Saturday, November 12, 2005
 
Book Report: The Book of Lists #3 by Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Irving Wallace (1982)
Apparently, this book is only available in hardcover on Amazon for $55, but I bought my copy at the Carondolet YMCA bok fair for $1. So if I wanted to resell it, I could list it on Amazon for an exhorbitant amount, pay whatever monthly fees Amazon offers, and not sell it.

I read the first Book of Lists in high school, and I've always enjoyed the mixture of trivia and somewhat wry commentary; however, some decade after I read the Book of Lists 2 and The People's Almanac, I've noticed more acutely the leftward lean of the authors. I mean, I know they did The People's Almanac and its red cover in paperback should have been a tip-off, but I was a boy then and I'm a libertive now, so I'm probably more aware of it. Published in 1982, it's chock full of Reagan-is-evilism, and one must recognize that the book was written when Reagan had been in office under two years and had spent part of that time recovering from a gunshot wound. The book includes lists for the first things the environmentalists would ban if they could, for crying out loud. Blech.

Still, it's a good enough read as it contains enough trivia to help me keep ahead of the regular Trivial Pursuit adversaries and it allows for synthetic thought (Alcatraz closed in 1963? That's only 13 years before The Enforcer, which means the memory of Alcatraz would have been fresher to contemporary movie viewers than grunge is to current pop culture....).


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:12 PM
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To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."