http://www.stillhq.com The life, times, travel and software of Michael Still en Copyright (c) Michael Still 2000 - 2006 blosxom simplerss20 v20050208hh 180 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss /book/John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:45:00 PST <table width=100%><tr><td valign=top><img src="/book/John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson/The_Book_of_General_Ignorance.cover.jpg"><br/><br/><br/>ISBN: 0307394913<br/>Harmony (2007), Hardcover, 288 pages<br/><a href="http://www.librarything.com/isbn/0307394913">LibraryThing</a><br/><script type="text/javascript">GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup('ISBN:0307394913');</script></td><td valign=top>I seem to be on a bit of a trivia book kick, which is at least partially motivated by getting through all my Christmas presents so I can pack them into a box and move to a different country. This book was written as part of the production of the very excellent BBC quiz show <i>Quite Interesting</i> and is quite a contrast from the extremely average <a href="http://www.stillhq.com/book/Mark_Leyner_and_Billy_Goldberg/Why_Do_Men_Have_Nipples.html">Why Do Men Have Nipples</a> that I just finished reading. This book feels well researched, and is on par with <a href="http://www.stillhq.com/book/New_Scientist/Why_Dont_Penguins_Feet_Freeze.html">Why Don't Penguin's Feet Freeze</a>, although the style is quite different (the New Scientist book offers multiple answers for each question, and is written by real scientists in the fields discussed, this book flows as one manuscript). I suspect it helps here to have seen the quiz show, because many of the other reviews I have seen online complain about the style of the book, which reads in much the same manner as Stephen Fry's commentary during the program. If you're familiar with the format, then the book flows quite nicely (whereas if you haven't, you might end up why the book jumps around so much). I really liked this book. <br/><br/><i>Tags for this post: book(<a href="http://www.stillhq.com/book"><img src="http://www.stillhq.com/tagicon.cgi?post=/book/John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson/The_Book_of_General_Ignorance&tag=book&format=.png" border="0" alt="S"></a>) John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson(<a href="http://www.stillhq.com/John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson"><img src="http://www.stillhq.com/tagicon.cgi?post=/book/John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson/The_Book_of_General_Ignorance&tag=John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson&format=.png" border="0" alt="S"></a>) </i></td></tr></table> <a href="http://www.stillhq.com/book/John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson/The_Book_of_General_Ignorance.commentform.html">Comment</a> http://www.stillhq.com/book/John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson/The_Book_of_General_Ignorance.html http://www.stillhq.com/book/John_Lloyd_and_John_Hitchinson/The_Book_of_General_Ignorance.html