David Wallechinsky

I read "The intimate sex lives of famous people" for the first time many years ago now, when the youth I possessed was particularly calloused and my knowledge of sex somewhat limited.

One can imagine the shock I felt then to read of things like Havelock Ellis being a urination voyeur, James Boswell's weird fixation on trees and coprophilia (I looked this up in a dictionary and got the surprise of my life).

"The intimate sex lives of famous people" consists of short biographies of over one show more hundred famous people from history, ranging from Tsar Alexander II of Russia to Emile Zola, with attention given to whatever fetishes or peculiarities each figure enjoyed (for Alexander it was his collection of erotica, while Zola was a polygamist). The authors attempt to show that without knowledge of the sex lives of the famous, how can we fully understand their public actions. Well, it certainly gave me a more rounded understanding of some famous people.

In decades since "The intimate sex lives of famous people" was first released, sex as a topic for discussion has become more open and so the contents of the book feels less risque, and in fact sound quite conservative compared to the tell-all stories of today's celebs.

My favourite biography would have to be of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had a spanking fetish, was into exposing himself in public (which led to him being attacked by a posse of broomstick carrying women), who fell in lust with inanimate objects (much to the consternation of the owners of such objects) and "Sex became so painful for him that he gave it up entirely for the last twenty-three years of his life, returning to masturbation."

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone curious enough to want to know what famous people got up to in their spare time. show less

This book has a special place in my heart. If I recall, I discovered it in 5th or 6th grade and quickly acquired all of the series that I could. Even then, in the ‘90s, the book was hopelessly out of date and a few of the lists had to be taken with a grain of salt but, as I did not yet have access to the internet, this was one of the finest sources of random trivia and bizarre facts available to me. I loved every page of it (with the exception, I suppose, of the chapter devoted to sports) show more and poured over each list, taking down notes and lists of my own. Divided into sections by topic, Crime, Literature, Nature, Art, etc., there were all sorts of tidbits to blow my eleven year old mind. I remember bringing them everywhere so as to be able to look up amusing facts for friends and classmates at short notice, at one point dropping a copy into a mud puddle at recess and having to painstakingly dry the thick little paperback.

Compiled by a father, sibling team, the lists reflect the time period they were written, but have a witty, casual style and, in addition to lists of facts like the ten countries where the highest percent of men and women live to 85, there are lists consisting of the opinions of famous people such as the ten worst movies of all time (circa 1977). Whether it was the five most hated people in history (1970-1976), the nine dog breeds that bite the least, or fifteen authors who wrote best sellers in prison, I learned a lot (particularly in the section on sex). In the end, I feel that there was definitely an influence there on shaping my interest in organizing knowledge and sparking my eclectic, multidisciplinary interests in learning as much as I could.

Reading it today brought back this feeling of awe at the endless variety of weird stuff in the world throughout time, and I smiled as I remember being amazed or shocked by various facts that I now remember having been confirmed or questioned in my later education. The yellowed, slightly brittle pages still have that nice, slightly sweet tinge of a ‘70s era paperback, redolent of library book sales and middle school classrooms. The Books of Lists are probably entirely redundant now, what with new lists of bizarre, random amusing facts being posted by the hundreds daily on websites such as Cracked and BuzzFeed. How much influence have these books had on the other 20 and 30 somethings who make these online compilings? I wonder. show less

The original still the best when it comes to weird lists. It's almost as if authors Wallechinski and Wallace (x2) realised that this would be the perfect book to usher me into teenagehood. As a very callow youth I read this, and wondered who the hell William Carlos Williams (to name just one person) was, why the hell a protest against an English actor would lead to riots and deaths, and where the hell was Praslin Island?

Once I finished (and read over again and again), I went searching t show more answer the myriad questions I had from reading this book, and thus I can probably link "The Book of Lists" to my prodigious knowledge of useless trivia. show less

I freaking love this book. I "borrowed" it from a church library when I was ten and have got hours of entertainment from it ever since. Ever wondered wanted to know 15 famous events that happened in the bath? Vincent Price's 10 favourite dinner guests from all history? 7 famous men who were full or part time virgins (John Ruskin is a personal favourite)? This is your book. Arch, entertaining and clever, this book assumes the same of it's reader. True, it's dated but that just makes it even show more more awesome. Somewhere in my copy OJ Simpson is the number one American hero. show less