1000 Fun Facts for Immature Adults: Random Trivia and Weird Truths You Should Know Vol. 1 by Bryan Spektor is a book that includes a variety of types of facts, including things about the human body, foods, animals, celebrities, etc, etc.
Despite the tagline saying that I should know these things, I feel like I don’t need to know them at all. The title stating they’re fun facts seems off as well. Some of them are downright miserable, such as facts about body deformities, people being in horrific accidents, people injuring themselves, etc. It’s very depressing at bits like that. How are those meant to be fun? At some points, I feel like the author is trying to make jokes, but it just doesn’t feel funny to me. Like the above point I make, the author seems to be making jokes when referencing things like human and animal death. It feels really awkward and it makes the author seem cruel by making fun of such negative situations.
Do I think they’re true or not? Like sure, I could believe that they’re true, but I feel like many of these facts need a lot more context, and they ought to include a lot more details. For a lot of them, it just feels like they’re just a matter of opinion, rather than actual fact. Especially with the facts about the human condition; they make statements about humans preferring to do certain things. But I can’t relate to such cases, and nor do I know people like that, so it feels like there needs to be a lot more context into whether there were studies done, and where this information is coming from. As an example, it’s like if I were to conduct a study of 12 people and then determine they are all left handed, and then try and claim it fact that, because of this study, all people must be left handed. Likewise, so many facts in this book rely on certain situations, yet the author does not include the majority of information about those situations. This type of information needs to be in the book to be better understood, rather than to try and manipulate the audience by excluding it. While yes, there are some sources in the back of the book, a lot of the information is stuff that should have been provided with the facts; not as an afterthought.
A regular notation they put in is a “Well, actually” portion and then they’ll say something that seems like they’re disputing a different fact. Though, I often have zero idea what they’re talking about; they definitely need to write actual context into some of these things. If there was a fact they’re disputing, they ought to explain what the original fact was and how it’s wrong, rather than randomly act like we know it already.
In some facts, they’re forgetting to include specific details; such as a fact about calorie and consumption on Thanksgiving; it’s certainly not accurate to a LOT of countries outside of the U.S.A. (or other countries that celebrate their own versions of Thanksgiving). But the way the author worded it, it seemed like they were deliberately trying to be misleading. Some facts list costs, such as how much certain things cost, however, they author fails to indicate the majority of details about when or where this financial information was taken from. Things like costs of food, for example, can go higher or lower, depending on the costs of ingredients, or be changeable depending on where it’s sold. Something sold in one country for a certain cost may indeed be higher cost in a different country. So it makes facts like those really need more context. Also, it’s a little bit weird when the author will drop in brand names of things and not explain what the brand or product is. Even a lot of the “pop culture” things, such as celebrities. For a lot of them, I had no clue.
Overall, I didn’t like it. While it does have facts, yes, it doesn’t really seem to encourage actual learning about the facts. It just has a few sentences about each thing and then moves on. If one does want to actually learn, they will then need to research separately because the book fails to include enough details about many of the situations mentioned. It’s one of those books that some people might like. It’s a book where one can “learn” a few facts and regurgitate them, but fails to teach the full story. But, for me, I felt like it was really lacking in necessary information; such as context to the facts. With a variety of facts I was actually interested in, there’s just not enough information to give an adequate understanding of it. I was debating what star rating to give the book. I can see there’s a significant amount of research into it but, as much as I’d like to give it three stars, I chose to give them only two because they chose to leave so much out of the book.