties challenged.
Book Review: Fun book, but it too shows some ignorance...
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a thoroughly interesting and fun read. However, awash as I am in my own ignorance, I have detected a few gaffs here and there...such as the authors' claims that a star named Lucy (which allegedly has the heart of a diamond) is precisely located some billions of miles OVER Australia! Anyone with a whit of background in cosmology would recognize that since our Earth is spinning at somewhere around 1,000 mph and is at the same time zipping around the sun at 18 miles a second (give or take a few mps), and that our sun is sailing along its own trajectory, carrying its retinue of orbiting planets, and that the star Lucy is on its own separate orbit through the galaxy, the chance of Lucy being situated over a particular spot on the globe for more than an instant is very, very slim. Factor in the time delay caused by the galactic distance of light years involved and it's obvious that wherever Lucy seems to to us today, it's no longer anywhere near that spot "over Australia" in actuality. So, creeping general ignorance, like entropy, always eventually triumphs...including "expert" books on ignorance, it would seem.