The Book of Origins
Discover the Amazing Origins of the Clothes We Wear, the Food We Eat, the People We Know, the Languages We Speak, and the Things We Use
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Everything—from the mundane (the pencil) to the catastrophic (the atom bomb)—has an origin, but often it’s not what we expect. A few things you may not have known:
• Gandhi was married at age thirteen!
• Chinese fortune cookies are an American invention and were not eaten in China until the 1990s when they were advertised as “Genuine American Fortune Cookies.”
• Bayer lost the trademark for aspirin (which they had held since 1897) as part of the reparations Germany was forced to pay after World War I.
• The original idea for the electric chair came from an American dentist.
For aspiring mindblowers and wanna-be know-it-alls, The Book of Origins is a treasure trove of trivia and fascinating facts guaranteed to entertain and enlighten.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Trivia fans eager for a new resource will welcome Homer's compendium of firsts and originals. The book offers plenty of useful information in short bursts, providing, for instance, a three-page thumbnail history of the theater, and a rundown of the early telegraphing highlights: "The first electromagnetic telegraph," the invention of Morse code, "the first undersea telegraph cable," etc. Trivia junky Homer admits in his epilogue that "much has been left by the wayside," but in fact more could have been pruned; the chapter on "Famous People" is simply too broad, resulting in a laundry list of names accompanied by a line or two of relevant info. With 19 categories of factual tidbits in just over 300 pages, readers might find themselves getting lost amongst all the crimes, inventions, "massive steps" and "questionable origins"; fortunately, an index provides help for the trivially turned-around.
