Reference Books

I am, admittedly, a bit of a bibliophile. That's a huge understatement, but it's also true.  I'll read almost anything, although given the choice, I have my favorite subjects.

A few years ago I read A.J. Jacobs' The Know-It-All which detailed his effort to read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z.  It was an entertaining read, but I doubt I could pull off what he did, much less write a book about it.  Part of my interest stemmed from the fact that I find reference books interesting.  One of my favorite books is the Larousse English-Spanish dictionary that I bought in Madrid, Spain.  This will sound weird, but perhaps my favorite part of the book is the pictures section in the middle where it has things like the human skeleton, cars and motorcycles, tools, etc., with arrows to each item and both the Spanish and English words for them.  I could read that part for hours.

Somewhere along the line I found a book by someone named Thomas J. Glover called Pocket Ref at Restoration Hardware.  The ticket price that's still on the back of it reads $12.95 which, even for RH, seems a little inflated.  I doubt I paid that much, because I don't pay that much for books that don't include arcane subjects in which I have no interest.  I thought the book would come in handy one day and purchased it with little thought or care.

That day its handiness arrived was two days ago.  Waiting interminably for Comcast to untie the Gordian Knot that it created out of my phone number and email address, I had little else to keep my interest so I picked up Pocket Ref.  It turns out there's far more in there than I could ever have imagined. 

To begin with, one has to realize that this book measures all of five and a half inches by three inches.  Closed it measures an inch thick.  The print is fine and would challenge a geriatric, but when I remove my glasses I can read it just fine.

I was surprised at how much interesting information it actually contains.  For example, one section has animal names, with their groups, male, female and baby terminology.  To wit, who knew that a group of goldfish was called a troubling, or that a baby crab was either a zoea, a megalops or a dricthus?  The next time someone writes a sci-fi book, he should call something a Megalops...but I wouldn't call anything a dricthus, because that sounds like a body part that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company. 

It has information on batteries, their sizes and capacities.  It has graphic illustrations on the various knots and how to tie them.  There are conversion tables which helpfully provide the instructions on how to convert firkins (English or American) into other things, like bushels or gallons.  Until I learn just what a firkin is I probably won't need that one.

I can get Volcanic Explosive Indeces (VEI, not to be confused with REI), Core Drill Specs, Maximum Floor Joist loads by wood type, Tire Sizes and Load Ratings (paging Marisa Tomei) and the always helpful Torino Asteroid-Comet Destruction Scale which, from what I can tell, is utterly useless.

This is the book I'd need -- if they allowed me to refer to it during the games -- on Jeopardy or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.   The odd thing, though, is that I like paging through the book.  I suspect this confirms what Karen's known all along:  I am a nerd of the first order.

Somehow, though, I doubt I'll ever use the Math section.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles