en-US Mon, 04 Nov 2024 03:09:47 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 410632
Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more,The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha� compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.

Think Magellan was the first man to circumnavigate the globe, baseball was invented in America, Henry VIII had six wives, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again. You’ll be surprised at how much you don’t know! Check out THE BOOK OF GENERAL IGNORANCE for more fun entries and complete answers to the following:

How long can a chicken live without its head?
About two years.

What do chameleons do?
They don’t change color to match the background. Never have; never will. Complete myth. Utter fabrication. Total Lie. They change color as a result of different emotional states.

How many legs does a centipede have?
Not a hundred.

How many toes has a two-toed sloth?
It’s either six or eight.

Who was the first American president?
Peyton Randolph.

What were George Washington’s false teeth made from?
Mostly hippopotamus.

What was James Bond’s favorite drink?
Not the vodka martini.]]> 252 John Lloyd 0307394913 Rida 5 3.78 2006
author: John Lloyd
name: Rida
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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A highly enjoyable book that seeks answers to interesting questions from various fields, making it an easy and engaging read. Composed of short, standalone chapters, it offers readers the freedom to explore only the sections that capture their interest. It’s a book worth giving a chance.
]]> 17994 Fermat’s Enigma, Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy.

Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world’s most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent really is.]]> 432 Simon Singh 0385495323 Rida 5 4.29 1999
author: Simon Singh
name: Rida
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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For anyone intrigued by the evolution of cryptography, this book offers an engaging journey. While the final chapters delve into more complex modern encryption techniques, the historical sections are accessible and full of captivating stories. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the timeless struggle between secrecy and discovery!
]]> 42641 562 Leo Tolstoy 0735102864 Rida 5
"Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to disfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded together, by paving the ground with stones, scraping away every vestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds and beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and coal, still spring was spring, even in the town."]]> 4.15 1899
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Rida
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1899
rating: 5
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Resurrection by Tolstoy is worth reading for its opening paragraph alone:

"Though hundreds of thousands had done their very best to disfigure the small piece of land on which they were crowded together, by paving the ground with stones, scraping away every vestige of vegetation, cutting down the trees, turning away birds and beasts, and filling the air with the smoke of naphtha and coal, still spring was spring, even in the town."
]]> 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 Rida 5 3.90 1915
author: Franz Kafka
name: Rida
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1915
rating: 5
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]]> 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky Rida 0 4.26 1866
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Rida
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 0
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]]> 7853137 Think of a Number is an exquisitely plotted novel of suspense that grows relentlessly darker and more frightening as its pace accelerates, forcing its deeply troubled characters to moments of startling self-revelation.

Arriving in the mail over a period of weeks are taunting letters that end with a simple declaration, “Think of any number…picture it…now see how well I know your secrets.”ĚýAmazingly, those who comply find that the letter writer has predicted their random choice exactly.ĚýFor Dave Gurney, just retired as the NYPD’s top homicide investigator and forging a new life with his wife, Madeleine, in upstate New York, the letters are oddities that begin as a diverting puzzle but quickly ignite a massive serial murder investigation.

What police are confronted with is a completely baffling killer, one who is fond of rhymes filled with threats and warnings, whose attention to detail is unprecedented, and who has an uncanny knack for disappearing into thin air.ĚýEven more disturbing, the scale of his ambition seems to widen as events unfold.

Brought in as an investigative consultant, Dave Gurney soon accomplishes deductive breakthroughs that leave local police in awe. Yet, even as he matches wits with his seemingly clairvoyant opponent, Gurney’s tragedy-marred past rises up to haunt him, his marriage approaches a dangerous precipice, and finally, a dark, cold fear builds that he’s met an adversary who can’t be stopped.

In the end, fighting to keep his bearings amid a whirlwind of menace and destruction, Gurney sees the truth of what he’s become � what we all become when guilty memories fester � and how his wife Madeleine’s clear-eyed advice may be the only answer that makes sense.

A work that defies easy labels -- at once a propulsive masterpiece of suspense and an absorbing immersion in the lives of characters so real we seem to hear their heartbeats � Think of a Number is a novel you’ll not soon forget.]]> 432 John Verdon 0307588920 Rida 5 3.91 2010
author: John Verdon
name: Rida
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2010
rating: 5
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]]> 98083 414 Michael Curtis Ford 031293615X Rida 4 4.01 2004
author: Michael Curtis Ford
name: Rida
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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]]> 40129 502 Charles Nicholl 0143036122 Rida 4 4.02 2004
author: Charles Nicholl
name: Rida
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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]]> 29609072 176 Adam Hart-Davis 1435161319 Rida 4 3.82 2015
author: Adam Hart-Davis
name: Rida
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2015
rating: 4
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]]> 16172 Ěý
In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements–a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds wit the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure.]]> 425 Janet Wallach 1400096197 Rida 5 3.78 1996
author: Janet Wallach
name: Rida
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1996
rating: 5
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]]> 43237631
There is so much we can learn from birds. Through twenty-two little lessons of wisdom inspired by how birds live, this charming french book will help you spread your wings and soar.

We often need the help from those smaller than us. Having spent a lifetime watching birds, Philippe and Élise � a French ornithologist and a philosopher � draw out the secret lessons that birds can teach us about how to live, and the wisdom of the natural world. Along the way you’ll discover why the robin is braver than the eagle, what the arctic tern can teach us about the joy of travel, and whether the head or the heart is the best route to love (as shown by the mallard and the penguin). By the end you will feel more in touch with the rhythms of nature and have a fresh perspective on how to live the fullest life you can.]]> 0 Philippe J. Dubois 0753554151 Rida 4 3.72 2018
author: Philippe J. Dubois
name: Rida
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> 555925 Book by 944 Clive Ponting 070116834X Rida 0 currently-reading 4.27 1999
author: Clive Ponting
name: Rida
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> 1842
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: the global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race.

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal]]> 498 Jared Diamond 0739467352 Rida 0 to-read 4.04 1997
author: Jared Diamond
name: Rida
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> 40532046 'The most comprehensive narrative of intelligence compiled ... unrivalled' Max Hastings, Sunday Times

'Captivating, insightful and masterly' Edward Lucas, The Times

The history of espionage is far older than any of today's intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The first mention of espionage in world literature is in the Book of Exodus.'God sent out spies into the land of Canaan'. From there, Christopher Andrew traces the shift in the ancient world from divination to what we would recognize as attempts to gather real intelligence in the conduct of military operations, and considers how far ahead of the West - at that time - China and India were. He charts the development of intelligence and security operations and capacity through, amongst others, Renaissance Venice, Elizabethan England, Revolutionary America, Napoleonic France, right up to sophisticated modern activities of which he is the world's best-informed interpreter. What difference have security and intelligence operations made to course of history? Why have they so often forgotten by later practitioners? This fascinating book provides the answers.]]> 875 Christopher Andrew 0241305225 Rida 0 currently-reading 3.91 2018
author: Christopher Andrew
name: Rida
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/03
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]]>