Unlock the Secrets of the Unknown: The Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd

William Orr: I found this a very enjoyable read. It’s a treasure for any word nerd full of trivia and facts. Language lovers wil love this.

United States on Jul 07, 2023

Dezilpin: sold at garage sale ...poor purchase

Canada on Feb 19, 2022

Richie: Love these books, well researched and always entertaining to read for 15 mins or a couple of hours. Keep them coming.

United Kingdom on May 22, 2021

brianbennett: Hi there: I found out that I am generally Ignorant. This book makes you say " I didn't know that" I do trivia quizzes and this book can prove some of the answers wrong. General Ignorances is a fun book to read its a book you can just pick up and read a few pages. I thought I knew a lot about some things, I know nothing about every thing. The book is entertaining and educational at the same time. My wife liked it also. And now she knows about everything boy am I in trouble.

Canada on Jun 07, 2018

Timothy Haugh: Recently, I have become a big fan of QI, the British television show hosted by Stephen Fry. It is a hilarious “quiz show” that makes a point of asking very difficult questions that often inspire answers that are obvious, but wrong. (How many wives did Henry VIII have? Not six. Two, or four, if you’re Catholic.) When I saw the book from the show 1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off, I took a look. My family and I enjoyed it immensely. So, when I discovered there were other books from the show, I tracked them down. This is the first.

In many ways, it is as enjoyable as the TV show. In fact, as these questions and answers are drawn from the show, you can hear the answers read in the voice of Stephen Fry online. Unfortunately, this is why this book is not quite as enjoyable. Having seen the shows, I already had heard the answers to these questions. Knowing the answers in advance took some of the fun out of the book.

In addition, this book doesn’t have the pop of 1,227… That book is a list of facts no more than a few sentences long. I was able to read much of it aloud to my wife and kids to our mutual enjoyment. This is a book of questions and...

United States on Mar 23, 2014

Joe: I'm not talking about mere typos here, but quite a few places where sentences have just been chopped up and randomly sorted, so one sentence will break off, perhaps mid word, another starts, then three or four lines down you encounter the missing half a sentence !!
Not frequent enough to warrant returning, I am still enjoying it (about 1/2 way through, its a book you can dip into and out of without losing the thread,as its arranged as a set of disconnected "factoids") but far too many errors to be passed over without comment.

For content, I'd have given it 5, but downgraded by 2 stars because of the very very sloppy editing.

United Kingdom on Jan 21, 2011

HoverDonkey: Great book and big thanks for the publisher for allowing the Kindle version to be cheaper than the paperback!

(not too much to ask, is it?)

Personally, I find it insulting when a publisher allows me to waste paper and production line expenses on a cheap version when there's an electronic version, with all the associated economies, available at a MUCH higher price.

People will vote with their wallets, and simply not buy the e-books. What they will also not do is buy the papeback, because they want electronic version but it's too expensive.

Get real, publishers, please.

United Kingdom on Dec 19, 2010

Smith's Rock: For the dedicated informavore, cracking the first page of this book is like ushering a person with a drinking problem into an Oktoberfest celebration. Consisting of over two hundred questions that many people THINK they know the answer to, The Book of General Ignorance proceeds to deflate the readers' pride in their own knowledge with both dispatch and humor.

With queries ranging from "What human artifacts can be seen from the moon?" to "What would you use to overpower a crocodile?", the authors cover topics ranging from astrophysics to particle physics, from the sex lives of earwigs to the homicidal habits of hippos, all in clear and humorous prose.

It would be tempting to look at this book as simply a larger and more explicit version of picking up a box of Trivial Pursuit cards and going through them one by one. And if you're someone that has actually done this (Sadly....I'm one of those people), you'll love this book. For many readers, delightful as the tidbits provided are, it will leave one with the odd and unfulfilling feeling one gets when one goes to a party, not having had dinner, and all that is available is a vast array of tasty appetizers: one gets...

United States on Mar 28, 2010

S. N. Falk: At last, the American release of what is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating books you could ever hope to delve into! Whereas most trivia books contain "facts" of dubious origin and little consequence, it's clear that the authors of this book have gone through great pains to dig out and verify the most interesting tidbits from the realms of history, nature, science, and culture. Let's go for a few examples (edited heavily for space; the book is far more detailed).

Q: How many words do Eskimos have for snow?
A: Actually, no more than four. Although it's often said that Eskimos have dozens or even hundreds of words for snow, there are at most only four root-words for it, and that's drawing from all Eskimo languages. (They do, however, have more than thirty words for demonstrative pronouns, where speakers of English only have four.)

Q: Who invented the telephone?
A: Contrary to what you've been taught, it was not the famous A. Graham Bell! Credit goes to Antonio Meucci, a brilliant but ailing Italian inventor, whose patent fell into the hands of Bell, a young Scottish engineer. Meucci died before his case against Bell could come to fruition.

There are...

United States on Aug 28, 2007