The Uncyclopedia [Hardcover]

Gideon Haigh (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1401301533 | ISBN-13: 978-1401301538 | Publication Date: September 15, 2004

Make way for this defiantly idiosyncratic, hilariously illuminating compendium of curiosities you never knew you wanted to know!

How do you flirt in Turkish? How do you dump someone in Japanese? What are the names of all the animals ever sent into space? These are just some of the fun and insightful oddities that made Gideon Haigh's The Uncyclopedia a hit overseas. The first ever encyclopedia for the curious, The Uncyclopedia is a compendium of illuminating knowledge and a delight for all inquisitive readers. As proved by Schott's Original Miscellany and the enormous rise in popularity of quiz and trivia nights, arcane knowledge and non-essential facts have never been so popular.

At last in one convenient volume, everything for knowledge-hungry readers:

--Lists of Norse gods
--Suicide notes of the famous
--All anyone needs to know about ?
--How to toast in 10 languages
--A list of all the men to walk on the moon
--Twenty Latin mottoes
--Fortune-telling techniques

Neither trivial nor essential, yet always engaging and illuminating, The Uncyclopedia is the reference book referred to purely for the purposes of amusement -- and readers just can't put it down!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Haigh—"one of the world’s leading cricket writers," according to his publisher—is branching out and clearly aiming at the Schott’s Original Miscellany market with this collection of wide-ranging tidbits of information. If you have an insatiable appetite for trivia (or a need for new bathroom reading), you can check out the 30 songs with the word "radio" in the title or the world’s biggest employers. (No surprise, Wal-Mart is #1, but the next biggest isn’t McDonald’s; it’s China National Petroleum.) There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to what is included here: some entries are as strange and uncategorizable as "Said of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" (about whom, no doubt, a great many things were said) and as "Catchphrases from The Goon Show." And if you really needed a list of National Book Award winners, you could find it on the Web. But with this small volume at hand, the next time you need the measurements of a king-size bed, you’ll be well prepared.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"The Uncyclopedia is a random compilation of lists and out-of-the-way information." -- The Age [Australia]

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (September 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401301533
• ISBN-13: 978-1401301538
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,069,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Similar and Yet Different, September 27, 2004

By 

katelizray (Memphis, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Uncyclopedia (Hardcover)

It seems that books of completely unrelated facts are the new trend in reference books. Like Schott's Miscellany, The Uncyclopedia is a compendium of irreverent facts that any trivia hound will love. However, a lot of the facts found in one can be found in the other. While the similarities are many (such as an incredibly long list of the numbers of "pi" and lists of prizes and geographical features), The Uncyclopedia offers readers many unique and intresting facts. A very fun read and very informative.