By Doogie Horner Everything Explained Through Flowcharts: All of Life's Mysteries Unraveled, Including Tips for World

by Doogie Horner

Everything Explained Through Flowcharts is packed with meticulously designed charts that trace the labyrinthine connections that order the universe, illuminate life's great mysteries, and cause eye strain in senior citizens. Swiss scientists at the prestigious University of Helsinki have said that Everything Explained Through Flowcharts is the closest thing there is to a working unified field theory, and have gone on to claim that they aren't Swiss, aren't scientists, and aren't sure whether or not Helsinki is in Switzerland. And yet the Swiss consulate has not denied that this book contains more than two hundred illustrations, forty mammoth charts, and innumerable supporting graphs and essays, including:

An illustrated matrix of WWF Finishing Moves Heavy metal band names taxonomy The noble art of zeppelin warfare demystified How to win any argument Tragedy to comedy conversion chart for comedians A creepy drawing of a baby skeleton How to tell if you're an evil twin

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Design, Science, Comedy, Art

Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Doogie Horner is the author of This Might Hurt a Bit, Some Very Interesting Cats Perhaps You Weren’t Aware of, Everything Explained Through Flowcharts, A Die Hard Christmas, and other books. His comedy album A Delicate Man was an AV Club staff pick. He won over a hostile NYC audience on America’s Got Talent and is a frequent guest on Doug Loves Movies.

(source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his typically dry, understated way, David Giltinan described this book as "pants-crappingly awesome" - but I knew what he meant, and immediately ordered a copy. It does not disappoint.

Friends, we're always* saying we LOLed. LOL is an acronym that is supposed to mean "laugh out loud". In fact, Table 1 give you a detailed breakdown of what LOL really means, using the scale employed by professional Internet humorologists:
_________________________________________

LEAST FUNNY
1 (42%) Knowing smirk 
2 (30%) Genuine smile 
3 (16%) Inadvertent snort 
4 (8%) Single stifled guffaw
5 (3%) Peal of head-turning laughter 
6 (1%) Helpless, prolonged, tears-in-eyes giggling
MOST FUNNY

Table 1. What LOL really means when it's used on Goodreads.
_________________________________________

I lost count of how many times I got to stages 4 and 5, and reached 6 at least twice - embarrassingly, both of them were on the chart Things To Say During Sex. But maybe that's just me, and other people will be more amused by Freudian interpretations of the American Dream, a brief lesson in Dolphin (eee-UUUeee-UUU-click! means "Although I am from the above-world, I still love your daughter") and a knock-out tournament in which all past and present US Presidents battle it out to the death. There's also a ludicrously exact table categorising superheroes and their superpowers, a flowchart explaining how the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife works and several other things that David G mentioned in his review.

Unless you're a Viking warrior with a spear through your body or suffer from some other medical condition where laughing is counter-indicated, I strongly recommend buying this book. It's funny.

* Except for notgettingenough, who hates the word. Not, I am specifically excluding you from this claim, so there is no need to post a denial.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like, omigod dudes and dudettes!!! This book is pants-crappingly awesome* .

Over the past few days the smart folks on GR have been engaged in an ongoing discussion of Richard Powers, in particular the reputed-to-be-remarkable Galatea 2.2. "Ah", I think to myself, "I missed the whole Bolano bandwagon, but here's a chance to make up some ground - I'll order Galatea 2.2 and then I can maybe slip a few pseudo-profundities into the discussion so I can appear smart by association". (This being goodreads, contributing to the discussion when you haven't read the book is a very risky strategy - these are the smart kids after all).
So I log in to Amazon, submit my order, and through the miracle of FedEx, my very own copy of Galatea 2.2 is right there, just waiting for me to crack it open.

It was a good plan, and would have worked just fine, had I not included "Everything Explained Through Flowcharts" on the same order. It was a bit like unpacking the new Soloflex machine you'd ordered, only to find that someone had thoughtfully included a crack pipe with a week's supply in the package. What's it going to be? Edifying Galatea 2.2 or a hit of delicious literary crack?

I'm ashamed to confess, that was eight hours ago. There has been ample opportunity to set the crack pipe** aside in the interim. But why would you? Because, I mean, it makes no sense to read the Powers book until I've absorbed all of the wisdom that Doogie Horner has packed into this work. A work of sheer fucking genius, I might add.

Ultimately, my contribution to the ongoing Galatea 2.2 discussion can only be more insightful, more incisive, once I've fully absorbed the insanely comprehensive taxonomy of heavy metal band names, the stunningly complete exegesis of movie heroes and villains, doomsday scenarios, superpowers, designer paint names, casual and fast-food dining. How did I manage to survive this long without having access to the "equivalent health effects of deadly fast food" chart (sample entries: Carl's Jr. Double Six-Dollar Burger = nail hammered into your pancreas; Bloomin' Onion = bullet)?

If you need further convincing, you can find a sample from the book at this link .

Or you could just take my word for it. THIS BOOK IS SHEER GENIUS FROM START TO FINISH.

*: I realize that this particular phrase has been trademarked by a certain GR reviewer in Indiana, and possibly by Spike TV, but it's really the only possible descriptor here.
**: For younger readers, or those unskilled in discerning sarcasm - please note that "crack" is being used as a metaphor throughout this review. There is no actual crack pipe - i have never smoked crack, and neither should you. In the immortal words of Whitney, 'crack is wack'.

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my God, he is SO right. Here I was the other day reading:

"Hardly anybody watches beauty pageants any more, but everybody watches beauty pageant scandal coverage"

They DO? I thought? When have I ever done that?

But just now, dear reader, I found myself clicking on this:

Police investigate third beauty pageant brawl
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/20...

Shit. How did he know I'd -?

----------

I've been eating breakfast and giggling at this.

I'm not a flowchart sort of girl, so I find myself gravitating to the text more than the charts as I dip into it.

Doomsday Scenarios:

Nobody wants to spend their afterlife telling other spirits 'How did I die? Well, the earth's temperature climbed half a degree every year for twenty years, which doesn't seem like much, but that increase significantly increased the amount of algae in the oceans, which upset the foodchain and blabbity-blab blab boring scientific stuff.' The biggest reason to fight global warming is so we can obliterate ourselves in a flashier way, like by creating a minature black hole or zombie plague.

Dethroned or Disgraced Beauty Queens:

This is a bar chart in the book:

Figure 1: Why aren't We Watching Beauty Pageants?

A Not enough nudity 13%
B Jealous 25%
C Don't Like Beauty 2%
D Too busy working three jobs and raising five children alone since our husband left...because we weren't pretty enough 8%
E Shark Week 20%
F Don't like the 'Interview' part 30%
G Busy writing our doctoral thesis on women's studies 10%

Maybe one of those stars is for effort. A book like this can't make you snort your weeties every time you read it, but.

Okay, then, Zeppelin Warfare:

Zeppelins are massive, majestic flying machines, but they are also notoriously fragile: Strong winds cause considerable difficulties for zeppelins, landing is dangerous even in perfect weather and requires a large ground crew, and of course early zeppelins were filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas. Some zeppelins were known to burst into flames if a passenger ordered their Bloody Mary with extra tabasco, or said a word that sounded similar to 'fire.' During a routine flight to Switzerland, a young zeppelin intentionally smashed itself against a mountain peak because it was going through a difficult breakup.

I wish I could show the flowchart for Zeppelin Warfare, it's hilarious. There is a lot of schnapps drinking.

[Stephen M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pre-reading needs and the solutions:

1.Trust in the future of image and graphic/word
(mostly)internet driven
media saturating the blogosfere .......................... This book
2.Hope for humanity .......................... The fact that this book was published
3.Antidepressants .......................... Flowchart about cross-species alien coitus
4.A page to cover in saliva from laughing with
my mouth open ........................... Page 36: Figure 1: Improvised Bongs
5.A break from the dense prose
of Infinite Jest ......................... The easily accessible essays every other page!

6.Bowel relief before I started reading .......................... A new pair of jeans

Okay, but seriously (well-not that seriously), this book is hysterical. Let me just say, it supplied the lol’s oh, did it ever. One of the made-up metal band names had me crying and screaming into my pillow at two in the morning. The complete bracket breakdown of presidential wrestling matches was so delightfully quirky and full of historical references, it made this nerd happy! Awesome stuff fur realz.

The author is quite the champion, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwXqBJ...

[Junta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad book, some people will probably love it, but the majority of the 29 chapters I would probably have to assess as 'ok' or 'not especially funny'. I would prefer spending a few hours going through xkcd or Wait But Why, but there were several chapters I did like:

The Afterlife (useful lessons on different religions and what happens after death, in a flowchart)

Heroes and Villains (kill stats, and radar graphs on: Intelligence, Acting, Charisma, Strength, Fighting Skill and Humour for 24 Action Movie Heroes, Cunning, Evil, Strength, Durability and Speed for 24 Horror Movie Villains)

Things to Say During Sex (Of course. The first chapter I flicked over to), including (from the flowchart):
Good->Noises->Oooh->Oh, oh, oh, oh->Oh->Oh->Oh->Oh
Good->Rhetorical Questions->Do you like that?->Do you?->You little minx.
Good->Religious->Sweet Jesus!

[Tessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parts of this book are hilarious, but most of it is forgettable.

[Harlan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is clearly in the category of books that were more fun to write than they are to read. A few of the charts would make amusing infographic posters, but nothing's gained by putting a bunch of unpolished charts in book form.

[Thomas Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sophomoric.

An /amusing/ decision tree, NOT in the book: goodreads.com/review/show/2593812526

[Erikka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some absolutely hilarious parts, some I skipped for lack of interest, some I skimmed. Overall, worth looking over for a few good laughs.

[Adam Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

From comprehensive lists to help you in the afterlife to choosing a name for your metal band to who is the deadliest action star, this book has got you covered. Anything you could possibly need in one handy portable book. Now in helpful chart form.

When they say everything, they mean Everything. The only thing missing is the lemonade they promised. The charts are super detailed and interlinking. You could spend days following the flowing paths and still get lost. This book was incredibly funny, even if several of the charts don't make a lick of sense unless you are from America (I am looking at you, list of fast food franchises). Some of the essays did drag a bit and the absence of the lemonade chart was disappointing, but overall it was a blast to read.

A good coffee table book.

***Reading Challenge 2016: A non-fiction book***

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book consists of intricate flowcharts covering a range of topics, such as a comparative analysis of different religions’ paths to the afterlife (Buddhism has never been clearer); designer paint names (just what color is “Impressionist”? “Antique moss”? “Happy pebble”?), with a two-page spread covering different shades of white paint.

My favorite item in this gem of a collection is “How to Win and Argument,” including instructive drawings showing “expressions to use over an argument, best employed while your opponent is talking.” I passed this book around the office (in Dublin), and my copy now has tea and Guinness stains on it, but it took us through the economic meltdown.

[Chickens McShitterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays are a clever mixture of hilarious observations and insightful musings, and the flow charts are quirky and nerdtastic. Many laugh-out-loud moments are contained within- a recommended read for a crowded or claustrophobic environment (public transportation terminals, coach airplane cabins, pubs, or staff meetings).

[Justin Fraxi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I try not to re-read too often because it becomes a bad habit with me, but it was time. Just like the first time I read this book, I lost it at "Ra's dope sky boat" and was pretty much crying by the time I got to "Comic Book Sound Effects". One of the best books ever.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

The concept is novel and interesting...flowcharts of information.
I found most of the flowcharts odd and uninteresting; even on topics I like, enjoy, and know quite a bit about.
It wasn't a total waste of time; but I can't recommend it.

[Mary Slowik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seriously entertaining. Periodically nostalgic. Riddled with typo's.

[Michael Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very funny in the beginning, then it gets a bit tired. Overall, a harmless little book that's safe to pass.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with any flowcharts, this collection of flowcharts are part factual, part opinion, and part a reflection of the author's personal experiences and research/knowledge. As a book one might want to sit down and read from cover to cover, this book is miserable. Too much information, too much close reading, too many details. But as a casual book one picks up to flip through for entertainment, or enlightenment, or inspiration, it's great I think. I imagined selecting a few as examples to share with students, as the information relates to various things we study together. These flowcharts would also be great as examples of flowcharts and how they encourage particular kinds of thinking, like categorizing, if/then decision trees, etc.

[H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered what kind of paint to use or what category comic book sounds fall into? Then this book is for you!

The author of Everything Explained Through Flowcharts has taken everyday subjects, such as "How to Win an Argument" or the "Afterlife," and breaks them down into a flowchart. You know longer have to wonder how to avoid going to Gre'Thor; this book has you covered!

[Suzann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mildly interesting content, very little of which is actually in flowchart form.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the most amazing book ever.
but in the top 20, it is fun to read thru once or twice and let other people read but it has limited entertainment value.
the redeeming factor is that is a great coffee table book to start a conversation, and get some laughs out of drunk people.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun! Makes me want to flow chart my whole life!

[Ian]

I. Must. Get. This. Book.

[Don't Look · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious! Good times for everyone! Oh, by the way, through these flowcharts, I found out that I am going to heaven even though I am my own evil twin.

[Jack Burnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fucking hilarious.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humorous tongue-in-cheek information. I love flow charts!

[Julio Genao]

because manny made me lol with his review.

[Jennifer]

Perfect for bathroom reading. And, of course, for word lists for poetry teaching.

[Rachel]

I know this guy!

[Bert Janssens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny stuff. Brilliant how he looks at things.....