The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything: All the Facts You Didn't Know You Wanted to Know

The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything: All the Facts You Didn't Know You Wanted to Know

by Jonn Elledge
The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything: All the Facts You Didn't Know You Wanted to Know

The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything: All the Facts You Didn't Know You Wanted to Know

by Jonn Elledge

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Overview

The Compendium of (Not Quite) Everything is a treasure trove of random knowledge. Covering everything from the furthest known galaxies to the murky origins of oyster ice cream, inside you will find a discussion of how one might determine the most average-sized country in the world; details of humanity's most ridiculous wars; and, at last, the answer to who would win in a fight between Harry Potter and Spider-Man.

Bizarre, brilliant and filled with the unexpected, The Compendium covers the breadth and depth of human experience, weaving its way through words and numbers, science and the arts, the spiritual and the secular. It's a feast of facts for a hungry mind.

Includes entries on the cosmos, the human planet, questions of measurement, history/politics, the natural world, leisure and many 'oddities' that don't fit elsewhere...


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781472276483
Publisher: Headline Book Publishing, Limited
Publication date: 09/16/2021
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Jonn Elledge is a New Statesman columnist and a contributor to the Big Issue, the Guardian, the Evening Standard and a number of other newspapers. He was previously an assistant editor at the New Statesman, where he created and ran its urbanism-focused CityMetric site, spending six happy years writing about cities, maps and borders and hosting the Skylines podcast. He has written three books, as well as over a hundred editions of the Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Some serious trivia 1

I The Cosmos, and Everything in It

Some creation myths 6

The Big Bang and evolution: Probably not a creation myth 10

Some perspective on time 13

Some perspective on space 15

Overcoming the speed limit of the universe 17

Regarding galaxies 21

Some noteworthy galaxies 23

Near neighbours: Every star and substellar object within 10 light years of Earth 25

A profusion of sun-gods 27

Even nearer neighbours: The planets 29

Not every big round rock orbiting the Sun is a planet The not-quite-seven dwarfs 32

A brief tour of the dwarf planets 34

A selection of space-faring animals 37

II The Human Planet, and the Lines We Draw On It

A history of the world, told through its largest cities 40

How many countries are there in the world? 42

The largest countries by area … 46

… and the smallest 48

The largest countries by population … 50

… and the smallest 51

The oldest and youngest countries in the world 52

The largest islands on the planet 55

The world's most populous landmasses: Or, why 'just a small island' is a self-serving lie 58

Some curious and interesting US county names 59

Some frankly not very curious and interesting US county names 62

III Questions of Measurement

Some notes on large numbers, part 1: Everything changes 66

A good way of measuring the world 71

Another, worse way of measuring the world 75

A quick note on how we measure space 78

A brief interlude on prefixes 80

Some notes on large numbers, part 2: The great beyond 82

What year is it, again? A selection of calendars 84

IV Histories and Politics

Some particularly memorable dates 92

Some notes on independence day around the world 94

A complete list of countries never colonised by European powers 100

The nastiest atrocities in human history 101

Some stupid wars 105

Some not especially stupid wars which are nonetheless cursed with stupid names 110

The Fourth Horseman cometh: The worst pandemics in human history 115

The deadliest events of all 119

Some important things invented by women 120

Some important things invented by the Chinese 122

Some things probably not invented by the Chinese, but for which they often get the credit 125

Some African civilisations 126

The Seven Wonders of the World, and why you (mostly) can't see them any more 130

Reach for the skies: A history of the world, told through its tallest buildings 134

A brief history of gay marriage 140

V The Natural World

Some earthly extremities 144

The world's longest rivers 148

Counting crows and other animals: Some global species populations 151

A note on conservation status 154

Some penguins 155

Some real chimeras 160

The earth moves: How can you measure the size of an earthquake? 165

Which were the biggest earthquakes on record? 167

The deadliest earthquakes in history 169

When the wind blows: Some notes on the Beaufort scale 173

VI Matters of Communication

The problem with languages 178

Which languages have the most native speakers? 180

Which are the most popular second languages? 181

Which languages have the world's most speakers overall? 183

Some mutually intelligible languages 184

Unfamiliar countries: Some names you may not recognise 186

Some genuine tourism slogans 188

Some notes on flight 191

Some notes on airports 194

VII Leisure: On Culture, Food and Sport

Some extremely famous people you've probably never heard of 200

The world's biggest film franchises 203

The biggest movies of all time 206

Okay, but what about inflation? 208

A possible list of holders of the title 'highest-grossing film of all time' 210

Some films that probably sold more tickets than any Avengers movie 211

Some stolen paintings 213

The biggest-selling music artists of all time, probably 217

Some unusually long-running TV programmes 220

A compendium of pen names 224

Some authors banned by the Nazis 227

Some delicious delicacies 228

Some hybrid fruit and veg 230

Some noteworthy ice-cream flavours 232

Some sports that were invented by mixing one game with another, very different game 236

Some observations on the FIFA World Cup 237

A brief history of the modern world, told through some extremely popular toys 242

VIII Oddities: The Things That Don't Fit Elsewhere

A recent history of the world, told via the OED 'Word of the Year' 246

Flagpole diplomacy: On a largely unnoticed arms race 247

Some different colours of noise 250

So you think you're paranoid? 11 odd superstitions from around the world 253

Santa and friends: Who brings Christmas presents around the world? 255

The Swedish town where every Christmas brings goat arson 258

A few offcuts: Some fragments of other lists 261

IX The End

A selection of things that may kill us all 266

Some things that will happen because of man-made climate change 270

Some ideas of an afterlife 274

Last words down the ages 280

A note on sources 285

Acknowledgements 291

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