The Straight Dope Tells All

by Cecil Adams and Ed Zotti

Book Overview

IF KNOWLEDGE WAS POWER, CECIL ADAMS WOULD RULE THE WORLD It's true For the past twenty-five years, in his books and weekly newspaper column, world-history genius Cecil Adams has been patiently... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345420071
• ISBN13: 9780345420077
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

All killer, some filler

I love The Straight Dope, and I have to say that there are parts of this book that were so entertaining that I found myself thinking, "This is probably my favorite collection of these columns"--certain especially funny questions, particularly acerbic polemics, et cetera. This book addresses who invented the yellow happy face symbol, takes a very skeptical look at the infamous Roswell Incident, explores why the KKK burns crosses, discusses sex in space, whether people's personal magnetism can short out street lights, and if rabbits' teeth can grow to the point that they can no longer use them to eat. So there are a lot of cool parts in here...but there were other parts as well. There's no question that this book is entertaining and engaging, but it's also got a lot more filler in it than any of the previous volumes: lengthy transcriptions of chatroom conversations, not-so-insightful reader responses, and a kind of un-Cecil-Adams-like laziness about answering the questions that I'd never noticed before. For instance: he often just posts a question on an online message board and then tells us what people said. His whole omniscience schtick seems to falter here. And then there's the book's size: it's pretty slight compared to most of the earlier ones, and some of the topics start to feel as if you've already read them in earlier volumes. But whatever. These books are great, better than any other trivia books I can think of, and even as I wrote the above complaints, I was wishing that he'd hurry up and put out Volume 6. It's been almost eight years already since the last book! Also, I'd love to see the short-lived TV show on DVD. I'd buy that for sure.

REALLY funny, REALLY interesting, and REALLY great!!

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!

Essential for the budding Know-it-all.

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.

This again proves that Cecil can entertain and inform.

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.

Opus no. 4 of a genius.

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!