The Book of General Ignorance | John Mitchinson, John Lloyd

The Book of General Ignorance | John Mitchinson, John Lloyd | Love it!

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The Book of Genera...

	The Book of General Ignorance John Mitchinson, John Lloyd Harmony, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 54 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An entertaining offshoot of the best show on TV

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.

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Love it!

My dad is such a trivia and history buff, and this book was a hit for Christmas. It really is a great book for anyone who enjoys learning more.

A few interesting facts, a lot of hyperbole

While there are some interesting facts here, it's quite a stretch to say that "everything you know is wrong." Many of the facts are based on splitting hairs (i.e. largest city, coldest place on earth).

If you want interesting trivia presented in a way that's not snarky (and is hysterically funny) I recommend The Know It All by A.J. Jacobs.

Well researched and written but needs a table of content on the Kindle Edition

This is a fun book with a large amount of trivia written in an easy to digress way. The book's focus is on trying to bust myths, like Macro Polo supposed travels, or whether feminists actually burned their bras. However, a lot of sections digress into interesting and sometimes lengthy run-on discussions of sub-topics, for example, when discussing diamonds, the author goes on to say that the largest diamond ever discovered is above Australia light years away (it's actually a collapsed star made of crystallized carbon, i.e. diamond). This is all done in a humorous way, and in my minds eye, I imagine it's always Stephen Fry speaking for some reason!

I would have given this book 4 stars except that in the Kindle Edition there does not appear to be a Contents page so I deducted one star. Without a Contents Page, I couldn't dive into it randomly or scan for topics of interest. I think that the real book is written to do just that and probably purposely doesn't have a table of contents, but on the Kindle, where every page turn takes a second or two, you can't flick through the book and start reading at random. Instead, I've been plowing through it serially, which is not bad, but I've no idea what other topics might be coming up. Technically, I could type in a random "location" (what the Kindle uses for page numbers) but that's far too techie for me.

Therefore, my recommendation to Amazon, and e-book writers everywhere is, no matter what the "real" book does, include a table of contents. Alternatively, the Kindle should be able to auto-generate one.

I would have given this book 4 stars except that in the Kindle Edition there does not appear to be a Contents page so I deducted one star. Without a Contents Page, I couldn't dive into it randomly or scan for topics of interest. I think that the real book is written to do just that and probably purposely doesn't have a table of contents, but on the Kindle, where every page turn takes a second or two, you can't flick through the book and start reading at random. Instead, I've been ploughing through it serially, which is not bad, but I've no idea what other topics might be coming up. Technically, I could type in a random "location" (what the Kindle uses for page numbers) but that's far too techie for me.

Therefore, my recommendation to Amazon, and ebook writers everywhere is, no matter what the "real" book does, include a table of contents. Alternatively, the Kindle should be able to auto-generate one.

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