David Feldman (1) (1950–)

I'm getting fairly annoyed with these Imponderables books... It seems like each one I read is a bit worse then the last. It came to mind while reading this one that there is one VERY huge flaw in this serious: NOT. SOLVING. ANYTHING.

What do I mean? I mean the questions that are so painstakingly "researched" and "selected" and "answered"... many of them aren't *really* answered in the book at all. Waaaaay too many of the questions in this book have answers that are basically "well, we can't show more track down the *real* answer, but here are a few of our best guesses". WTF is up with that? If you can't answer the question, why say you can, and why publish it? show less

I will not write another long review about everything that is wrong with these Imponderables books. I will only say that this one actually has a few impressive tidbits (like explaining the process that makes restaurant ice have those little holes in the middle, that one was interesting!). However, once again, 1/3rd of the book is Frustrables-updates that still don't give many real answers, and more then a few of the questions in the other 2/3rds of the book don't give real answers either. show more (For example, the question "Why do beer steins have lids?" was answered with "...we were offered all sorts of plausible theories. These are the four we liked the most. Which do you think makes the most sense?" (pg 95)) show less

Un nuevo libro de la serie de los imponderables, en los que el autor se dedica a resolver cuestiones de todo tipo enviadas por los lectores: ¿Por qué hay perros que babean más que otros? ¿Por qué los monos de los pintores suelen ser blancos? ¿Cómo hacen para que no se congele el agua de los depósitos de agua de las ciudades? ¿Cómo se construyen las grúas de la construcción sin usar otra grúa? y así hasta varias decenas. Personalmetne tengo un interés rayano en lo enfermizo por show more este tipo de preguntas cotidianes. David Feldman escribe de modo ameno, y cuando quiere es muy irónico y divertido. El libro se lee con gran facilidad y uno disfruta aprendiendo cosas curiosas pero inútiles. Muy recomendable. show less

Firstly, this book is 30 years old now so many of its facts are a bit dated and some while difficult to discover back then are easily googled today. Information about payphones, 1980's credit cards, and old business practices is occasionally interesting but no longer useful. While I enjoyed reading it, I think I'd recommend something more contemporary for any reader who isn't interested in outdated trivia.

I didn't doubt the truthfulness of the author or his thoroughness, but I was often show more frustrated that he didn't consistently cite his sources. There were plenty of tidbits that I wanted more information about and having the name of the author's source would've been helpful. For instance, he explains that the color blue was thought to have protective properties and was used to ward boy children. However, he doesn't say when, where, or on what authority he knows this. He also claims without context that in a wedding ceremony the father-of-the-bride would remove a shoe and hand it to the groom, who would tap the bride on the head with it to signify the transference of ownership of the woman from father to husband. As amusing as that is, I wish I knew where and when it was a custom.

I attempted to research association between the color blue and boy children. I discovered that as recently as the 1920's there were as many groups in the USA that associated pink with baby boys as blue, and the eventual scheme our culture settled on had more to do with fashion than superstition. However, in looking for a magical association with the color I as it relates to boy children, and found that there are claims that ancient Greek, Semitic, and Chinese people had this superstition, which resulted in it being spread to other countries which were influenced by those cultural megaliths. Unfortunately these claims were largely unsourced. I found plenty of references claiming that the modern superstition being derived from African slaves in the US believing that spirits could not cross water, but this was also attributed as a superstition of European origin in other places. Either this belief was common across multiple cultures in many historical eras, or its origin is thoroughly muddled.

There was plentiful documentation on the color being used to ward evil spirits away from buildings and even the clothing of adults in recent history. In the American South a tint called "Haint Blue" (haint meaning ghost, and related to "haunt") is still a popular choice in exterior home painting at least partly as a result of this traditional belief. However, I couldn't find anything about it being used to protect boy children specifically. There was a single passage in a biography of Saint Paul that in his time a Jewish boy child's foreskin would be sewed inside a blue cloth bag and that would be used to ward off evil, but that wasn't solidly attributed to any historical source. While this book's claim remains plausible, I couldn't really confirm it even with modern resources at my disposal. show less