Odd Index: Amazon.ca: Stephen Spignesi: Books

Product Description

Guaranteed to alarm and entertain, this madcap collection of weird lists contains thousands of the most peculiar, outrageous, mind-boggling, infuriating, enlightening, and just plain useless tidbits of trivia ever assembled. Subjects range from weird laws concerning women's feet to sexual phobias, from notable criminals' last meals to celebrity sightings of UFOs.

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Guaranteed to alarm and entertain, this madcap collection of weird lists contains thousands of the most peculiar, outrageous, mind-boggling, infuriating, enlightening, and just plain useless tidbits of trivia ever assembled. Subjects range from weird laws concerning women's feet to sexual phobias, from notable criminals' last meals to celebrity sightings of UFOs.

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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.7 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)

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Most helpful customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars A totally waste of useless facts, April 24 2003

By

Tomas MF - See all my reviews

This review is from: Odd Index (Paperback)

I bought this book waiting to find really interesting and unusual facts.

Hard was my disappointment when one of the author's odd things was to point out almost a hundred different ways to name the sexual intercourse, for instance.

The book is plagued with ridiculous things that if desired would be found on the Internet but which not merit to write a book.

In my opinion do not spend a dime on this book. Instead, if you want to read more about curious and exotic things, I would reccommend Cecil Adams' Straight dope or the best one in these fields: Isaac Asimov.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Some fun, but too much about sex, Sep 20 2002

By

R. Kelly Wagner "bunrab@bunrab.net" (MD, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Odd Index (Paperback)

At first I was really enjoying this book, but the longer I glanced at it, the less additional fun I got out of it.

Far too many lists have to do with sex, some of them quite repetitive. Booo-ring! We just don't need a list of a couple hundred euphemisms for having sex, which didn't even include some of my favorites, and some of which haven't been used in a couple hundred years. I did like the preliminary commentary to this particular list, though, pointing out that many of the euphemisms are far more explicit than the bare-bones phrase they were meant to replace.

Trivia about religion and death is interesting. I enjoyed reading about the steps in a medical-legal autopsy; if you are a murder-mystery reader, you'll like that too. Other lists I enjoyed: 20 alleged cases of backwards phrases in recordings, along with an explanation of how such phrases might occur. Reasons to believe that Paul was dead. (If you don't understand that phrase, you're the wrong generation anyway.) Movie anachronisms. Longest movies ever made.

The lists about sex will probably appeal more to some people than they did to me, so my reaction shouldn't discourage you from buying this. It's a great sort of book to keep in the bathroom so that you can read a couple of pages at a time and then put it down.

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5.0 out of 5 stars an odd book, Mar 17 2002

By

Ted "Ted" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Odd Index (Paperback)

This is an excellent book that has been around for a while.

It is similar in many ways to the "Book of Lists" by Irving Wallace and his son, David Wallechinksy.

This book covers lists of unusual things, such as Unusual foods from around the world, A description of the most contreversial pictures in Madonna's book "sex", Acts of Violence in Bret Easton Ellis' book "American Psycho" (Now a movie). There is a listing of the foods that contain the most colesterol, a list of body parts that people pierce, (including fingernails), Methods of execution and torture throughout the ages, and some other lists which some may consider a bit vulgar.

This book is suggested for mature readers only. But it is good.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Just be warned...
I bought this book as a gift for my cousin (who loves books of useless knowledge) and also read it myself. Read more

Published on Dec 14 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Weird and Amazing
This is a great book We are told about the 88 times the word "Klingon" is used in the first 6 Star Trek films And several lists too pruient to be posted on the review