Sunday, December 2, 2007

The Book fo General Ignorance - Everything You Think You Know is Wriong - John Lloyd and John Mitchinson

This book is hilarious. Jason of course was slightly irritated because some of the facts they point out are basically word games. An example, How many states are in the United States? Technically only 46 because Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts voted to be commonwealths, but a lot of it is just facts you were taught that are just wrong. Amazing. A few examples. Who was America named after? Most likely Richard Ameryk a Welshman that was the chief investor for the voyages of John Cabot in 1497 and 1498. What were chastity belts for? A way for women to keep off unruly suitors. How many words do Eskimos have for snow? Probably less then four.

On the Four Star Scale

Naughty Bits (*) - Well you do get to find out which creature has the longest phallus.

Readability (***) - 288 silly little pages. It is fun to read although it is fully of the kind of facts that annoying little thirteen year old brothers would love to throw out to make you feel like an idiot...I say beat them to it. Not academically written. If you want the sources on their research you have to check it out yourself.

Final notes (****) - Fun, fun. I love how they would follow where the "lies" would begin. It's sort of like the game telephone only it's scarier because some of this stuff is taught in schools, and I wish I was just talking elementary school...but I'm not!

1 comment:

Bridget said...

There's another book out there that's probably more scholarly than this one - maybe Jason would like it better. It's something like "Lies your Teacher Told You." I read it last year and it was fascinating.