Customer Reviews

The Straight Dope Tells All

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

 

 

I was as excited as the next Straight Dope fan when this book came in the mail, but was quickly disappointed. Much of the book is taken up by reprintings of newsgroup witticisms or reader comments, and Cecil's answers seem to lack that familiar "zing". Still an interesting resource, and slightly entertaining, but there's too much other junk to sort through to get to it.

I've always enjoyed Cecil and have, over the years, purchased his first four books. And it's true--each volume is a bit less fascinating than the previous. It really seems that the most familiar, universal, and entertaining imponderables were addressed in the earlier volumes. Odd, but seemingly true. Still, keep going Cecil!

Cecil Adams' work rarely fails to satisfy, but this fourth compilation by him contains too much email garbage from AOL users. it's obvious these are online junkies who have far too much time on their hands. so in short: Cecil is great but the junkmail sucks.

After reading the whole series of "straight Dope" books, I was disappointed in this book. For starters, it's less than half as long as the others. Also, it contains a lot of repostings from his AOL message board from fans. If I wanted to read postings by the fans, I'd browse them online for free on the newsgroups. It's still a good book with lots of great information told in an entertaining fashion but it doesn't live up to his prior 3 compilations. It's still a "must read" for Cecil Adams fans but if you have to choose between this book or one of the others, go for one of the others.

While entertaining, this collection of Straight Dope columns lacks the ZING of some past columns. The topics are not nearly as interesting, and the answers lack the humor that Cecil is known for. Also, far too short. Let's beef these books back up and reinstill the wit. Perhaps answer some questions that have not appeared in your column already - fresh material!

Well, you'd think that by now the world would run out of funny questions, but TSDTA proves you wrong. It's a million laughs, especially the part at the end of almost every chapter ("From the Straight Dope Message Board"). This book is hilarious, and I learned a lot! Way to go, Straight Dope! Keep on destroying world ignorance!

TSDTA is absolutely hysterical. Cecil answers
questions concerning the origin of the smiley
face and Area 51. He even disagrees with an
entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to
which an editor of the EB replies claiming
that Cecil is indeed correct and the EB wrong!

I love The Straight Dope, and I have to say that there are parts of this book that were so entertaining that I found myself thinking, "This is probably my favorite collection of these columns"--certain especially funny questions, particularly acerbic polemics, et cetera.
This book addresses who invented the yellow happy face symbol, takes a very skeptical look at the infamous Roswell Incident, explores why the KKK burns crosses, discusses sex in space, whether people's personal magnetism can short out street lights, and if rabbits' teeth can grow to the point that they can no longer use them to eat.
So there are a lot of cool parts in here...but there were other parts as well.
There's no question that this book is entertaining and engaging, but it's also got a lot more filler in it than any of the previous volumes: lengthy transcriptions of chatroom conversations, not-so-insightful reader responses, and a kind of un-Cecil-Adams-like laziness about answering the questions that I'd never noticed before. For instance: he often just posts a question on an online message board and then tells us what people said. His whole omniscience schtick seems to falter here.
And then there's the book's size: it's pretty slight compared to most of the earlier ones, and some of the topics start to feel as if you've already read them in earlier volumes.
But whatever. These books are great, better than any other trivia books I can think of, and even as I wrote the above complaints, I was wishing that he'd hurry up and put out Volume 6. It's been almost eight years already since the last book!
Also, I'd love to see the short-lived TV show on DVD. I'd buy that for sure.

Once again Cecil Adams thrusts his pin into the balloon of human ignorance. Dealing with readers' questions, from the bizarre to the merely intriguing, Cecil defends himself against libel suits and his readers from the horror of not knowing. And a pompous know-it-all is better taken when his wit is as sharp as Unca Cecil's.

After 25 years, I was getting worried that Cecil was running out of good questions -- the ones you'd really like to know the answers to. This book proves I worry too much. Not only is this book the type to keep you up laughing until 4am, but you'll learn a lot in the process. In a world full of mindless entertainment, Cecil teaches you the joy of learning.