THE BOOK OF GENERAL IGNORANCE

'''The Book of General Ignorance''' is a series of books based on the final round in the intellectual British panel game ''QI'', written by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson. It is a trivia book, consisting of corrections to pieces of trivia that most people believe to be true, known as, "General ignorance". The book corrects these and in some cases gives reasons to why people believe in the ignorant answer.
The first book was published by Faber and Faber in Britain on 5 October, 2006, and was released in the USA on 7 August, 2007. A second book in the series, ''The Book of Animal Ignorance'', is to be released on 4 October, 2007 in the UK.^[1] In Britain, the book was a number one best-seller on amazon.co.uk.^[2]

Contents

Examples

Davies's Forewords

Comments and Criticism

References

External links

Examples

The following are all examples of general ignorance.

★ 'Henry VIII of England had six wives.' In fact, he only had two or four, depending on the source. His marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled by Henry because it was never consummated and Cleves was already betrothed to Francis I, Duke of Lorraine. The Pope declared his marriage with Anne Boleyn to be void as he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, and Henry annulled his marriage to Boleyn before he had her executed for adultery. This is somewhat illogical, because if the marriage did not exist, Anne could not have betrayed it. His marriage to Catherine Howard is annulled by Henry on the same grounds. Henry declared his marriage to Catherine of Aragon void because it was illegal to marry the widow of one's brother (Catherine had previously been married to Henry's older brother Arthur).^[3]

★ 'There were two sheep on Noah's ark.' According to the King James Bible, Genesis 7:2, God tells Noah, "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of the beasts that are not clean, by two, the male and his female." Sheep are clean beasts, therefore there would have been either seven or fourteen sheep on the ark.^[3]

★ 'Most tigers live in India.' Most are actually kept as private pets in the United States. There are estimated to be 12,000 kept as pets, 4,000 in Texas alone.^[3]

Davies's Forewords

Both books contain forewords by Stephen Fry, but they also contain a parody of forewords by Alan Davies. In ''The Book of General Ignorance'', Davies writes, "Four Words", which were, "Will this do, Stephen?"^[6] In the forthcoming ''Book of Animal Ignorance'' he is to write a "Fourpaw".^[7]

Comments and Criticism

The response to the book has been mainly positive. One critic, Jennifer Kay, said, "''The Book of General Ignorance'' won't make you feel dumb. It's really a call to be more curious."^[8] However, there were some negative critics. For example, Marcus Berkmann commented:

"A book of the show has become all but necessary, if only to allow us to ingest this information at normal brain speed, and because such fine and creative research genuinely deserves to be captured in print. So it's slightly disappointing that the book arrives in the question-and-answer format made so familiar by last year's big hit ''Does Anything Eat Wasps?'' There are actually about 20 such books out this year, all asking these quirky questions (Do Sheep Shrink In The Rain? Do Fish Drink Water?), all piled up in ''Waterstones'', making book-buyers feel a bit depressed."^[9]

The book often only points out technicalities for its claims; for example, Everest is not the tallest mountain. This is true if one measures from base to peak: then Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest. However, most often, when people speak of Everest as the tallest mountain, they are referring to it being the highest point above sea level. The book does not make these distinctions.

References

1. How interesting: 'QI' is surprise Christmas hit Louise Jury
2. QI News: QI is Amazon's Global Bestseller Worldwide
3. QI: The Book of General Ignorance, , John, Lloyd, Faber and Faber, ,
4. QI: The Book of General Ignorance, , John, Lloyd, Faber and Faber, ,
5. QI: The Book of General Ignorance, , John, Lloyd, Faber and Faber, ,
6. QI: The Book of General Ignorance: Four Words, , Alan, Davies, Faber and Faber, ,
7. Wilde Thing John Lloyd
8. Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong Jennifer Kay
9. QI News: Critic's view

External links

★ qi.com - ''The Forum of General Ignorance''

★ qi.com - ''The Book of General Ignorance''

★ Creators John Lloyd and John Mitchinson discussing ''The Book of General Ignorance''