Big Secrets [Paperback]

William Poundstone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 1985

The Book That Gives the Inside Story on Hundreds of Secrets of American Life --Big Secrets.

Are there really secret backward messages in rock music, or is somebody nuts? We tested suspect tunes at a recording studio to find out.

What goes on at Freemason initiations? Here's the whole story, including -- yes! -- the electric carpet.

Colonel Sanders boasted that Kentucky Fried Chicken's eleven secret herbs and spices "stand on everybody's shelf." We got a sample of the seasoning mix and sent it to a food chemist for analysis.

Feverish rumor has it that Walt Disney's body was frozen and now lies in a secret cryonic vault somewhere beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit at Disneyland. Read the certified stranger-than-fiction truth.

Don't bother trying to figure out how Doug Henning, David Copperfield, and Harry Blackstone, Jr., perform their illusions. "Big Secrets" has complete explanations and diagrams, nothing left to the imagination.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (June 26, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688048307
• ISBN-13: 978-0688048303
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #300,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Poundstone is the author of two previous Hill and Wang books: Fortune's Formula and Gaming the Vote.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and well written, August 5, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Big Secrets (Paperback)

I don't understand some of these negative reviews. It's my impression that those reviewers were upset at Poundstone for telling about their secret organizations. All that aside, this book and its two sequels, Bigger Secrets and Biggest Secrets, are full of fascinating information you're not supposed to know. The formula for Coke, how to beat a lie detector test, how David Copperfield floated a ball, secret stuff on U.S. currency, etc. Poundstone also writes well. His prose has a touch of dry wit to it. This is an excellent book and hard to put down. In Bigger Secrets he blows the lid on how David Copperfield vanished the Statue of Liberty in 1983, which in my opinion is one of the most interesting things he's exposed. I wish he'd write 10 more sequels--I'd buy them all.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific--and he tells you exactly how he did it., March 8, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Big Secrets (Paperback)

"Big Secrets" (and its sequel, "Bigger Secrets") are wonderful. The thing I like best about them is Poundstone's own honesty--he doesn't keep any secrets of his own. He tells you exactly _how_ he found out what he found out.

A Shriner may pledge that if he divulges the secrets of his order, he may incur "the penalty of having my eyeballs pierced to the center with a three-edged blade." But Poundstone discovered a Masonic supply house ("The Geo. Lauterer Corporation") that works by mail order and doesn't check ID, ordered a selection of titles, and tells us all of the inside skinny on IAOM and Tubal-Cain.

"Big Secrets" tells as much as Poundstone could find out about the secret formula for Coca-Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken. It tells how the Rorschach test works and how to cheat on it. It tells several methods by which magicians saw a woman in two (you see, one of them is patented, so if you write the patent office and ask for patent #1,458,575...)

"Bigger Secrets" is equally good, maybe better. I think my favorite is his description of what the Rosicrucians are really like, but his explanation of how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty Vanish and his analysis of backward and "subliminal" messages in records and movies are also excellent.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book, and never mind the haters..., July 6, 2006

By 

Ganesh Prometheus (The whole wide world) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big Secrets (Paperback)

I'm a librarian with over fifteen years' experience in my profession, and this is one of my favorite reference books. I find it more amusing than irritating that this book's rating has been driven down by, variously, a magician, a bitter would-be know-it-all, and a couple of Freemasons. The way that they respond to this book is probably one of the best testimonials to its relevance and quality.

The "big secrets" that Poundstone reveals are, in large part, not that difficult to discover on one's own. With all of the Masons walking around, there are bound to be a few that will blab about the sooper-seekrit initiation ceremonies. With all of the minimum-wage fast food workers, it has to be pretty easy to get a sample of the KFC chicken coating for analysis. With all of the magic books that have been written and published... you get the idea.

The real secret that Poundstone reveals in these instances is that they really aren't secrets, but have been promoted as such by those who benefit from the illusion of secrecy. The whole myth behind Coca-Cola, for example--that the formula is secret, that there's a secret ingredient "7X", that only two people know the formula, and they each only know part of it, and that they can't travel on the same plane--is pure corporate hogwash. The recipe for the syrup has been part of the public legal record for decades. The centuries-old initiation rites of the Masons are pretty much like the ones that you made up for your neighborhood "No Gurls Alowd" clubhouse when you were eight, only with somewhat better props. Stage magicians are still flogging the same tired tricks that were old when Houdini was a kid in Appleton, Wisconsin. And so on.

Naturally, some of the same people who want the general public to believe that these things are unknowable, save only to an initiated few, are upset that Poundstone stuck them between covers for anyone to read. But for the rest of us, who delight in discovery and the puncturing of myths, the book is a sheer blast.