The Book of Totally Useless Information

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Title           : The Book of Totally Useless Information

Writer       : Don Voorhees

Year           : 1993

Publisher  : MJF Books

Pages         : 189 pages

Have you ever ask why typewriter or keyboard keys are not arranged in alphabetical order? If you want to know the answer, open “The Book of Totally Useless Information”. There you will find the answer. This is the answer based on that useless information book. The first practical typewriter was built in 1867 by Christopher Latham Sholes. These original typewriter models did have their keys in more or less alphabetical order. The one little problem with this arrangement was that the early typists become so proficient that the keys would jam up because they typed too fast. To slow down the typists, the keys were rearranged into a diabotically difficult pattern. Sholes’ first typewriter was designed for use with two fingers. Because of the rearranged key pattern, typists learned to use all ten fingers. Although the key arrangement was difficult, some typists are still capable of typing over 170 words per minute in manual typewriters. In 1936, August Dvorak designed a more efficient keyboard to speed up productivity and reduce typing fatigue and frustation. But the Dvorak’s pattern did not produced because of World War II. Until now the keyboard keys are not rearranged into alphabetical order.

You have known the answer of that question which may never you think to be asked. Many of everything you never wanted to know about everything and did not think to ask are in Don Voorhees’ book. There you will find useless information that you never ask even think before.

The Book of Totally Usaeless Information is the first book of Don Voorhees. Don Voorhees is a composer and conductor. Not only keen on music, but also he keen on reading. He has collected interesting stories and bits of information continually over the years. And finally he wrote some books contained the result of countless hours of his reading and PBS viewing. Other books written by Don are: The Essential Book of Useless Information, The Perfectly Useless Book of Information, Disgusting Things: A Miscellany, and many others.

The title of the book make me wonder and curious. How come a book is tittled “The Book of Totally Useless Information” rather than “The Book of Totally Usefull Information”. It is one of the interesting thing in this book. The tittle of the book make me curious to open and read the content of the book. Is the content truly useless information or not?

The second interesting thing of this useless information book is the content of the book. It contains questions and answers information. The information are not inept information. The content of this book are most of about everything that we never think about them. The content very rarely exist in other books, radios, televisions, magazines, or other media. By read this book, your knowledge will increase. By read this book, you will know something that other people know even think about it.

This book contains various knowledge, starts from culture, science, politics, legends, histories, environments, sports, and many others. Some of the content in this book are delivered in communicative language, but some of them are explained in boring way. Just like as we read explanation in science book. Not all people like and understand this way. But, it must be interesting for whom that keen on science exploration. Not only about science, the weaknesses of this book are seen when the book talk about culture or history of mostly western society. This cannot be understood easily by eastern readers. But, it can be usefull for readers to know more about western countries and societies.

The content of the book are really totally give useless information because we do not search everything we think to ask in this book. This book just delivered everything we did not think to ask. We do not know what will we get from that book until we read it by ourselves.

This book is for all ages. It does not matter for children to read this useless information book, but I think the contain and the language of this book cannot be understood well by children. Have you, your children, your pals, or your neighbor ever think and ask:

·        Why is the sky blue?

·        Who was “Uncle Sam”?

·        Why do we celebrate Halloween?

·        Why are aristrocrats called “blue bloods”?

·        Why do symbols ♂ and ♀ represents male and female?

·        Why is pink for girls and blue for boys?

And, of course

·        What do initials OK stands for?

The answers are in “The Book of Totally Useless Information”