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Canongate Books - David Wallechinsky

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300 pages

English

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The first and best compendium of facts weirder than fiction, of intriguing information and must-talk-about trivia has spawned many imitators - but none as addictive or successful. For nearly three decades the editors have been researching curious facts, unusual statistics and the incredible stories behind them. Now the most entertaining and informative of these have been brought together in a long-awaited, thoroughly up-to-date new edition.

Informations

Publié par	Canongate Books
Date de parution	06 août 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781847676672
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Book of Lists

David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace
This book is dedicated to the memory of our father, Irving Wallace, who was 1 OF A K IND
Contents

Introduction

1. PEOPLE

2. MOVIES

3. THE ARTS

4. FOOD AND HEALTH

5. ANIMALS

6. WORK AND MONEY

7. SEX, LOVE AND MARRIAGE

8. CRIME

9. WAR, POLITICS AND WORLD AFFAIRS

10. TRAVEL

11. LITERATURE

12. WORDS

13. SPORTS

14. DEATH

15. MISCELLANEOUS

INDEX

Acknowledgements
Introduction
As Oscar Wilde observed, the only sin is to be bored. We believe it is an equal sin to be boring, and if the great wit was correct, then the authors and millions of Book of Lists readers are quite unblemished by sin: for we place a high value on curiosity.
The original 1977 volume of the Book of Lists , and its all-new sequels, inspired nearly 200 imitation volumes. These have included books of lists about movies, rock’n’roll, Judaism, the Bible, general sports, and countless other subjects. The books spawned games, toilet paper with lists on it, CD-Roms, calendars and television shows. We had no idea that The Book of Lists would become a bestseller, let alone a phenomenon. We thought we were just having fun.
The Book of Lists rose to number 1 on the bestseller lists, and was published all over the world. Young readers wrote to tell us they’d bought our book for fun, and were using it to spice up their schoolwork. Older readers locked themselves in bathrooms, curled up in bed, took the book to parties and demanded more editions. We invited their contributions, which came pouring in, and we featured many of them in the editions that followed.
Although we are pleased to have popularised a genre that so many people enjoy, we do not pretend to have been its founders. That honour goes to the Reverend Nathaniel Wanley, author of Wonders of the Little World , a book of lists first published in 1678. We didn’t know about the Reverend Wanley when we wrote our own Book of Lists , but a glance through his table of contents shows striking similarities: ‘Of such People and Nations as have been scourged and afflicted by small and contemptible things’, ‘Of such as having been extremely Wild, and Prodigal, or Debauched in their Youth, have afterwards proved excellent Persons’, ‘Of such as have been seized with an extraordinary joy, at what hath followed there-upon’.
The trend never died down, and in recent years has had a dazzling renaissance. We appear to live in an age in which the volume of information available to us is far too overwhelming for our minds to process. The everyday lists we all make are a balm to a cluttered mind; list-making puts things in order, it clarifies, it helps coax truth from the cracks of the universe, and it invites our favourite question: ‘What if…?’
In the present volume, we have updated our readers’ favourite lists, prepared an array of new material, and included lists from a wide variety of notables and celebrities, such as Ian Rankin, Philip Pullman, Johnny Cash, Brian Eno, Elmore Leonard and Ben Schott, to name only a few.
We owe much of the inspiration for this volume to our father, Irving Wallace, who always hoped we’d continue to compile new editions. Whenever possible, we have concentrated on lists that cause readers to laugh out loud, gasp, shake their heads in wonder, or call out ‘Wait until you hear this!’ To quote Mark Twain’s introduction to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn : ‘Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.’
Chapter 1

AGES OF 25 PEOPLE HAD THEY LIVED TO 2005
10 MEN WHO CRIED IN PUBLIC
IF 27 FAMOUS MEN WERE KNOWN BY THEIR MOTHERS’ MAIDEN NAMES
9 PEOPLE WITH EXTRA LIMBS AND DIGITS
10 FAMOUS NOSES
10 MEETINGS BETWEEN FAMOUS PEOPLE AND PEOPLE NOT YET FAMOUS
17 FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO WERE EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL
9 TATTOOED CELEBRITIES
10 PEOPLE WITH THE MOST SQUARE MILES OF THE EARTH’S SURFACE NAMED AFTER THEM
8 UNNAMED WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
6 PEOPLE WHOSE NAMES WERE CHANGED BY ACCIDENT
8 ALMOST INDESTRUCTIBLE PEOPLE
13 MOTHERS OF INFAMOUS MEN

People

© The Peoples’ Almanac Photographic Archives
FRANCESCO LENTINI, THE THREE-LEGGED MAN – WITH ONE OF HIS FIVE CHILDREN

Ages of 25 People Had They Lived to 2005 1. Dylan Thomas, (1914–53), poet 91 2. John F. Kennedy (1917–63), president 88 3. Rocky Marciano (1923–69), boxer 82 4. Malcolm X (1925–65), civil rights activist 80 5. Marilyn Monroe (1926–62), actress 79 6. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara (1928–67), revolutionary leader 77 7. Anne Frank (1929–45), diarist 76 8. Martin Luther King, Jr (1929–68), clergyman and civil rights leader 76 9. James Dean (1931–55), actor 74 10. Sylvia Plath (1932–63), poet 72 11. Elvis Presley (1935–77), singer 70 12. John Lennon (1940–80), musician 65 13. Bruce Lee (1940–73), martial artist and actor 65 14. Otis Redding (1941–67), musician 64 15. Ritchie Valens (1941–59), singer 64 16. Jimi Hendrix (1942–70), musician 63 17. Janis Joplin (1943–70), singer 62 18. Jim Morrison (1943–71), musician 62 19. Bob Marley (1945–81), singer 60 20. Marc Bolan (1947–77), musician 58 21. John Belushi (1949–82), comedian 56 22. Douglas Adams (1952–2001), science fiction writer 53 23. Princess Diana (1961–97), royalty 44 24. Kurt Cobain (1967–94), musician 38 25. River Phoenix (1970–93), actor 35
10 Men Who Cried In Public JESUS CHRIST, RELIGIOUS LEADER After Lazarus died, Jesus led his disciples to visit Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha. When the friends of Lazarus agreed to show Jesus the cave where Lazarus’s body was laid, Jesus wept. BILL CLINTON, AMERICAN PRESIDENT On the morning of his inauguration, President Clinton and his family attended services at Washington’s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal church. As the choir sang hymns, tears rolled down Clinton’s cheeks. Clinton teared up frequently as his years in office continued. Once, when caught on camera laughing and joking at a funeral, Clinton suddenly realised he was being filmed. Having learned ‘the Nixon lesson’, he instantly grew serious and tears came to his eyes. Right-wing TV host Rush Limbaugh played the tape in slow motion repeatedly, sending his studio audience into fits of mirth. Tom Lutz, the author of Crying: The Natural & Cultural History of Tears , observed that crying for male politicians was ‘a 1990s version of kissing babies’. DAVID, WARRIOR KING When David and his troops returned to the city of Ziklag, after being sent home by the princes of the Philistines, they discovered that the Amalekites had invaded the city and taken captive all of the women and children, including David’s two wives. David and his followers immediately ‘lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep’. PAUL GASCOIGNE, ENGLISH FOOTBALLER Paul Gascoigne arrived at the Italia 90 World Cup as an up-and-coming young footballer with a gift for the unexpected on the field and a reputation for being, in his manager’s words, ‘as daft as a brush’ off it. He left it a national folk hero. And all because millions of English football fans, glued to their TV sets back home, saw him weep. In the semi-final England were playing old rivals Germany – then still just West Germany. Gazza, whose performances in earlier rounds had helped his team to overcome a poor start to the competition, was again playing like a man inspired. Then tragedy struck. Gascoigne was booked for a reckless tackle. Even if England made it to the final, he would not play in the match. As the realisation hit home, Gazza’s face crumpled and the tears began to flow. England went on to lose the match on penalties but Gazza had been taken to the nation’s hearts and all the sorry antics of his later career have been unable quite to destroy that earlier image of him as a little boy lost on the world football stage. JOHN LEE HOOKER, AMERICAN BLUES MUSICIAN Hooker, the revered American blues musician, told an interviewer in 1998, ‘You can’t get no deeper than me and my guitar. I open my mouth, and it’s there. I get so deep the teardrops come to my eyes. That’s why I wear my dark glasses, so you won’t see the teardrops.’ MICHAEL JORDAN, AMERICAN BASKETBALL PLAYER Michael Jordan cried openly when, while playing with the Chicago Bulls, he won his first NBA title in 1991 and this drew no comment from the press. hen, when he won his fourth title in 1996, he wept once more, falling onto the floor in a foetal position and sobbing when the game ended. This time TV announcers explained that Jordan’s father had been murdered a year and a half before; the game was played on Father’s Day, and Jordan had made an incredible comeback after retiring for two years. RICHARD NIXON, AMERICAN PRESIDENT During a 1977 television interview, Nixon told David Frost, ‘I never cry – except in public.’ Nixon’s most famous public weep occurred in 1952 after he made his notorious ‘Checkers speech’ and Dwight Eisenhower decided to allow him to remain on the Republican ticket as the vice-presidential candidate. Watching this performance, Nixon’s college drama coach, Albert Upton, who had taught the future politician how to cry, remarked, ‘Here goes my actor.’ ELVIS PRESLEY, AMERICAN SINGER Presley cried so frequently in public that his nicknames included ‘The Cry Guy’, ‘The Prince of Wails’, ‘The Golden Tearjerker’, ‘The Cheerful Tearful’, ‘Squirt-Gun Eyes’ and ‘America’s Number One Public Weeper’. NIKOLAI RYZHKOV, RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER Ryzhkov was Prime Minister during Mikhail Gorbachev’s reign. He received his nickname, ‘The Weeping Bolshevik’, for crying in front of the press when visiting Armenia after the brutal earthquake of 1988. Opposition critics treated him as an object of ridicule, a pathetic clown. Running for Parliament in 1995, he countered accusations that tears proved him too weak to hold a position of power, im