The Book Of General Ignorance (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
Сознаюсь, я большой поклонник интеллектуальных игр... Самая любимая передача - "Что? Где? Когда". Но... Все задаваемые в ЧГК вопросы можно разделить на несколько категорий. Самая любимая моя категория - вопросы "на размышление". Когда изначально даны все (или почти все) условия задачки, и надо лишь проявить креативность, чтобы правильно соединить все точки ;) Самая тупая категория - вопросы "на знание" :( Когда я учился классе в десятом, то я изобрёл работающий (и поныне :))) рецепт, как с вероятностью 99,9% обыграть знатоков. Всё просто: надо взять какую-нибудь экзотическую сферу человеческой деятельности и откопать там какой-нибудь малоизвестный факт. Например, достаточно взять какой-нибудь экзотический религиозный культ, и сформулировать вопрос о значении какого-нибудь действия/предмета в непонятном ритуале. Это вопросы из разряда армянского радио: "Что стоит на серванте - чёрное и блестящее?". Ответ: "Мои сапоги! Куда хочу, туда и ставлю!". Знатоков с лёгкостью можно "задавить" гуманитарными вопросами "на знание" из глубинной культурологии - этнографии, мифологии и т.п. Типа: "Кого и от чего лечит туканг тавур?" :))) Хотя, разумеется, ни один редактор подобные вопросы на игру не допустит... Это я пишу к чему... По моему мнению, нет ничего скучнее, чем целенаправленная "прокачка" эрудиции (т.е. подготовка в вопросам "на знание"). Эрудиция - побочный эффект от изучения того, что вам действительно интересно. А выучивать заранее 100500 ответов на разрозненные экзотические факты, чтобы потом в игре тебе достался 100501 такой факт... :)))) "Книга всеобщих заблуждений" - это сборник более-менее развёрнутых ответов на 230 вопросов, заданных на британском телешоу QI (российский аналог: "Кто хочет стать миллионером"). Вопросы, естественно, все "на знание". Также они с уклоном "в британское" - историю, культуру, науку. Что-то из приведённых "разоблачений" я уже знал. Некоторые факты вызывают большие сомнения (нет ничего более увлекательного, чем "разоблачение разоблачателей" :)))). И вообще, в подобных книгах крайне не хватает ссылок на первоисточники. Но были и факты, которые произвели на меня довольно сильное впечатление, и заставили крепко задуматься о некоторых вещах. Например, о том, что 99% всех изобретений/открытий в истории человечества являются "преждевременными". Их никто не ценит при жизни их создателей; мало того, воплощают в жизнь эти идеи/изобретения совсем другие люди, гораздо менее талантливые и этичные :( А настоящих прогрессоров в 99% случаев ожидает забвение... Совет: книгу лучше читать не торопясь, маленькими порциями. Буквально по страничке перед сном :) Тогда есть шанс, что приведённый в этом "справочнике" массив экзотических фактов хоть как-то утрясётся в вашей голове... Совет №2: Если вам всё же понравится данная книга, то крайне рекомендую литературное творчество А.Вассермана (например: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ), в т.ч. и в соавторстве с Н.Латыповым. У них подобные сборники экзотических фактов получаются (IMHO), гораздо более интересными и познавательными.
_The Book of General Ignorance_ by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson is a remarkably fun book to read, essentially a collection of questions followed by an essay answer for each one, not organized really into any significant way (though questions dealing with the same subject might follow one another).This book would be fun for any lovers of trivia and deal often with questions that people think they might know the answer to but really don't. What's the tallest mountain in the world? Think you know right, Mount Everest, at 29,029 feet? Nope, it is Mauna Kea. Though it is a modest 13,799 above sea level, measured from its seabed base to its summit, it is a whopping 33,465 feet in height, almost three-quarters of a mile higher than Mount Everest. What's the driest place in the world? The Sahara right? It is dry alright, getting just one inch of rain a year but it is the third driest place on Earth. The driest in fact is Antarctica, as some areas of the continent have not seen rain for two million years. The second driest is the Atacama Desert in Chile, which averages 0.004 inch of rain a year, and some areas have not seen rain for four hundred years. You have been told that Eskimo is a rude term right, that the preferred term now is Inuit? True, Inuit is the preferred term in Canada, but Alaskan Eskimos are perfectly happy with the name as they "are emphatically not Inuit, a people who live mainly in northern Canada and parts of Greenland." In fact there are many types of Eskimo, of which the Inuit are just one type (the others include the Kalaallit of Greenland and the Yupiget and the Alutiit of Alaska). Think the first turkeys eaten by English-speaking peoples were the Pilgrims? Nope, Turkeys first reached Europe in the 1520s, brought from their native Mexico by Spain and sold throughout Europe by Turkish merchants, by 1585 becoming a Christmas tradition in England. Perhaps you have heard that chop suey is actually an American dish. Not so, according to this book, it is a local dish of southern Canton, where it is called tsap seui, which means "miscellaneous scraps" in Cantonese, brought over by early Chinese immigrants to California. How many states of matter? Three right, solid, liquid, and gas? Nope, more like fifteen, as the list includes such states as plasma, superfluid, degenerate matter, fermionic condensate, Bose-Einstein condensate, and strange matter.Others questions and answers deal with just plain odd things that I didn't know. Croatia for instance gave the world the necktie, as Hravat is the Croation word for "Croat" and where the word cravat comes from. In the 17th century, Louis XIII of France kept a regiment of Croatian mercenaries during the Thirty Years War who as part of their uniform wore a wide, brightly colored neck cloth by which they became known, a style that was later much copied in Paris. St. Bernard dogs have never, ever carried barrels of brandy around their neck; the myth comes from an 1831 painting by a young English artist named Sir Edwin Landseer, who in his work _Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler_ painted two St. Bernards, one with a miniature brandy barrel around its neck which he added "for interest." _Ursus arctos_ is not the scientific name for the polar bear, it is the name for the brown bear, as ursus is Latin for bear and arctos is Greek for bear. The Arctic, interestingly enough, is named after the bear, not the other way around, as it is "the region of the bear."I have only one complaint about the book. Though it does include a helpful index, it lacks any mention of sources. Though not presented a serious scholarly work but merely a fun book to read, it might have nice to include some list of references.
What do You think about The Book Of General Ignorance (2007)?
I love/hate books like this because on one hand you get your mind blown on every page and then on the other hand your entire universe is shattered because you start thinking every thing you ever knew is wrong. Some of the gems include who is America really named after? Baseball wasn't invited in the United States. The earth has more than one moon. And many more amazing things that you can use to annoy strangers at parties and alienate all of your friends by correcting them in casual conversation.
—Peter Wolfley
QI: The Book of General Ignorance (The Noticeably Stouter Edition)As the Book name indicate this a general knowledge book I haven’t seen the show and I’m not sure I will. I got interested in this because I want something light to read as I was reading a lot and need some space and this book is an excellent idea to do that.As the content of the book it’s targeting the Native English speaking community misconceptions so if you are not native you might not have these misconceptions In general:- Con:-tIt target English speaking community which English are native to them.-tThere are errors in some the info they introduce.-tThey introduce a lot of boring and unnecessary stuff regarding the Question they answer.-tSome of the items are theoretical unproven answers.-tNo citation for references and sources. -tSome time all they did was argue semantics.-tThere are a lot of old news kind of Info-tNot that funny.+ Pro:-tIt sure gives you the space to read slowly since the info take from 1 to 3 pages only.-tIt gives you the necessary motive to go a check the info from more reliable sources.-tThere some fascinating and interesting information I think 2/5 is fare assessment for such book.
—Abdulaziz Fagih
If you've never seen an episode (or even a clip) of QI, the british panel show from the BBC, you owe it to yourself to head straight to YouTube and start watching. (I highly recommend the Mannequin Bird clip, and the Parthenon clip. These two made me cry with laughter) Stephen Fry is a delight to watch, Allen Davies is hysterical, and many of the guests add unexpected wit. Series regular Bill Bailey (who is also a regular on Nevermind The Buzzcocks, a similar show about pop music) stands out amongst the many other outstanding guests.What does this have to do with "The Book of General Ignorance?" Well first, those two ugly characters on the front of the book are badly done drawings of Fry and Davies. And second, many of the questions from the show's General Ignorance part of the episodes, are in this book. Its a collection of the most random tidbits of knowledge you probably think you know, but don't.This is the kind of book you take on a long road trip with your family, to entertain everyone as you drive. It might even pair well with an edition of Trivial Pursuit, though I suspect a few of the answers may contradict eachother. Its up to you to decide which one is correct.
—Kyle Johnson
