Biggest Secrets: More Uncensored Truth About All Sorts of Stuff You Are Never Supposed to Know

Rating:
Summary: Like shelling bar peanuts
Review: Appearing in 1993, ten years after BIG SECRETS and seven after BIGGER SECRETS, William Poundstone's BIGGEST SECRETS is evidence that the author needs to get on with life. Perhaps he too realizes that fact, since "biggest" is the superlative form of the adjective. Poundstone has nowhere to go from here.

Unshelled peanuts aren't the most convenient bar snack, but it's hard to shell and eat only several. Likewise, BIGGEST SECRETS doesn't represent fine literature, but it's difficult to put down. Poundstone has several (favorite) recurring topics in his books: the secret ingredients of famous junk foods, secret initiation rites, magicians' secrets revealed, reverse messages on popular music tracks, and subliminal pictures in movies. The last two seem almost obsessions. But, he also throws in others. For example, in BIGGEST, there are exposed: the formula for Play-Doh, security coding of lottery tickets, the meaning of gang graffiti, how to get that ship in a bottle, and celebs' real ages.

As with BIG, so many varied subjects are covered that the individual reader is certain to find some that intrigue, and some that bore to tears. So, I enjoyed learning about the Mrs. Field's chocolate chip cookie recipe, the method behind the rabbit-out-of-the-hat illusion, fake towns on maps, the ingredients of Spam and head cheese, Christmas gift return codes, the evolution of Kelloggs Frosted Flakes, and the location of Century House in London (MI-6 HQ). On the other hand, I couldn't care less about a stylometry evaluation of the Beale Cipher, a 19th-century treasure map in code, or the real ages of the likes of Joan Collins, the Gabor sisters, Don Rickles, Imogene Coca, Charo and Joan Rivers, or fire-lighting tricks of the Boy Scouts. Indeed, I skipped entirely the sections on hidden messages and pictures in music and films respectively. Thus, as with BIG, BIGGEST is an erratic entertainment vehicle. (I haven't read BIGGER SECRETS, nor do I intend to. Even unshelled peanuts lose their charm.)

Perhaps my favorite revelation was the means for creating a chocolate-covered cherry. Specifically, how do they get the liquid surrounding the fruit? Well, the manufacturer coats the cherry with a paste of sugar and the enzyme invertase, the latter a natural digestive enzyme, then dips it in chocolate. During storage, the invertase breaks down the sugar into a syrup. The author leaves us with a pleasing image:

"It's almost as if the candy makers were thoughtful enough to spit in the candy to give you a head start on digestion."

Rating:
Summary: Same old , same old; but still very good!
Review: Big Secrets, Bigger Secrets, and Biggest Secrets are Crap, Crappier, and Crappiest. Sorry but there was more hedging than anything else and stuff that was just not either interesting or revealing. Too many instances of things like "Famous People who did porn films" and then saying that these people didn't do them. Many unsupported "revelations." May have made ONE tolerable book, but THREE? Based on the reviews I purchased all three at once. I'll know next time to try ONE of a series first.

Rating:
Summary: Same old , same old; but still very good!
Review: If one has read Poundstones other two book books, big secrets and bigger secerets, then it will come as no suprise that it is more of the same or same old, same old . However, this book in question, i.e., Biggest Secrets : More Uncensored Truth About All Sorts of Stuff You Are Never Supposed to Know by William Poundstone is still quite funny. In this volume we are told Charo's real age, Barbara Streisands bluemovie and about Ingmar Bergmans soap commercials. Ok, so you won't solve any ethical or moral dillemas; so what. It is a funny book and I rate it as being highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A fun, informative book.
Review: Where else can you find the real Mrs. Fields' Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and the formula for Play-Doh in the same book?

Poundstone's writing style is entertaining; he reveals the great secrets of popular culture without even a hint of malice. (And the recipe makes a darned fine cookie, too!)

His similar, earlier books, "Big Secrets" and "Bigger Secrets," are also excellent. I only hope he finds another superlative so "Biggest Secrets" won't be the last volume in this series!