The Book of General Ignorance

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Image:QI-Book.jpg
QI: The Book of General Ignorance (UK cover)

The Book of General Ignorance is a series of books based on the final round in the intellectual British panel game QI, written by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson. They are trivia books, consisting of corrections to pieces of trivia that most people believe to be true, known as, "General ignorance". The books correct these and in some cases give reasons to why people believe in the ignorant answer.

The first book was published by Faber and Faber in Britain on 5 October, 2006, and was released in the USA on 7 August, 2007. A second book in the series, The Book of Animal Ignorance, was released on 4 October, 2007 in the UK.[1] In Britain, the book was a number one best-seller on amazon.co.uk.[2] In the United States, the book appeared in the New York Times Best Seller list.[3]

Contents

[edit] Background

"General Ignorance" first appeared as the final round in the panel game QI, created by Lloyd and featuring Mitchinson as one of the researchers. "General Ignorance" designed to be a parody of general knowledge quizzes. When it first appeared in the unbroadcast pilot, it contained some misleading questions which appeared to have obvious answers that are actually wrong. For example, black boxes are orange. The pilot also included some questions which had penalties if the answer given was a predictable joke. In the pilot, one of the questions was, "What is sixth most popular name for a baby boy in Germany?" to which the correct answer is "Tim". However, QI's regular panellist Alan Davies answered "Adolph", at which point host Stephen Fry produced a piece of card reading "Adolph" and the panellist had 10 points deducted.[4] When the pilot was shown to the controller of BBC Two, this was the main feature that caught her attention, and so the penalties became a regular feature, that now feature throughout the programme, but mainly in the "General Ignorance" round.[5]

Whereas most of the episodes are themed on a certain topic, "General Ignorance" contains questions on a range of different, misunderstood subjects. However, sometimes the round differs, mainly on the Christmas specials. At one time, Fry and Davies swapped places and Fry answered questions written by Davies (and possibly by QI's researchers).[6] Another time, all the questions were themed on saints.[7]

[edit] Structure

The Book of General Ignorance contains a list of 230 questions, most of which appear in QI. Each question explains the correct answer and how people often make the wrong assumptions, believing certain urban myths. The Book of Animal Ignorance differs by containing a list of 100 animals in alphabetical order, providing information about them. Each book contains two forewords. One is by Fry, the other is by Davies. In The Book of General Ignorance, Davies had a parody foreword called, "Four words", a four word sentence that read, "Will this do, Stephen?"[8] However, in The Book of Animal Ignorance, Davies wrote a "Forepaw", which was a normal foreword.[9]

[edit] Comments and Criticism

The response to the book has been mainly positive. One critic, Jennifer Kay, said, "The Book of General Ignorance won't make you feel dumb. It's really a call to be more curious."[10] However, there were some negative critics. For example, Marcus Berkmann commented:

"A book of the show has become all but necessary, if only to allow us to ingest this information at normal brain speed, and because such fine and creative research genuinely deserves to be captured in print. So it's slightly disappointing that the book arrives in the question-and-answer format made so familiar by last year's big hit Does Anything Eat Wasps? There are actually about 20 such books out this year, all asking these quirky questions (Do Sheep Shrink In The Rain? Do Fish Drink Water?), all piled up in Waterstones, making book-buyers feel a bit depressed."[11]

The book often only points out technicalities for its claims; for example, Everest is not the tallest mountain. This is true if one measures from base to peak: then Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest. However, most often, when people speak of Everest as the tallest mountain, they are referring to it being the highest point above sea level. The book does not make these distinctions. Please note, however, that this 'error', not cited in the book, is in fact claimed in the pilot episode of QI. Fry says, "Mount Everest is NOT the tallest mountain in the world, depending on how you calculate it."

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jury, Louise. "How interesting: 'QI' is surprise Christmas hit", The Independent, 2006-12-04. Retrieved on 2007-08-04. (English) 
  2. ^ Wray, Richard (2007-02-03). QI News: QI is Amazon's Global Bestseller Worldwide. The Guardian. Retrieved on 2007-07-29.
  3. ^ Hardcover Advice (English). The New York Times (2007-12-16). Retrieved on 2007-12-16.
  4. ^ "Pilot". QI.
  5. ^ QI Series 1 DVD Factoids
  6. ^ "Series B Christmas Special". QI. 2004-12-26. No. 12, season B.
  7. ^ "Series D Christmas Special". QI. 2006-12-15. No. 13, season D.
  8. ^ Davies, Alan; Lloyd, John and Mitchinson, John (2006-10-05). QI: The Book of General Ignorance. Faber and Faber, xv. ISBN 0571233686. 
  9. ^ Davies, Alan; Lloyd, John and Mitchinson, John (2007-10-04). QI: The Book of Animal Ignorance. Faber and Faber, xi. ISBN 9780571233700. 
  10. ^ Kay, Jennifer. "Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong", San Francisco Chronicle, 2007-07-30. Retrieved on 2007-08-01. (English) 
  11. ^ Berkmann, Marcus (2006-12-08). QI News: Critic's view. Retrieved on 2007-07-20.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
QI
Quite Interesting People
Stephen Fry · Alan Davies
John Lloyd · John Mitchinson · Justin Pollard · Ian Lorimer
Quite Interesting Series
A · B · C · D · E
Other Quite Interesting Things
The Book of General Ignorance · QI News
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