Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
[[Category:Trivia|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Trivia]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author=John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, James Harkin and Andrew Hunter Murray
|title=QI: The Third Book of General Ignorance
|rating=4.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=Well done, Hartlepool. You didn't put on trial and kill a shipwrecked monkey thinking it a Napoleonic spy – any more than the several other places thusly accused ever did. Well done, Italy, for making the ciabatta such a global phenomenon it seems like a traditional foodstuff, even if it was invented in 1982. And well done to that famous ice hockey player, Charles Darwin – who was probably playing it, seeing as it was a British invention, long before the Canadians ever realised they might be good at it. Yes, for a book that spends a lot of its time saying 'this didn’t happen,' 'hoojamaflip didn't do this,' and 'that was never thus', it's one that's incredibly easy to be most positive about.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571308988</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Caroline Taggart
|summary=I formed a new, close friendship recently, and one of the first things I subtly dropped into things was the fact that I might use a different dictionary to other people. Probably there was a subconscious thought forming that it would be better to make it known, in case I trod on any toes, said anything that didn't go down quite as well as I had planned. But that's nothing compared to what Phil Cousineau has done here, for he has written his own dictionary, and got it published in a very nice, glossy, browsable form. Alright, it's nothing like a complete dictionary, but everything is here in his own personal style - 250 main words, definitions, derivations and examples of use. Oh, and some modern-ish artworks as well.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1573444006</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Andrews
|title=The Economist Book of Isms
|rating=4
|genre=Trivia
|summary=I'm assuming all readers of this book, and this review, will know the meanings of the words racism, atheism and Communism. But how about Orphism? Nestorianism? Vorticism? Or the exact difference between egoism, egotism, and egocentrism? I'll confess to ignorance on all of that second trio of words before reading this book, but was fascinated to find out what they were. (Orphism is a religion originating in 6th or 7th century BC Greece based on the poems of Orpheus, who returned from Hades. I'll leave you to find out the definitions of the other two yourself!) Similarly, I was aware of all three of that final trilogy, but am not sure I even knew there '''was''' a difference, let alone that I'd have come close to being able to actually define them all as this volume does.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682983</amazonuk>
}}