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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 031.02 EAN: 9780307394910 ISBN: 0307394913 Label: Harmony Manufacturer: Harmony Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 288 Publication Date: August 07, 2007 Publisher: Harmony Release Date: August 07, 2007 Studio: Harmony Editorial Review: Product Description: Think Magellan was the first man to circumnavigate the globe, baseball was invented in America, Henry VIII had six wives, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British bestseller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school. Revealing the truth behind all the things we think we know but don’t, this book leaves you dumbfounded about all the misinformation you’ve managed to collect during your life, and sets you up to win big should you ever be a contestant on Jeopardy! or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Besides righting the record on common (but wrong) myths like Captain Cook discovering Australia or Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone, The Book of General Ignorance also gives us the skinny on silly slipups to trot out at dinner parties (Cinderella wore fur, not glass, slippers and chicken tikka masala was invented in Scotland, not India). Thomas Edison said that we know less than one millionth of one percent about anything: this book makes us wonder if we know even that much. You’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know! Check out THE BOOK OF GENERAL IGNORANCE for more fun entries and complete answers to the following: How long can a chicken live without its head? About two years. What do chameleons do? They don’t change color to match the background. Never have; never will. Complete myth. Utter fabrication. Total Lie. They change color as a result of different emotional states. Who invented champagne? Not the French. How many legs does a centipede have? Not a hundred. How many toes has a two-toed sloth? It’s either six or eight. How many penises does a European earwig have? a)Fourteen b)None at all c)Two (one for special occasions) d)Mind your own business Which animals are the best-endowed of all? Barnacles. These unassuming modest beasts have the longest penis relative to their size of any creature. They can be seven times longer than their body. What is a rhino’s horn made from? A rhinoceros horn is not, as some people think, made out of hair. Who was the first American president? Peyton Randolph. What were George Washington’s false teeth made from? Mostly hippopotamus. What was James Bond’s favorite drink? Not the vodka martini. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Fun book, but it too shows some ignorance...This is a thoroughly interesting and fun read. However, awash as I am in my own ignorance, I have detected a few gaffs here and there...such as the authors' claims that a star named Lucy (which allegedly has the heart of a diamond) is precisely located some billions of miles OVER Australia! Anyone with a whit of background in cosmology would recognize that since our Earth is spinning at somewhere around 1,000 mph and is at the same time zipping around the sun at 18 miles a second (give or take a ... Read More Rating: - what a fun book!i loved this book! it's a collection of short (like, 1 page) mini-essays about things we commonly believe to be true, but aren't. each is written as a question. then the correct answer is revealed, with a load of back up and ancillary information. a few of the snippets weren't interesting. but overall, i kept finding myself thinking, "ok, i'll read just one more... just one more... ok, another... ok, just one more." i also regularly thought, "wow -- that's fascinating. i ... Read More Rating:  - Good for flipping through, but overratedLike a lot of other books that claim to contain "100 things we bet you didn't know" or the like, The Book of General Ignorance is only good for paging through. It's certainly not worthy of a thorough reading, since it spans across so many topics, including religion (and many of us aren't religious, deeming the true "facts" already myths), biological life, famous people, and lots of earth science. Not to mention, these topics are scattered throughout, with no sense of order. However unorganized the ... Read More Rating: - Poorly researchedThis book is for fun, but many of the "facts" are wrong or debatable. To correct just one: The universe has not been assumed to be infinite for about 100 years. A very little research would have avoided this erroneous premise. P.S. Benjamin Franklin made many clever remarks. So why attribute one to him that he didn't make? Rating: - Great Book!This book is really fun to read when friends are over or at family get-togethers. The facts and trivia are really interesting!!! Perfect for giftss!! |
