John Hodgman’s More Information Than You Require is almost more information than I can stand. The premise of the book is.. a whole bunch of facts and trivia and stories that Hodgman made up. The layout fits the title and premise of the book, but really turns me off. Even the cover looks like an overload of information.
The format of the book is random facts and stories and information (mostly false) roughly sorted by topic into chapters. There’s images to spice things up. And sometimes there’s boxes. You almost feel like there would be sidebars and topbars and bottombars, but because every page also contains a Page-A-Day calendar notation, Hodgman really was running out of room.
The way I’d normally read something like this is to read everything on the page before turning the page. Eventually I had to give that up. I stopped reading the calendar entries and my enjoyment of the reading experience improved. But it was still problematic, because there were footnotes to be reading. So there’s just constant interruptions to the flow in my brain.
As for the content itself? Eh. I think this book would be far better used as a bathroom reader. Small doses would be easier to swallow, and more amusing. I did like the entries for July 12, 13, and 14th. July 31st was distinctly lacking in wizard references! I confess to skipping the several-pages-long list of molemen names. (Firefox thinks I spelled molemen wrong. I probably did.)
All in all, I like Hodgman better on television. In small chunks.
Hee, that first line is great. Wish I’d thought of it. Only then I guess it’d look like I swiped it. :)