Rating:  Summary: This again proves that Cecil can entertain and inform. Review: After 25 years, I was getting worried that Cecil was running out of good questions -- the ones you'd really like to know the answers to. This book proves I worry too much. Not only is this book the type to keep you up laughing until 4am, but you'll learn a lot in the process. In a world full of mindless entertainment, Cecil teaches you the joy of learning.
Rating:  Summary: Good Book but Not His Best Review: After reading the whole series of "straight Dope" books, I was disappointed in this book. For starters, it's less than half as long as the others. Also, it contains a lot of repostings from his AOL message board from fans. If I wanted to read postings by the fans, I'd browse them online for free on the newsgroups. It's still a good book with lots of great information told in an entertaining fashion but it doesn't live up to his prior 3 compilations. It's still a "must read" for Cecil Adams fans but if you have to choose between this book or one of the others, go for one of the others.
Rating:  Summary: Good Book but Not His Best Review: After reading the whole series of "straight Dope" books, I was disappointed in this book. For starters, it's less than half as long as the others. Also, it contains a lot of repostings from his AOL message board from fans. If I wanted to read postings by the fans, I'd browse them online for free on the newsgroups. It's still a good book with lots of great information told in an entertaining fashion but it doesn't live up to his prior 3 compilations. It's still a "must read" for Cecil Adams fans but if you have to choose between this book or one of the others, go for one of the others.
Rating:  Summary: more Cecil, less fanmail please Review: Cecil Adams' work rarely fails to satisfy, but this fourth compilation by him contains too much email garbage from AOL users. it's obvious these are online junkies who have far too much time on their hands. so in short: Cecil is great but the junkmail sucks.
Rating:  Summary: Cecil sells out? Review: I was as excited as the next Straight Dope fan when this book came in the mail, but was quickly disappointed. Much of the book is taken up by reprintings of newsgroup witticisms or reader comments, and Cecil's answers seem to lack that familiar "zing". Still an interesting resource, and slightly entertaining, but there's too much other junk to sort through to get to it.
Rating:  Summary: Maybe there's a limit.... Review: I've always enjoyed Cecil and have, over the years, purchased his first four books. And it's true--each volume is a bit less fascinating than the previous. It really seems that the most familiar, universal, and entertaining imponderables were addressed in the earlier volumes. Odd, but seemingly true. Still, keep going Cecil!
Rating:  Summary: Essential for the budding Know-it-all. Review: Once again Cecil Adams thrusts his pin into the balloon of human ignorance. Dealing with readers' questions, from the bizarre to the merely intriguing, Cecil defends himself against libel suits and his readers from the horror of not knowing. And a pompous know-it-all is better taken when his wit is as sharp as Unca Cecil's.
Rating:  Summary: Fascinating Q&A with new elements from AOL and the web Review: This fourth compilation of the Straight Dope weekly columns contains some fascinating and interesting questions and their answers, including the occasional debate between Cecil Adams and the Teeming Millions about an answer's correctness.It also includes some funny and occasionally odd elements lifted from what was at the time the Straight Dope's online area on AOL: Message board postings with more Q&A and debates about the questions. Happily, this one didn't include any of the quizzes in other volumes, which weren't all that interesting and detracted from those books.
Rating:  Summary: more Cecil, less fanmail please Review: TSDTA is absolutely hysterical. Cecil answers questions concerning the origin of the smiley face and Area 51. He even disagrees with an entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to which an editor of the EB replies claiming that Cecil is indeed correct and the EB wrong!
Rating:  Summary: REALLY funny, REALLY interesting, and REALLY great!! Review: Well, you'd think that by now the world would run out of funny questions, but TSDTA proves you wrong. It's a million laughs, especially the part at the end of almost every chapter ("From the Straight Dope Message Board"). This book is hilarious, and I learned a lot! Way to go, Straight Dope! Keep on destroying world ignorance!
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