What: By now, Ben Schott has also given us subject-specific miscellanies (food & drink, sporting & gaming), as well as annual almanacs.
First, though, was the original, with all the fun lists and trivia you could want, including . . . hat taxes, untimely deaths of musicians, sumo wrestling weight categories, cockney rhyming slang, famous last words, two-dice odds, and Oscar Wilde's paradoxes.
Comparable to: A grown-up version of those Guinness Book of World Records volumes that middle schoolers go nuts for. Also mimics the experience of falling into a Wikipedia wormhole.
Representative quote (from the introduction): "It is, perhaps, possible to live one's life without Schott's Original Miscellany, but it seems a curious and brave thing to attempt."
How to get it: Buy or borrow.
Connections to previous Wreckage: I previously mentioned Schott's Original Miscellany in comparison to John Clarke's The Tournament (Rec. #12).
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