PDF The Book of General Ignorance John Mitchinson John Lloyd 9780307394910 Books

Product details Hardcover 288 pages Publisher Crown; First Edition edition (August 7, 2007) Language English ISBN-10 0307394913

The Book of General Ignorance John Mitchinson John Lloyd 9780307394910 Books Reviews

• Great read. This book is filled to the brim with interesting facts, each of which are self-contained and covered in 1-2 pages, which is the perfect length. It's quick enough to pick up and read for a few minutes at a time, but also long enough to give a fairly good explanation of the facts it's laying out.
  
  A lot of the book is spent challenging things most people accept as fact (do goldfish really have a 3 second memory? did Marie Antoinette really say "let them eat cake?" are you sure the Earth only has one moon?), or asking interesting questions with surprising answers (what color is water? what does the moon smell like?). If any of those examples I just listed interested you, then by all means give this book a whirl.
• This is one amazing book. You don't want to put it down. As you read it, you wish there was someone standing nearby so you could share what you just read. I even had to pick up the phone and call my son to relate a section of the book right after reading. Forget what you know or think you know and open your eyes - you will start to question everything you think you know. You think you are well educated until this book throws into question what you know and goes about showing you why you are wrong. Myth buster. Buy it for yourself, buy it for friends, give it as a gift, or share your copy. Worth twice what it costs.
• Seemed to be a very interesting book. Filled with seldom know facts. Then the authors infuse their Catholic beliefs about Mary being a goddess and hokey myths trying to say the Bible is inaccurate. Throws a shadow of doubt as to the facts of all other chapters.
• Given as a gift to an avid reader, keeper of facts big or small, obscure or broadly known, and self proclaimed junkie for "nickel knowledge" -the kind of stuff good for dinner parties and wowing grandchildren - who says this book as a gift was great fun and a perfect pick. (Whew!)
• Bought for my 15 year old avid reader daughter. This was an suggestion after I bought my daughter the book “What If...” She loves it and has been reading excerpts from it since she unwrapped it.
• I learned a lot of interesting facts about things that I thought I already knew. This book also destroyed many beliefs held since childhood. Who knew that Rudolf the Red Nosed Deindeer was really a female? Many more myths like that are investigated and explained in this fascinating book.
• Fun read with some surprising revelations! What is nice...is this isn't the type of book you have to sit and read from front to back. I just sit for a few minutes...peruse a few pages, then I can pick it up at another time and restart anyplace in the book.
• This book should be titled The Book of Fallacies.
  
  First of all, the subtitle "Everything You Think You Know is Wrong" is an absolute claim that is absolutely wrong. Think about that subtitle for a minute.
  
  The book has entries that are not fact-based. For example, the entry on page 74 claims that being killed by an asteroid is more likely than than being killed by lightning simply because an asteroid strike is "well overdue."
  
  It is estimated that 6,000 or more people are killed by lightning each year worldwide.