Customer Reviews

Biggest Secrets

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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..

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!

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."

Reading this book has a stark semblance to a blind date gone awry. I went over this book during the holidays last week and ended up skipping a lot of unappealing chapters. Don't get we wrong for I have set low expectations. But it fell short anyway. The only topics that I found interesting, which was a partial redemption, were "The Beale Cipher"(Chapter 13) and "Tales from the Crypt"(Chapter 30). Don't waste your time with this book.

Poundstone's previous books are interesting, but this reads like a collection of out-takes. Who cares about Joan Collins' REAL birthdate? Antiquated, anal-retentive, non-applicable material; the only practical entry (all of 3 pages) is the entry about Lottery tickets and how they work. Should have been a cultural survival manual, but it's mainly nonsense. I wish the author would dig for more significant material; a stale twinkie.

Its nice to see a more up to date edition in the Big Secrets series, but the latest one is not nearly as enjoyable as the earlier ones. The secrets in this one just aren't all that fascinating.

Books such as this and the previous in the "Secrets" series make me realize just how much of the world out there is not known to me, to you, to anyone but the Illuminati, the Masons, and other if-you-need-to-know-we'll-tell-you organizations. There IS a conspiracy out there, people, and books like William Poundstone's "Biggest Secrets" blow chunks all over the conspiracy. The world is ours to know! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to tune my shortwave radio into those CIA numbers broadcasts... something ELSE I learned from my new personal hero, William Poundstone!

iam a magician and if theres magicians who wants to know how the big stuff is done in the illusions sections then this is it the creame of the cream of top notch magic and illusions from all three books it is a knock out!especally in bigger secrets. it tells the secret to the STATUE OF LIBERTY MY THORIES TO IT WAS CLOSE BUT I WAS WORKING TO HARD I WAS USING THE BLACK ART IDEA WITH A SCREME NETTING IT WOULD WORK BUT COPPERFIELDS METHOD IS MUTCH MUTCH BETTER.ENJOY. YOUUR FRIEND IN CHRIST AND MAGICALLY YOURS BILLPAGE THE MAGICIAN.

How would you like to know what boy scouts do on their camping trips? I didn't think so, but this book tells you anyway. From the stuff you don't care about knowing, to the stuff that you probably already know, this one's got it all, which isn't much. A terrible read. Do me a favor, pick up a book like "One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest" by Ken Keasy, or "The Choking Doberman and Other 'New' Urban Legends" by Jan Harold Brunvard (Both available here), you'll have a much better time with them. And William Poundstone can do us all a favor by keeping all of his other "big" secrets to himself.

I had to read this book for a class I was taking and I found it to be boring, dull and insignificant. I believe it is a waste of paper.