Customer Reviews

Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In his autobiography, "I, Asimov", Isaac makes it clear he did not write this book. It was put together by someone else, and his name was attached to it through some kind of contractual mumbo-jumbo. That being said, it is an entertaining book.

Despite all the comments I have read regarding the accuracy of some of this book's facts, I found this collection to be extremely engrossing and downright fascinating. I enjoy reading such compilations of trivia, and I must say that this is one of the best - if not the best - I have read for two reasons.
First, the format of the book is fantastic. The hundreds of facts, which range from one sentence to around a paragraph, are sorted by topic and presented in a brief and accessible manner by the author. The topic-sorting and compression of the countless facts enable one to read the book selectively, if desired, and they also facilitate the option of reading it all at once or gradually. Second, and more importantly, I found the selection of content to be wonderfully diverse and intriguing, as well as entertaining and even fun. In fact (if you will pardon that expression), I found so many of the entries to be worthy of remembering and future reference that I decided to mark those that struck me as particularly interesting or valuable.
I would highly recommend this collection. However, given the accuracy issues some readers have brought up, it should be read with a skeptical mind (but what book should not be read that way?).

I am fifteen years old and have been reading this book constantly for at least three years. It is massively interesting. I have a copy of this book that was printed in 1981, before some of the facts were disproven. Isaac Asimov is one of the best writers of the twentieth century. I just wish he had lived to release volume two and on.

This book is a good read and you will sometimes be amazed by some of the facts that are contained within it. How many people do you know that wrongly believe that the Titanic resulted in the greatest loss of human life at sea!

Sure some people will say that some of the facts contained are incorrect or have been disproved. Remember that this book was originally published in the 1970's and in that time research and technology has resulted in new discoveries been made in many fields such as medicine, space, etc.

So as long as you keep this in mind and take the time to double check any facts contained in this book before getting into any arguments or taking bets, you should be OK.

Overall, a good read which many of your friends will be delighted to borrow.

This is one of my all time favorite books. There are incredible facts in here that you will not see anywhere else. You can use this as a basis of further research on any topic. We sure miss Isaac Asimov, one of the great minds of our time. Buy this great book!

Isaac Asimov, someone typically associatied with science fiction novels, compiled this tremendous book of facts that will amaze you. If you are planning on scoring big on "Who wants to be a millionaire?" than this is the book for you. This compilation of useless facts is grouped by subject and can be read from cover to cover, or is a useful source when writing a paper and looking for that one interesting attention getter that will make your paper seem much better than it really is. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that does a lot of writing, since it does contain so many interesting things about so many subjects. Enjoy!

The reason I gave this one such a high rating was because it is a fun book but also some of the info in the book I was able to show recent professors that gave more facts about things we were studying. A prime example was what was written about Gregor Mendel. It is a good book and enjoyable and you will learn alot!

Fascinating and infintely readable. The single best coffee table book you'll ever buy. Read it for minutes or hours. Pick it up and flip. Every time you read it you get more great facts.

This book has some of the most bizarre things that I've ever read. Including the story of some medieval ruler who had the eyes of every captured enemy soldier destroyed with hot pokers. One out of 100 soldiers were spared one eye, in order to lead the blind back home.

Some of this ... I don't think is true, but all the same this is a very fun book. Great bathroom material.

I am a junkie for inconsequential facts. This book is full of them, although it also has many facts that we should know and perhaps don't. My only complaint is that it's not a paperback. I can't carry it around easily and read at lunch! I recommend it for other facts junkies.