The Book of General Ignorance

John Mitchinson · John Lloyd

Aug 2007 · Sold by Crown Archetype

About this ebook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A shockingly counterintuitive book of trivia that cuts through the misconceptions that most of us call “facts” to show how wrong we are about . . . well, everything.

“Trivia buffs and know-it-alls alike will exult to find so much repeatable wisdom gathered in one place.”—The New York Times

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. 
 
Challenging commonly held assumptions in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of verifiably true answers to seemingly easy questions, like:

Who was the first American president?
Peyton Randolph.

How long can a chicken live without its head?
About two years.

How many legs does a centipede have?
Not a hundred.

How many toes does a two-toed sloth have?
It’s either six or eight.

Check out The Book of General Ignorance for fun entries and complete answers to these and many more questions. You’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know!

Ratings and reviews

This book is rather entertaining. I always loved random facts but I would often be disappointed if there was no explanation as to how that those are true. This book made up for that. It explains every fact in great detail. However, some of the topics that were presented in this book aren't given a real answer by the author. It sometimes seems to focus more on simply proving us, readers, wrong instead of giving us the right answer. That was actually rather humorous to me. Some things are so completely irrelevant and almost never a part of common knowledge though. So it simply didn't seem correct to place those in this book in the first place. I'm not really complaining though, since it's always good to learn more, just wishing there was more interesting ones which I could share with my peers haha.

Certainly an entertaining book to read and to take with a grain of salt. Some of the information it contains is incorrect or outdated, however. If anything, it should motivate people to seek truth for themselves and not take the word of others or of the author as unquestionably trustworthy.

A few eyebrow raising moments and fun "didjaknows." Entertainingly written and fast reading. I am personally unburdened with the notion that I am full of facts. Which makes this book a lot of fun. Buy it.

About the author

JOHN LLOYD is the producer of the hit British comedy shows Not the Nine O’Clock News, Blackadder, and Spitting Image.JOHN MITCHINSON writes for the British television show QI, and drinks in the same pub as John Lloyd.