All Facts Considered: 276 Esoteric Facts from NPR’s Librarian
by Maria Popova
We all know the Sahara is the world’s largest desert. Well, turns out we all know wrong — Antarctica is. You’ll find this and 276 more esoteric, surprising, utterly fascinating facts about history, language, science, religion and the arts in All Facts Considered: The Essential Library of Inessential Knowledge — a new book by Kee Malesky, NPR’s lovable and totally librarianly librarian.
From the precise duration of a “New York minute” to the last building Elvis left to
The book, despite its delightful dorky promo — or perhaps even more so because of it — is a knowledge geek’s bonanza, not to mention a powerful street-cred booster for your next dinner party conversation.
All Facts Considered is Wikipedia on interestingness steroids, a compendium of what you always wanted to know — and wanted others to know you know.
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