A quality that any book can have: Years after it’s been published, new people discover, happily, that it exists. Here’s a recent review, in the Twaddle blog, of the book This Is Improbable. The reviewer says, in part: From sky lizards to exploding meat, the research covered in this book is the epitome of eclectic, […]
Il Pollo di Marconi (English translation: “Marconi’s Chicken”) is a new book that collects and savors pranks pulled by scientists (and/or their ilk). Journalist Vito Tartamella did the collecting and savoring. The book, which includes Tartamella’s own celebrated discovery of the stealthily published scientific papers by Stronzo Bestiale (English translation: “Total Asshole”), is in Italian. […]
I amna fou’ sae muckle as tired – deid dune. It’s gey and hard wark coupin’ gless for gless Wi’ Cruivie and Gilsanquhar and the like, And I’m no’ juist as bauld as aince I wes. If you recognize the first stanza from Hugh MacDiarmid’s 1926 poem ‘A Drunk Man Looks At A Thistle’ you may also […]
There’s another new book about the Ig Nobel Prizes. This one’s by Yana Khlyustova, in Russian.
Congratulations to Anna Ikarashi and to Sogo Horei Publishing, for their new book Strange Science—40 Ig Nobel Prize Researches! The country of Japan, in addition to being one of the most prolific, efficient, and gleeful producers of Ig Nobel Prize winners, is also one of the most prolific, efficient, and gleeful producers of books, mangas, […]
Several databases include mention of a book titled “The death of Booth: Affidavit Dec. 1, 1904 in pension claim of Wm. H. Collyer, a blowhard.” Apparently it is brief—just three pages long. We have been unable to find a copy of that book. If you have a copy, we would enjoy seeing an image of […]
“Hard, hard to be a baby—Baby animals like you’ve never seen them” is more or less the English translation of the French title of Brooke Barker’s book Dur, dur d’être un bébé—Les bébés animaux comme vous ne les avez jamais vus. The book is full of facts and drawings about many kinds and sizes of […]
Ig Nobel Prize winner Marcus Byrne has a new book called Dance of the Dung Beetles. It can please and enlighten anyone—human or beetle or both (Beatle)—who ever has contact with with dance, dung, life, or the universe. The 2013 Ig Nobel Prize for biology and astronomy (a rare double-category win!) was awarded to Marie […]
1976 was something of a pivotal year for research aimed at establishing whether men and women tend to carry books in different ways – with no less than 3 key papers appearing in the literature [see references below]. Some seventeen years later however, the subject was re-examined – by Evelyne Thommen, Emiel Reith, and Christiane […]
Stephen Leacock explained, a century ago, about book indexes. His essay begins: “Readers of books, I mean worthwhile readers, like those who read this volume, will understand how many difficulties centre round the making of an Index. Whether to have an Index at all? Whether to make it a great big one or just a […]