My wife has this bit. Some random article of trivia will pop up and she'll say 'That's a useless piece of I wouldn't mind if you removed it permanently." Recently, I worked at a used book store for trade credit. (It's there where I found this book.) Out of that sweet revenge that only a loving husband can provide his dear bride, I got The Book of Useless Information just for her!
But first, I wanted to read it.
Amazingly, this was an addictive read. From interesting facts about species of animals to oddball facts about our founding fathers, I literally could not book this collection of trivia down. That's not to say that I didn't have my issues with it.
First of all, this book is 13 years old. I am quite certain that some of the facts were outdated. Those in particular involve stats about movies, TV and social media. Was there social media in 2006? Maybe I'm thinking computer consumption. But I am sure that AOL is no longer the most used search engine and/or email in the world.
Another thing I had problems with was the 'uselessness' of the data. Some stuff didn't seem that unnecessary to me. Maybe that's because I was a history major. To me all history is relevant. Even dumb stuff about those Kardashians. You never know when somebody is going to hold a gun to your head and only your knowledge of 12th century monarchs is going to save your life. I guess useless info is in the eye of the beholder. With as least 3 other books of useless info out there, I am sure that I'll be a quick judge of those sort of details sometime in the future.
(Plus, while this book has tons of info, I wish that they'd provide more detail. Most of the trivia are single lines of fact. But there were a bunch of instances where I wished to know the how or why behind the what!)
Lastly, on 2 different occasions, the same bit of trivia was reprinted. Poor data collection? Bad proof-reading? Slip-ups on the part of the editor? I don't know why someone felt that I needed to know those bits of info twice in the same book. But somebody goofed.
Even though this wasn't the perfect fact book, I really did enjoy it. I particularly loved the last factoid on the very bottom of page 38. It was so random- so non-sequitur- and so un-PC; I laughed and laughed. Plus, I could not resist sharing the hilarity of it with my wife. Just what was so darn funny? You'll have to read it for yourself to find out.
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.
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