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What our customer's say!

"cool", lots of good info, if you like fun facts this is a good book for you. I gave it as a gift and the person loved it.

"NOT just facts and trivia. This should be *the* textbook for college freshmen.", This book is marketed as a book of facts, and the other user reviews support this. I, however, see this as much more than a compendium of facts. This book is the ideal summary of everything one ought to know. While Google and Wikipedia would offer info-grabbers the answers faster, this 'textbook' provides a concise summary to just about everything, and can be read section by section, just like a textbook. It is quite literally a condensed 101 course to every subject you would find in a university's undergraduate catalog. It is a beacon of light in an era where 'training' has replaced education. If I were the founder of a college, I would make this book the required textbook for freshmen students. It is an introduction to everything everyone should know.

"The NY Times Guide to Essential Knowledge", Absolutely one of the most entertaining books in the house. Filled with mind boggeling information.

"A very nice resource to have on hand.....with some provisos", While many will say this book is good for trivia (and I am sure it is), I believe its main purpose is to find apposite information in a timely manner for the owner. Google is a very nice place to get information. But to walk to the computer, log on, perform a search, and sift through the results is a several step process taking time. Whereas, if one is looking for the Nobel Prize winner from three decades ago, or where the Olympics were held in the 1950's, all one needs to do is open this book up, and they will find the information very quickly. Much quicker than the internet, blasphemous as that may be in this internet-is-all era.

It should be noted that this does have its shortcomings however. In the medical section, "common" diseases are listed in alphabetical order, and believe it or not epilepsy is not listed, but Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever is! Under the heading for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, it even says that approximately 1,000 cases are reported in the United States each year. If that is indeed the case, how did that make it onto their list of common diseases, when epilepsy is in fact one of the most common diseases affecting millions of people? They make no mention of their methodology for including, or not including, particular diseases, but oversights on areas such as this make me question the value of publications such as this. But even with that omission, this is a nice reference book to have on hand.

The internet clearly has its place as the place to go for exhaustive information on nearly any subject, but it should be noted that the tactile experience of books will never be replaced by silicon. To paraphrase mark Twain's famous expression: The reports of the demise of books have been greatly exaggerated.



"For Trivia Fanatics", Next time you have an argument over facts, don't open your laptop, reach out for this huge book. I recommend it to everyone who's crazy about trivia. I also recommed another book, Eightstorm to anyone fanatic about innovation.

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Easy to make this mistake, but ...", The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge looks formidably well informed, something that should be read from cover to cover.

But thumbing through it, I came to "Religions". After 9/11, we all need to be better informed about what Islam really means, right?

On page 506, I came to this statement about the Koran, the holy book of Islam:

"Chapters are arranged by length, from shortest to longest, and cover a wide range of topics."

Actually, no. English translations of the Koran are not hard to find, and reference to a reputable translation will reveal that the chapters (or suras) are indeed arranged by length, but from LONGEST (at the start of the Koran) to the SHORTEST (at the end of the Koran).

If The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge makes such a simple but fundamental error on this topic, do I need to read further on this topic (or any other topic)?

"For the curiously minded", This book graces my night table despite its large size and heaviness. I flip through it whenever I am in between non-fiction novels or when I see or hear something that I am not very clear about.

It is a fantastic book that is easy to read and understand. Wonderfully organized in medium-sized chapters that give an overview of the topic at hand and then go into either historical facts or discusses different viewpoints and tangential themes. Concisely written it gives you all the essential knowledge that you may need, as well as references to additional reading in case you want to dig deeper into a particular subject. The subject matters range from math to law to music, the arts, history, sports, government and so much more. You may find any of its content online, but you won't find it as fast and you won't have as much fun reading it. If you like facts, want to win an argument or are preparing for Jeopardy, this book is one for you.

"Great organization", For those who said this book doesn't have anything you couldn't find in your local library. Well, duh. This book doesn't have anything you couldn't find in the library, or faster yet, online. The entire point is the organization, having everything at hand in a concise manner. You'd have to do some searching and clicking to get all the information about one subject that this book stuffs into a few pages, and you wouldn't get them in concise, logical order without repetition. Obviously, this book doesn't go ultra in depth or cover every subject area. Even whole encyclopedia sets can't do that. The best part of the book, in my opinion, is it tells you what you need to know. If you want to be fairly knowledgeable in any given subject really quickly, its useful to not have to read a lot of books/internet sources and then figure out what part of the information you can/should retain.

"Informative and readable", The Internet has pushed collections like this towards irrelevance, but this book's clear organization and attractive design make it a welcome resource. The text is organized into about 30 main topics (e.g. 'History') and each main topic is composed of several subtopics ('World History', 'Major Wars in History' and 'History of the Unites States'). These main topics and subtopics appear at the top of every page and provide high accessibility. The book also contains a biographical dictionary and almanac-like lists and tables. Makes a great gift (my sister gave it to me).

""The" Desktop reference for a curious mind!", The amount of information packed into this book is amazing. More importantly, the ease with which one can dig out facts on any subject makes you really believe this book has everything about everything.