Customer Reviews

The New Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ok, there are more than five reasons! I was eight years old when my older brother received the original "Book of Lists" (1977) as a Christmas gift. The book compiled lists of mostly useless trivia. My family members all had fun scanning the lists, but I was the most mesmerized. To an eight-year-old list freak, The Book of Lists was like manna. Reading about people who died unusual deaths or about the shortest celebrity marriages provided endless hours of entertainment. I've always loved lists and eagerly anticipated each successive edition of the "Book of Lists." More than a decade has passed since the last version - the rather ho-hum "90s Edition." Since that time, the internet (especially google) has made these types of lists somewhat irrelevant, as anybody with a laptop can successfully build their own lists of trivia. However, it's still great fun and provides a certain nostalgia factor for those of us who grew up with this series.

"The New Book of Lists" brings back two of the original authors - David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace (the third author was now-deceased Irving Wallace). This edition combines a number of old favorites (9 Disparaging Sobriquets), updates others (the 2002 Olympic ice skating scandal is added to "10 Olympic Controversies"), and includes a number of brand new lists (Oliver Stone's 12 Best Political Films). The book is perfect for bedside, as it can be digested in small portions before you slip into arcania-sated slumber. Since the first 1997 edition, numerous other books have aped the Book of Lists, but none has ever approached this series. A real winner.

Back in the 1970s, I bought the Book of Lists and Book of Lists #2. I loved the countless of facts both arcane and informative and I along with my fellow college radio DJ's recited a few on air. I'd long since forgotten the joy and pleasure I derived from reading all of these lists. I was reminded of those long ago memories when I bought a copy of this book. The authors have once again done an excellent job in compiling numerous lists. With main topics like Movies, Music, the Arts, Animals, Sex, Love & Marriage, Work & Money, Crime, Politics, etc. you can spend hours reading through this book. It's the kind of book you can leaf through on a rainy night or on a lazy afternoon. Guilty pleasure it may be, or just fascinating the amount of trivia available, this book is lots of fun.

Having read the entire Book of Lists/People's Almananc series since I was a kid I was eagerly anticipating this newest version. I have to admit to being dissapointed in what is at best a rehash of some of the prior lists.

I would estimate that somewhere between 40-60% of this book is nothing more then repeates from previous books. While the original content is as fascinating as ever all of the warmed over lists really hurt this books experience for me. Having read the books by the folks at Mental Floss and the Bathroom Readers it would seem that the torch is being passed to a new generation.

Wallechinsky, Wallace and Wallace are THE listophiles supreme!

For more years than I care to remember the Book of Lists and it's sequels have been giving us information that's presented with panache' and just the right amount of humor.

Want to know about stupid criminals - It's in there.
Want to know odd facts about historical figures - It's in there!
Want a light, fun read to satisfy your need for trivia - Oh, it's in there!

This particular volume is a mix of many of the lists in the original Book of Lists, plus a few updates.

I cannot say more about this book other than it helped me to seek other sources and aided me in so many ways when I was in college.

I mean, where else can you find the Dog Hero of the Year and 16 Cases of People Killed by God?

The Wallaces/Wallechinsky's also got a number of famous people to write their spin on the "listomania" as well.

This was an eclectic group covering such things as Lucille Ball's favorite sitcomes to Raold Dahl's best books to take to a distant planet.

Do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

Of course, it would be great if they would re-release the original Book of Lists volumes in some kind of tribute package, but you take what you can get.

Highly recommended.

I first read this book in the '80's. This new book of lists is practically the same book. No new information, and much of it is just re-stated, if you have read the original Book of Lists, don't bother with this one.

I'm not sure why they call this The New Book of Lists, because there's very little that's "new" about it. Having read the previous books in this series (which were from the 80s) I was disappointed that most of the lists here were taken from those earlier books.

If you are new to The Book of Lists series and looking for a "greatest hits" collection, then maybe this book would be fine. But if you have all the other books, don't bother. Too bad this book had such a misleading title, or else I wouldn't have bought it.

I have been waiting for this, I had both the old ones from the late 70's and 80's, and loved them, they went with me everywhere, and you can never tire of reading them. My book of "useless facts" is what my husband calls it, I can crack him up, amaze him, and leave him thinking with some of those lists. A book any true reader knows about is the book of lists.

I got this book as a gift for my sister-in-law. She is very quirky and outgoing, but it is hard to figure out what gifts she might like. We haven't given it to her yet as her birthday is in a month, but we flipped through and it seems like a great gift. It is a little more in depth than I thought it would be too - instead of lists like the top ten things to do in an elevator, and jokes like that, it includes actual facts and the reasons they are in the list - such as lucille ball's top 10 favorite tv shows. It spans everything from politics to pop culture and is almost three inches thick! wow!

It has received little, if any, publicity and so I definitely checked it out when I found it at the library - actually, the first I knew of its existence.

Much of it is rehashed and/or updated from the previous editions (which I recently obtained through interlibrary loan for reasons I won't go into here) but it's still a lot of fun to read. Some of the items - like "weird things that fell from the sky" strain the bonds of credulity, but maybe they're true.

I also noticed that the Janis Joplin obsession, evident in other Wallechinsky/Wallace books, is largely gone EXCEPT for the strange couples list, and yes, that was Ms. Joplin and William Bennett. The fact checker must have been asleep at the switch, however, since the book says the date took place at the pinnacle of her career and I thought it took place when they were teenagers. Oh, well.

This was a lovely book, but it doesn't measure up to the 70's version, which was written in very small print and seemed to have twice the information The New Book of Lists does. Entertaining, though, and fun for a short while.