Customer Reviews

Book of Answers: The New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service's Most Unusual and Enter

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is a real lifesaver. I'm not a geek, but I wil often refer to one or two items before going to a party or family gathering. The true facts in this book really blow people's minds. I especially like the fact that the only 2 manmade objects visible from space are the Chinese Wall and the Fresh Kills landfill in NY.

This book is fun and informative. There are some interesting questions and excellent answers in here. There is a previous reviewer who may have some issues so let me clarify. This book is not for people who are terribly uneducated. This book is for people who question things and would like to find the answers in an easy to read format. In short, it is not for the ignorant but for the curious.

Calling the reference desk at your public library has always been one of the quickest and easiest ways to get a question answered or a bit of research done. Questions asked range from the serious to the ludicrous, but, almost without exception, they get answered. Barbara Berliner, head of the New York Library's Telephone Reference Service since 1986 has compiled a list of some of the more interesting questions and answers from this period. The result of this effort is THE BOOK OF ANSWERS.

THE BOOK OF ANSWERS is another of those books that can best be reviewed by citing some of the questions and answers that make up the text. The librarians' ability to answer some of the questions asked makes one wonder how they are able to do so.

Here are just a few examples.

When asked about the most unlikely mating between dogs, Ms. Berliner and her staff came up with a mating between a male Dachshund and a female Great Dane. The resulting litter contained 13 "Great Dachshunds" who were distinguished by their short legs and large heads.

For "Lucy" fans: "I Love Lucy" ran for 6 seasons from 1951 to 1957.

A bit of baseball trivia: The first fine in baseball was levied on June 19, 1846 in the amount of 6 cents for swearing at an umpire.

More trivia: Of all the known animal species, only pigs and human beings get sunburned.

For convenience, the book is broken up into 27 categories which even include one of trick questions such as: "Where in the Bible does it say that cleanliness is next to godliness?" The short answer is "Nowhere."

There are lots of questions and answers on serious subjects such as history, culture, language, fine arts, etc. THE BOOK OF ANSWERS is ideal for flipping open to any page at random and finding some interesting bit of trivia. What fun!

As a reference librarian, it's always fun to have confirmation that other libraries get strange questions. This is a fun compendium of popular and not-so-popular questions.

That said, I am more than slightly disturbed that they do not cite their sources. I'm not saying that I doubt the answers that are given, it's just unusual that they're not not saying where the answers came from....

But it's still a fun book.

Reference librarians are the colest, and this book proves it. It's fun to pick a random page and learn something new-- perfect for the passenger to read out loud on a road trip.

I opened to a random pgae today and read one of the "answers" today and noticed that it was competely and utterly wrong.

Question: What are the five largest lakes? (p.81)

Their answer: (I have added stats about the lakes in parentheses, first number is area, second is volume):

1. Caspian Sea (143,000 sq mi; 18,800 cu mi)

2. Lake Superior (31,820 sq mi; 2,900 cu mi)

3. Lake Victoria (26,828 sq mi; 660 cu mi)

4. Aral Sea (this is no longer a continuous body of water and hasn't been since 1960... It has dried up and is now 3 seperate lakes. There is an ongoing effort to replenish it via a dam, but still, this is a horrendous oversight. Anyway, in 1960, the lake had an area of 26,000 square miles and a volume of 260 cubic miles. It is now approximately 10% of its previous size.)

5. Lake Huron (Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are technically one body of water, but the author names Huron as if it is distinct. The last time they were two seperate lakes was in the preiovus ice age - although the ice age versions are known as Lake Stanley and Lake Chippewa. Michigan-Huron has an area of 45,410 sq mi and a volume of 2,029 cubic miles. If you were to count them seperately, dividing them at the Straight of Mackinac, Huron has an area of 23,010 square miles and a volume of 849 cubic miles; while Michigan has an area of 22,400 square miles and a volume of 1,180 cubic miles. So, not only has the author decidied to split up Huron and Michigan, she chose to list the smaller of the two. Seriously?)

OK, so what's wrong with this answer? ROFLOMGBBQ, what's right with it. Did I forget to mention that this isn't on the list:

Lake Baikal (12,200 sq mi; 5,700 cu mi)

Yes, Lake Baikal has a greater volume than her 2, 3, 4, and 5 put together. Well, 5 if it's only Lake Huron, if you throw in Lake Michigan than Baikal comes up just short.

Anyway, this leads me to conclude that she's trying to list them by surface area, which is fine - although it would have been nice if she stated that. So, how does she do on that measure?

Well, for starters The Aral Sea basically doesn't exist anymore (I realise that the book was published in 1990, but the Aral Sea was measured at 11,000 square miles and shrinking in 1988, well smaller than Lake Baikal).

The next problem is that if you count Michigan-Huron as one lake, it should be number two on the list. If you count them as seperate, then Huron is smaller than Michigan. So, either way, Lake Huron is incorrect.

So, that's 2 out of 5 that she has wrong.

60% is failing where I'm from.

The right answer would be:

By area (answers in parentheses are if you want Huron and Michigan seperate):

1. Caspian Sea
2. Michigan-Huron (Superior)
3. Superior (Victoria)
4. Victoria (Michigan)
5. Tanganyika (Huron)

By volume:

1. Caspian
2. Baikal
3. Tanganyika
4. Superior
5. Michigan-Huron (Lake Malawi)

So whenever you read an answer out of the book, you have to ask another question, "Did they put as much effort into this as the lake question?"

I received this book today and having purchased other books from the same 'The New York Public Library', expected more excellence. There certainly is a lot of fun and interesting information in it, to be sure. And perhaps I'm 'nitpicking', but when I looked through the American Statistics section, all the facts/reference were from the 80's and early 90's. It seemed most was from 1980-1988, and I wondered how they couldn't have more updated information than that which was almost 30 years old? It doesn't seem terribly informative when it's so out-dated. This is my major complaint. The rest was interesting and informative. My favorite section was the 'Trademark' section.

Well, the subtitle says it all, folks. This book is a compilation of unusual questions and the entertaining answers as researched by The New York Public Library's Telephone Reference Service. Questions on topics such as American History, Crime and Criminals, The English Language, Geography and more are included in this book and grouped according to topic. The book is fully indexed so the topics can be quickly located for the curious or for a springboard into deeper reserach.

This book would be tedious reading if one attempted to read each page in order as with a novel, but as a point of curiosity, it appeals to trivia buffs, young or old, who wish to look up answers to questions that plague the mind. I found this book to be an entertaining aside from my usual non-fiction reading, but not something I need to keep or read again.

Recommended for trivia buffs and the curious with the caviat that I spotted a typographical error or two while reading some of the questions so don't depend on this as a reference if you need authoritative answers. This review has been simultaneously published on Amazon.com, Dragon Views and LibraryThing.

I bought this book for my 14 y.o. nephew for his birthday. I am not good at "boy" presents, let alone a teenage boy,(who is athletic and ALL boy), but this was a great choice. He loves the book, and is frequently quoting from it.

The Book of Questions is a collection of offbeat information, i.e. questions that have been asked of the New York Library over the past twenty years. They fall under several different headings, some of which include American History, American Statistics, Animal World, Crime and Criminals, Fine Arts, The First, Geography, Human Body, Literature, Myth and Folklore, Pop Culture, Odds and Ends, Science and Sports. Some of the questions are serious, some quite odd, some relevant, some not so relevant; all though are absolutely interesting.

The book is set up in a question and answer format and is a work that any true lover of trivia will drool over. From the origin of words to the speed various animals travel to the history of our culture, it is all covered. Many of the questions are amusing but all will educate. This is not a book that you would want or need as a reference book as the questions are too scattered, and let's face it, you can find the answer to most of these inquiries almost instantly via your computer these days. This is a nice book to having lying around to browse through in those off moments when you have the time. Simply put, this is a fun book to own.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks