Listomania: A World of Fascinating Facts in Graphic Detail, exclusive Boing Boing preview

The 9 Most Lucrative Heists. 10 Unsolved Mysteries. 13 Fad Diets. 7 Things Made From Insects. If these pique your interest, you'll enjoy the new book Listomania: A World of Fascinating Facts in Graphic Detail. My friend and old Wired colleague Hollis Heimbouch, who is at HarperCollins, sent me the book with a note promising I'd like it, and she was right. HarperCollins gave me permission to run a few lists on Boing Boing to give you an idea of how cool this book is. See the other lists after the jump.

Organized into eight chapters, Listomania covers questions of human behavior, trivia facts about geography (past and present), etymology, mythology, ancient and recent history, as well as pop culture. Some of the lists included are:

• 10 Tiny Terrors: a list of the ten most petite world leaders (yes, some were shorter than Napoleon!)

• 43 Famous People Who Were Adopted (e.g. Steve Jobs, Debbie Harry, Mark Twain, Alexander the Great)

• 15 Movies Featuring Giant Rabbits

• 10 Top Cheese Eating Countries( note correspondence to the top ten happiest countries)

• 8 Dastardly Ponzi Schemes

• 38 Ancient Cities (That People Still Live In)

• 28 Prehistoric Creatures Named for Famous People or Cool Things (e.g. Dracorex Hogwartsia, Attenborosaurus, and Psephorus Terrypratchetti) Illustrated in full color with playful images, graphs, charts, captions, and photographs, this colorful book brings a new face to trivia and is sure to wow readers, surprise them, and make them laugh from cover to cover. Listomania functions as a practical information resource as well as a fun and quirky gift for readers of any age.

Buy Listomania: A World of Fascinating Facts in Graphic Detail on Amazon.com

• [Greg Biché]

  Lead White will never fade away! ah!

• [know1]

  This was an awesome book when it was titled “The Book of Lists.”

• [woid]

  I thought “Caput Mortuum” was the official color for Latinate Deadheads. But no.

  The description says it was made of ground-up Egyptian mummies(!!!) and that the name actually means “worthless remains.” Which raises the question, does “Caput” = “kaput”?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    They’ve just taken a line from Wikipedia and chosen the non-literal meaning.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caput_mortuum

  • [retepslluerb]

    You mean the English “kaput”? That’s derived from from the German “kaputt” which has about the same meaning and has an unclear etymology. 

    One of them refers to “caput”, but as part of a saying, not as an actual reference to the head.

  • [Oliver Schmieding]

    nope. “caput” = head  - it’s latin.
    “mortuum” = of the dead, so it means death’s head, actually – it’s the death’s head SYMBOL that was used to signify dross in alchemical reactions – but that was definitely not reserved for this pigment.  neither is the stuff made of mummies, it’s synthetic – a ferrous oxide.

    obviously some slight research error there ;)

    • [EvilSpirit]

      Did *you* actually do research on mummy brown? I mean, obviously, nobody’s going to be making pigments out of mummies these days, but I know of no reason to doubt that it was once done (as recently as 50 years ago, according to this Time magazine article … with apologies for the paywall around most of it: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940544,00.html )

• [emg72]

  Looks fun, and the design is great. Essentially, it’s what Cracked.com has become, only in print format, probably slightly less snarky, and non-updating (I presume).

• [Alvis]

  I think those images broke the formatting – I’m getting the leftmost edge of the page cut off.  For example, the text above the comment box appears as “d New Comment” to me.

  • [Shibi_SF]

    I’ve lost my edge as well!

• [bruckelsprout]

  After reviewing the page about Groups Falsely Believed to Rule the World, it seems evident that this whole book was written by shapeshifting Reptilian Aliens.

• [Cowicide]

  First one reminds me of this….

• [chellberty]

  a few things governments actually did or planned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_cigar#CIA_plot_to_assassinate_Castro
  Dosed “Johns” with Hallucinogens in brothels ran by the cia. 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midnight_Climax

• [jimh]

  Note the graphic that is titled “Groups FALSELY Believed to Rule the World”, then note the absence of Skull and Bones, then draw your own conclusions!

• [Kimmo]

  More research might’ve helped… for example, Phar Lap was poisoned.

  Kempson and Henry discovered that in the 30 to 40 hours before Phar Lap’s death, the horse ingested a massive dose of arsenic.

  And as for the reasons dope is illegal those are (or at least were) real reasons, just not the main ones. Small wonder that folks go looking for ulterior motives behind the banning of something so innocuous.

• [chgoliz]

  Chartres Blue (in the first diagram) is now known as French Blue.

• [jeligula]

  Those colors didn’t fade away, just their dumb names.

• [L_Mariachi]

  Verdigris has faded away? Somebody better tell the Statue of Liberty and a whole bunch of fancy old rooftops.

• [Randy Murray]

  Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons) adopted? Where did that come from?

• [Crock Tease]

  Some of the example lists provided are straight outta ‘The Book of Lists.’ Hope Wallace and Walechinski get a kickback.

• [pauliez]

  As an oil painter, I own and use: Ivory Black, Vermillion, Indian Yellow and Lead White.
  none have faded away, however many colors are notoriously “fugitive”: Alizarin Crimson, Hooker’s Green, Violet Lake, etc.

• [elix]

  I’m now in doubt as to the authenticity of absolutely everything listed, because Napoleon was OF AVERAGE HEIGHT for men of his time. The “Napoleon is an angry short man with a height complex” meme was fabricated by British satirists (and Britain was no friend of Napoleon then).  
  Parroting it means someone didn’t do their research. Or maybe I’m overanalyzing ad copy. One of the two.

• [johnnieutah]

  As a former paintmaker, I have some quibbles! This is not strictly speaking ACCURATE – to wit:
  1) Caput Mortuum means ‘death’s head’
  2) Vermilion (Mercury Sulfide) and Lead White (Lead Oxide)are far from extinct, are still used, and I have plenty of each in my studio.
  3) Smalt is super-rare and not a very strong tint, so difficult to find but not impossible. Ditto Verdgris.
  3) Indian Yellow is made from dust soaked with the urine of cows which dine solely on MARIGOLDS. And the main reason it’s not used much anymore is that it is not light-stable (fades over time) and it REEKS due to its compositional elements. However, I have some in both oil and watercolor formulations.We could also add Asphaltum/Bitumen as an extinct color, its a sort-of clear-tint earth color made from petroleum by-products. It can be found but is extremely rare. Almost totally extinct now is naturally occuring ultramarine/lapis lazuli, which has been easily synthesized since the early 20th Century.

• [amelia anderson]

  I love love love info graphics. I think this is because I am a graphic designer and I know how hard it is to do this well. I am a visual person and I could pour over the visual solutions in these kinds of books all day. This design looks looks super cool (though the spreads seem to be cut off for me too). Thanks for sharing.

• [Ryan Germick]

  Smalt is the favorite color I never knew I had! This book looks terrific — well worth the list price. Ok, I’ll go now.

• [ekabee]

  This book is fascinating to flip through with beautifully designed info graphics. You can easily absorb yourself in the endless quirky facts and clever designs for days. Then read upside down for another week. And inside out? …Forever!