encyclopedias

If you are looking for a reference book in which you can quickly look up the population of Brazil or find a complete list of Pulitzer Prize winners, then "Schott's Original Miscellany" is not the volume you seek. On the other hand, if you're looking for a book you can pick up, open to a random page, and unearth some fascinating tidbits of trivia, then you're in the right place.

Imbued with humor, sprinkled with quotations, and arranged in completely arbitrary order, this quaint compendium of facts makes for edifying, absorbing, and essential (according to Ben Schott) reading. Although the author has taken great pains to ensure the correctness of the facts, he admits that some of the trivia he presents has been disputed; he provides a list of variations and disputations. There is a self-referential page with statistical information about the book itself. There is also an index, although the reader will not be referring to it often, if at all. Originally published in England, this edition has been updated with American trivia, but it still contains such British facts as cricket fielding positions, British poets laureate, and the order of succession to the English throne.

Move over bathroom readers... this book is far more entertaining. I recommend you buy a copy and keep it handy at all times. You never know when you'll need to find some "Q" words with no "u" or a list of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands!

This is a highly idiosyncratic and thoroughly browsable collection of the sort of miscellaneous information that most people would label "trivia," but which is highly prized by reference librarians. (We used to love David Wallechinsky's The People's Almanac and Book of Lists series for the same reasons.) I mean, where else are you likely to find the color code for lighting the Empire State Building, or a schematic of Dante's Inferno, or the "Victorian Timetable of Family Mourning"? Some of this stuff, though, is easily available in other common sources - birth stone, the UN Secretaries General, the Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion formula, the Dewey Decimal system. And some are too incomplete or outdated or "casual" to be of much actual use (except to the reader who has never heard of the World Almanac): a short list of medical terminology, a handful of quotes from Winston Churchill, a list of a dozen (!) chemical compounds, and so on. Still, Schott has said that he simply collected what personally interested him - take it or leave it. Given that standard of inclusion, it's an interesting few hours' browsing.

I love miscellany and trivia. The original Book of Lists ranks among my favorite possessions. I received Schott's book with high hopes. Unfortunately, I have to add my name to the critics.

The book does not make good reading material because most of it is World Almanac-type facts, not interesting curiousities. But it cannot qualify as a reference, since it is neither ordered nor complete.