Book-It 'o12! Book #46
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one, two, and three just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: The Onion Book of Known Knowledge: A Definitive Encyclopaedia Of Existing Information by The Onion
Details: Copyright 2012, Little, Brown and Company
Synopsis (By Way of Publisher's Information): "Are you a witless cretin with no reason to live? Would you like to know more about every piece of knowledge ever? Do you have cash? Then congratulations, because just in time for the death of the print industry as we know it comes the final book ever published, and the only one you will ever need: The Onion's compendium of all things known.
Replete with an astonishing assemblage of facts, illustrations, maps, charts, threats, blood and additional fees to edify even the most simple-minded book-buyer, The Onion Book Of Known Knowledge is packed with valuable information-such as the life stages of an Aunt; places to kill one's self in Utica, New York; and the dimensions of a female bucket, or "pail." With more than 1,500 entries spanning all 27 letters of the alphabet, The Onion Book Of Known Knowledge must be purchased immediately to avoid the sting of eternal ignorance. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: My love of the Onion is quite renown.
How I Liked It: The book packs enough "Onionesque" humor (exulting the quotidian, particularly the lowest ranks of it) for fans like me to enjoy it and find it consistently laugh-out-loud funny.
However, the medium doesn't always work. While deciding to parody an encyclopedia is a Herculean comedic task anyway (what belongs the most?), it would seem The Onion's staff is up to the challenge after parodying atlases (Our Dumb World), history (Our Dumb Century), and of course media as a whole (since they reached the internet, the company has taken advantage of video/radio parodies of news).
Seasoned as they are, though, the encyclopedia entries are (by nature) so short and single-pointed that too frequently a joke can bomb. I read the book cover to cover, and I don't know if it was the fact the book is probably not intended to be read that way rather than a genuine complaint, but every few entries or so, you find yourself "reading" the joke rather than experiencing/laughing at it.
Examples:
· It's funny because they're writing the entry on Mark Twain in the style of his novels.
· It's funny because they're writing the entry on Anne Frank as her story being a missed Hollywood opportunity for a blockbuster.
Does it skip at times? Sure. But it's still The Onion you know and love and it's still funny.
Notable: In one of their more endearing bits of quirk, various entries reference each other, as in they specify odd little characters and places ("Max the Cook", "Bent Joe McCarringan") and urge the reader to continue ("See QUEEN OF PIECE CITY CHARITY HOSPITAL") on the quasi-story in a loop. These entries are scattered throughout along with the "regular" ones. A kind of version of Onion characters ala Jean Teasdale and Jim Anchower for the encyclopedia?
Title: The Onion Book of Known Knowledge: A Definitive Encyclopaedia Of Existing Information by The Onion
Details: Copyright 2012, Little, Brown and Company
Synopsis (By Way of Publisher's Information): "Are you a witless cretin with no reason to live? Would you like to know more about every piece of knowledge ever? Do you have cash? Then congratulations, because just in time for the death of the print industry as we know it comes the final book ever published, and the only one you will ever need: The Onion's compendium of all things known.
Replete with an astonishing assemblage of facts, illustrations, maps, charts, threats, blood and additional fees to edify even the most simple-minded book-buyer, The Onion Book Of Known Knowledge is packed with valuable information-such as the life stages of an Aunt; places to kill one's self in Utica, New York; and the dimensions of a female bucket, or "pail." With more than 1,500 entries spanning all 27 letters of the alphabet, The Onion Book Of Known Knowledge must be purchased immediately to avoid the sting of eternal ignorance. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: My love of the Onion is quite renown.
How I Liked It: The book packs enough "Onionesque" humor (exulting the quotidian, particularly the lowest ranks of it) for fans like me to enjoy it and find it consistently laugh-out-loud funny.
However, the medium doesn't always work. While deciding to parody an encyclopedia is a Herculean comedic task anyway (what belongs the most?), it would seem The Onion's staff is up to the challenge after parodying atlases (Our Dumb World), history (Our Dumb Century), and of course media as a whole (since they reached the internet, the company has taken advantage of video/radio parodies of news).
Seasoned as they are, though, the encyclopedia entries are (by nature) so short and single-pointed that too frequently a joke can bomb. I read the book cover to cover, and I don't know if it was the fact the book is probably not intended to be read that way rather than a genuine complaint, but every few entries or so, you find yourself "reading" the joke rather than experiencing/laughing at it.
Examples:
· It's funny because they're writing the entry on Mark Twain in the style of his novels.
· It's funny because they're writing the entry on Anne Frank as her story being a missed Hollywood opportunity for a blockbuster.
Does it skip at times? Sure. But it's still The Onion you know and love and it's still funny.
Notable: In one of their more endearing bits of quirk, various entries reference each other, as in they specify odd little characters and places ("Max the Cook", "Bent Joe McCarringan") and urge the reader to continue ("See QUEEN OF PIECE CITY CHARITY HOSPITAL") on the quasi-story in a loop. These entries are scattered throughout along with the "regular" ones. A kind of version of Onion characters ala Jean Teasdale and Jim Anchower for the encyclopedia?