Rating: 
Summary: Do You Like Unusual Presentations?
Review: "Schott's Original Miscellany is, indeed, an entertaining collection of fabulous trivia. It's just packed with interesting little tidbits about almost everything you can think of. Ben Schott was bold enough to deviate from the normal presentation of books and step forward to do something unique and controversial. He is the only author I have ever seen who was brave enough to stick his neck out to do something different (with the possible exception of Norman Thomas Remick and his book "West Point.."), and I think, and hope, his nonconformity will pay off for him. There will be those who will call "Schott's Original Miscellany" bizarre. I call it great.
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Summary: Dangerously compelling
Review: "Schott's Originally Miscellany" is packed full of pointless trivia - why would one ever need to know the names of different icebergs in the normal course of events, or how Burmese kings died? This is, of course, what makes this so compelling to read. The danger - and it is a big danger - is that you bore friends and family to distraction with remarks preceded by "did you know..." as you dip into this volume. The threat to conversation and family sanity notwithstanding, this is a "must-have" book.
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Summary: Erudite and fun too? Heavens!
Review: Books like this are usually perused via random access, but here you want to turn every page and discover the next list or set of facts that the author has deemed interesting. You will learn something, be amused [Schott rightly quotes Bierce and Johnson at length], or simply marvel at the coy ingenuity [in an entry called "Word Pairings," the words "loquacious" and "taciturn" are joined by "Penn & Teller"]. Superb; it deserves a place on every bookshelf.
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Summary: A fantastic book - but not for nerds....
Review: First things first - this is not a book for nerds. It is not a book for all those dull, fact-minded bores who go on and on about statistics, facts, and figures - and then go on and on about themselves.
If you are one of those people - go buy a dull, boring, encyclopedia. . . this book is (probably) not for you.
Luckily, it is a book for the rest of us! The author has very kindly, and with his tongue firmly in his cheeck, trawled the reference books and has presented for us all the best bits. So, not every patron saint, dull dull dull, but all the most amusing ones (St Anthony, the patron saint of gravediggers), not every capital city (who cares) but some of the more unusual ones , and so on.This is a fun, funny and delightful book which has added joy to my daily routine.... but if you have a dull fact-bore in your life, be sure to hide it from him.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been better with less filler and fluff
Review: I didn't realize this book was so small until I received it. Each page measures 7.25" by 4.5". Then I noticed that there are only 142 pages. If the publisher had made the book normal size, it would barely have 100 pages. You could easily read this book in one sitting. There are other trivia books that cost a little more but contain much more information. Some of the content in this book is interesting, but some of it can easily be found in traditional sources such as an almanac (e.g., Beaufort scale, wedding anniversaries, poker hands, etc.). If you take all that out of the book, it would be even smaller. Furthermore, some of the lists are not complete. For example, a partial list of Academy Award winners for Best Picture, a partial list of patron saints, a partial list of plays that have won Tony Awards, a partial list of Kentucky Derby winners, etc. Why bother including incomplete lists? And did we really need a diagram showing directions on a compass (DUH). I really don't understand the hoopla over this book. I guess some people are easily titillated or have just now discovered trivia. As someone who has collected many trivia books over the past 30 years, I can only give this book 3 stars out of 5 (and that's being generous). Check out the following trivia books which are similar to this book but have more content without filler and fluff: "Five Rings, Six Crises, Seven Dwarfs, and 38 Ways to Win an Argument," John Boswell and Dan Starer, 1997 "What Are the Seven Wonders of the World," Peter D'Epiro and Mary Desmond Pinkowish, 1998
"The Book of Numbered Lists," Gwen Foss, 1998
"The Odd Index," Stephen J. Spignesi, 1994
"Laws of Order," Jeff Rovin, 1992
"The Order of Things," Barbara Ann Kipfer, 1998
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Summary: A wonderful, beautiful book.
Review: I had heard about Schott's Original Miscellany from friends in England - where the book has been a best-seller for ages, and is already become something of a British institution. I've just bought a copy of the American version - and I can see exactly why it is so popular. The book has everything. It can't have everything, I hear you say... Well, it does... All of the cloud types (with lovely little pictures); a wonderful list of phobias; the 33 degrees of Freemasonry; abbreviations used in personal ads; palmistry lines; the rules of fighting a duel; Greek, Roman, Norse, Hindu, Japanese and Egyptian Gods; every type of conversion you can conceive; famous Canadians; clothing-care symbols (even the ones you never understand); Morse code; cattle branding; untimely deaths of popstars; specifications of the US Flag.... the list goes on, and on, and on... And, if this was not enough, the book is absolutely beautiful to look at. It looks like the kind of book my grandpa used to have - old-world style, elegance, and design - but with content bang up to date. The typography (a hobby of mine) is perfect and makes the book a joy to read even if your not particularly interested in an entry. (I've just spotted a double-page about the American Presidents which has everything - everything - you might want to know... including whether they had beards, were left-handed, owned slaves, their star-sign, how much they got paid... it's that kind of book). I can't recommend this book too highly. Come Christmas, I think we can expect to see this book in many a stocking.
Rating: 
Summary: not recommended
Review: I love miscellany and trivia. The original Book of Lists ranks among my favorite possessions. I received Schott's book with high hopes. Unfortunately, I have to add my name to the critics. The book does not make good reading material because most of it is World Almanac-type facts, not interesting curiousities. But it cannot qualify as a reference, since it is neither ordered nor complete.
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Summary: random purchase works wonders
Review: I made a New Year's resolution this year: to become more social, and meet more women. The first thing I did, which makes more sense, is purchase Make Every Girl Want You by steve reil, which started me on the right track. But something random that I did was purchase this book, by ben schott. I hosted a wine-tasting social at my place (per the instructions of the first book). But the hit of the social wasn't the wine itself... it was schott's book! I had it sitting on my coffee table (had just picked it up randomly), and a group of women picked it up and started reading through it. It led to two hours worth of conversation! I can't remember a better ice-breaker at a party ever! When everyone first arrived, it was very quiet, because most people there didn't know each other. It's the first time I've ever hosted anything like that, and I invited some people from work, other people from my soccer team, and other friends I knew from around town. Everyone spent the first half-hour of the wine-tasting just sitting around making small talk. But once those 2 girls picked up schott's book, everyone in the room turned and listened to them read it aloud. It sparked great conversations all over the room, and the rest of the evening was a blast! Yes, I'm sure the wine had something to do with loosening people up too, but ultimately, this little ...purchase worked wonders. How well did it work? I had another wine-tasting the following week and twice the number of people showed up... Guess everyone had fun!
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Summary: A waste of time and money
Review: I was disappointed with this book. It's a small book in terms of number of pages and physical length and width. The typeface is so small that you have to read it 6 inches from your face. Also, the author merely copied material out of almanacs, encyclopedias, and other sources. There are some interesting tidbits of information, but overall it's just a hodgepodge of facts that the author cobbled together with no rhyme or reason. Some of them were obviously added for no reason other than to fill the remaining blank space at the bottom of a page. This book was apparently modeled after the series of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader books which are far better in scope and content. I'm sorry I wasted my money on this book.
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Summary: Grab Bag of Facts
Review: If you are looking for a reference book in which you can quickly look up the population of Brazil or find a complete list of Pulitzer Prize winners, then "Schott's Original Miscellany" is not the volume you seek. On the other hand, if you're looking for a book you can pick up, open to a random page, and unearth some fascinating tidbits of trivia, then you're in the right place. Imbued with humor, sprinkled with quotations, and arranged in completely arbitrary order, this quaint compendium of facts makes for edifying, absorbing, and essential (according to Ben Schott) reading. Although the author has taken great pains to ensure the correctness of the facts, he admits that some of the trivia he presents has been disputed; he provides a list of variations and disputations. There is a self-referential page with statistical information about the book itself. There is also an index, although the reader will not be referring to it often, if at all. Originally published in England, this edition has been updated with American trivia, but it still contains such British facts as cricket fielding positions, British poets laureate, and the order of succession to the English throne. Move over bathroom readers... this book is far more entertaining. I recommend you buy a copy and keep it handy at all times. You never know when you'll need to find some "Q" words with no "u" or a list of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands!
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