From My Shelves – Trivia

From My Shelves is a series of occasional posts that look at items from my personal collection to which I have a special attachment.


Book of Lists (1977) – This book gets to lead the way because it really kicked a part of my life into high gear.  I have always loved learning.  One of my rainy day activities as a kid was to pull out a random volume of our family encyclopedia (Colliers), flip to a random page and begin reading.

(Quick break – this is the kind of thing I love.  Collier’s encyclopedia was considered one of the three great encyclopedia collections, along with the Americana and Brittanica.  It was sold almost exclusively door to door until the end of its run in 1998.  That makes it one of the last large purchase items sold door to door.  This stuff fascinates me.)

So little bits of unrelated information, what most people would call “trivia”, has been a fascination for me for most of my life.  I have an almost uncontrollable urge to read and learn.  I will read pretty much anything with words on it.  This tends to fill my brain with information that pretty much no one cares about, other than me.  But it really gelled during my freshman year at college when I got a copy of “The Book of Lists”.

Edited by David Wallechinsky, his father Irving Wallace and sister Amy Wallace, the book covered a ridiculous range of information.  And I fell instantly in love.  I would buy each of the succeeding volumes, plus “The People’s Almanac”.


In truth, it was only the beginning.  A quick look at my shelves shows the following:

  • Poplollies and Bellybones – A Celebration of Lost Words by Susan Sperling
  • Word Histories and Mysteries from the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries
  • Mental Floss presents Condensed Knowledge
  • The Pinball Effect by James Burke (which shows how events in history are linked)
  • The Book of Answers – from the New York Public Library Reference Desk
  • An Incomplete Education by Judy Jones and William Wilson
  • What If by Randall Munroe (creator of the web comic “XKCD”)
About half of these books are out of print now, and virtually all of my copies show signs of being read again and again.  In fact, having just seen them all on the shelves, I feel like grabbing one and enjoying it one more time.
The upside is that I have an endless supply of bits and pieces that can fit into almost any conversation.  The downside is that I have an almost endless supply of useless information with which to torment family and friends.  Or is that two upsides?  Years ago The Kid dubbed me the “Fount of Useless Information”.  It also made me a deadly opponent in the early days of “Trivial Pursuit”!
I mean, do YOU know the origin of the term “grog“?

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