Customer Reviews

1,000 Common Delusions: And the Real Facts Behind Them

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I'm a big fan of trivia, and I love collecting trivia books. Books that challenge popular misconceptions are always fun as well, so this book, with its promise to debunk "1,000 delusions" seemed like it would be an engaging read.

The problem is, the author clearly had a hard time coming up with 1,000 misconceptions. There are many legitimate debunkings in this book, such as "lemons contain the most vitamin C" or "we use only 10% of our brains," but many of the others:

a) are stupid to the point where it's hard to believe such misconceptions are in any way "common" to actual humans (who honestly believes that "plastic surgery involves plastic" or that "the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware is an accurate portrayal"?)

b) feature answers that are so convoluted and obscure it's hard to really argue much has been "disproven" (for example, one "myth" is that "there are no such things as unicorns," which is obviously true. But the author says that what people used to believe were the horns of unicorns were actually the horns of narwhales, which do exist. Uh, fair enough, but that still doesn't make the original premise outright wrong.)

c) claim authoritative answers to matters which are still very much debated, like "the Civil War was about slavery" or "Jesus said he was the son of God." Matters like these cannot be boiled down to a simple wrong/right dichotomy.

d) have answers that are just full-on urban myths. So-called misconceptions like "George Washington was the first President of the USA" or "Chop Suey is Chinese" are both actually true, but the book presents them as myths because the author ascribes to certain counter-myths.

It's not hard to write a trivia book. All you need to do is string together a bunch of random factoids that sound vaguely intelligent and provocative. To write a GOOD trivia book is much more difficult, however, and requires sophisticated research and thoughtful writing- two qualities this book lacks.

If you are interested in good trivia, I recommend reading "the Book of General Ignorance" or any of the "Imponderables" books by David Feldman.