Christmas wagers; Amazon worldwide bestsellers.(The Book of General Ignorance)(Brief article)(Book review)

Economist (US), The, January, 2007

Stephen Fry helps make a pile out of ignorance

BOOKMAKERS like bets and so do the makers of books. Every year, as Christmas approaches, publishers pray that their new stocking-filler will make their fortunes. In 2002 the winner was "Schott's Original Miscellany", a little book of trivia, while the following year it was the tract that took a zero-tolerance attitude to punctuation, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". The magic moment in 2006 came when Stephen Fry turned from Hogwarts to hogwash, and wrote a foreword to "The Book of General Ignorance".

Thomas Edison (who, according to the authors, did not invent the lightbulb) once stated that we know less than one millionth of 1% of anything. This book would make even Edison feel small and silly, for it offers...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.