Did You Know…?
Trivia Books Tickle the Mind
Every once in a while a little book will slip out of the big
publishing houses with little fanfare but with big value to
anyone who truly loves reading. Last January, “The Top Ten: Writers Pick
Their Favorite Books” (W.W. Norton) was such a book.
This 352-page paperback is fascinating for readers on so many levels:
you can discover a new depth to your favorite writers, find new authors
to explore, read (or reread) consensus top selections, use it as a
reference work when discussing great novels, and so on.
The end of the year brings another little-touted yet powerful reading
experience. The Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John
Mitchinson (Harmony, 288 pages, $19.95) is, in a word, remarkable.
The authors have researched more than 200 facts, myths and bits of
trivia and have put them together in this small hardback for an
eye-opening and fun-to-read adventure.
Take, for example, the simple question, “What’s the most dangerous
animal that ever lived?” You might think lion, tiger, flea or (if you’re
thinking outside the box) even human. But you would be wrong.
The answer is the female mosquito. According to the authors, half the
humans who have EVER died, perhaps 45 billion people, have been killed
by diseases transmitted by a mosquito bite (only the females bite
people). This is heady stuff.
But that is only the beginning of the entry under the question. You also
learn that the mosquito carries more than 100 potentially fatal
diseases; the history of the discovery in the late 19th century that the
bug is so deadly (resulting in the Nobel Prize); why a mosquito bites;
why some people are bitten more than others; and even the origin of the
word “mosquito.” And much more.
Questions and answers include “Who blew the nose off the Sphinx?” (not
Napoleon) and “Why are flamingos pink?” (their diet). Sprinkled
throughout the pages are quotations that will make you think and grin,
such as George Bernard Shaw’s, “The more I see of the moneyed classes,
the more I understand the guillotine,” as part of the answer to “Where
was the guillotine invented?” (not France).
“The Book of General Ignorance” will leave you smiling, nodding and
scratching your head. It will challenge what you think you know and
teach you new ways to look at the world of facts. And the superb index
will get you right to the proper records long after the wealth of
details have slipped your mind.
This powerful little book could actually be subtitled: “Amaze your
friends with fascinating facts!” You will want to read it from cover to
cover, then keep it nearby for a quick refresher before you go to your
next cocktail party, business meeting or any situation where you want to
seem smarter than you, or your friends, actually are.
Another recent release along the lines of “The General Book
of Ignorance,” though smaller in scope and size, is Lorenz
Schroter’s The Little Book of the Sea (MacAdam Cage, 175 pages, $15).
This collection of nautical facts will immerse you in sea trivia—such as
why the sea is saltier at the equator than at the poles, how to tell the
age of a fish and what sharkskin is used for—and lists of where the
world’s greatest whirlpools are, naval rations on 18th-century British
ships, and the names of ships that have disappeared in the Bermuda
Triangle.
Although “The Little Book of the Sea” doesn’t have the readability,
humor and depth of “The Book of General Ignorance,” it’s full of funny,
and strange, entries that will hold your interest and give you a leg up
the next time you’re trading sea stories with the neighborhood cap’n.
Any discussion of trivia books has to contain a book of
lists, and the recent 15,003 Answers: The Ultimate Trivia
Encyclopedia by Stanley Newman and Hal Fittipaldi (Random House
Reference, 704 pages, $24.95) certainly fills the bill.
This oversized paperback is set up in two ways for easy reference: The
main body of the book is a huge list of facts, organized like a
dictionary. It covers everything from “0” (the number of songs on Elvis
Presley’s 1974 album “Having Fun with Elvis on Stage,”) to “Zzzyandottie,
Archimedes I.” (the last name in the Manhattan telephone directory). The
listings are broad, from the middle name of Lucy Ricardo to the
different types of Triple Crown races and their winners.
The 130-page index, however, is perhaps more fun to peruse. This list of
people, places and locations itemizes all the facts pertaining to the
particular subject.
For example, under “Soupy Sales” we get “Hippie; Pookie; Supman, Milton;
White Fang and Black Tooth.” By going back to the main body, we find
that four of these are the names of puppets on “The Soupy Sales Show,”
and Milton Supman was the comedian’s real name. (Hippie was a
hippopotamus, by the way.)
“15,003 Answers” is the greatly expanded and revised second edition of
the immensely popular “10,000 Answers,” and contains a new forward by
“Jeopardy!” multimillion-dollar-winner Ken Jennings. This is the
ultimate encyclopedia for the trivia lover in you or on your gift list
for the holiday season.
