8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essentially useless, but excrutiatingly enjoyable anyway, November 14, 1996
By A Customer
This review is from: Biggest Secrets (Paperback)
This series of books (Big, Bigger, and Biggest Secrets) is a celebration of all things wonderfully useless.
Do you need to know where Walt Disney is buried? No, but it's kinda cool to know that the author tracked Walt's grave down. Do you need to know where the secret drinking club is in Disneyland? No again, but it'll change the way you think about the Happiest Place on Earth.
I was in utter delight when Bigger Secrets came out, and I was overjoyed to find Biggest Secrets. Alas, however, a fourth edition has yet to be printed -- what nefarious secret could have caused this? Mr. Poundstone, please strike again! There's so much useless stuff I don't know about yet..
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fun, informative book., September 26, 1996
By A Customer
This review is from: Biggest Secrets (Paperback)
Where else can you find the real Mrs. Fields' Chocolate Chip
Cookie recipe and the formula for Play-Doh in the same book?
Poundstone's writing style is entertaining; he reveals the
great secrets of popular culture without even a hint of
malice. (And the recipe makes a darned fine cookie, too!)
His similar, earlier books, "Big Secrets" and "Bigger
Secrets," are also excellent. I only hope he finds another
superlative so "Biggest Secrets" won't be the last volume
in this series!
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Like shelling bar peanuts, February 17, 2004
This review is from: Biggest Secrets (Paperback)
Appearing in 1993, ten years after BIG SECRETS and seven after BIGGER SECRETS, William Poundstone's BIGGEST SECRETS is evidence that the author needs to get on with life. Perhaps he too realizes that fact, since "biggest" is the superlative form of the adjective. Poundstone has nowhere to go from here.
Unshelled peanuts aren't the most convenient bar snack, but it's hard to shell and eat only several. Likewise, BIGGEST SECRETS doesn't represent fine literature, but it's difficult to put down. Poundstone has several (favorite) recurring topics in his books: the secret ingredients of famous junk foods, secret initiation rites, magicians' secrets revealed, reverse messages on popular music tracks, and subliminal pictures in movies. The last two seem almost obsessions. But, he also throws in others. For example, in BIGGEST, there are exposed: the formula for Play-Doh, security coding of lottery tickets, the meaning of gang graffiti, how to get that ship in a bottle, and celebs' real ages.
As with BIG, so many varied subjects are covered that the individual reader is certain to find some that intrigue, and some that bore to tears. So, I enjoyed learning about the Mrs. Field's chocolate chip cookie recipe, the method behind the rabbit-out-of-the-hat illusion, fake towns on maps, the ingredients of Spam and head cheese, Christmas gift return codes, the evolution of Kelloggs Frosted Flakes, and the location of Century House in London (MI-6 HQ). On the other hand, I couldn't care less about a stylometry evaluation of the Beale Cipher, a 19th-century treasure map in code, or the real ages of the likes of Joan Collins, the Gabor sisters, Don Rickles, Imogene Coca, Charo and Joan Rivers, or fire-lighting tricks of the Boy Scouts. Indeed, I skipped entirely the sections on hidden messages and pictures in music and films respectively. Thus, as with BIG, BIGGEST is an erratic entertainment vehicle. (I haven't read BIGGER SECRETS, nor do I intend to. Even unshelled peanuts lose their charm.)
Perhaps my favorite revelation was the means for creating a chocolate-covered cherry. Specifically, how do they get the liquid surrounding the fruit? Well, the manufacturer coats the cherry with a paste of sugar and the enzyme invertase, the latter a natural digestive enzyme, then dips it in chocolate. During storage, the invertase breaks down the sugar into a syrup. The author leaves us with a pleasing image:
"It's almost as if the candy makers were thoughtful enough to spit in the candy to give you a head start on digestion."
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