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4.5-stars for the book. beyond the scope of the sample, i ran into a listing that actually had the right edge of text (4-5 characters) chopped off, even on the DX turned sideways (landscape).my experience of amazon as an amazing customer service company continued as they gave me an uncomplicated & swift refund. in the sample i was already a little put off by just the table of contents, which is literally in a table mode, which you need to first enter as a table, & then select the section you want to go to.
i had purchased the first version in hardback & loved it. the width sets vary & some columns exhibit only 2-3 words per line of substantive text hugging the right edge with lots of blank space to the left. 2-stars for the kindle version.
then i noted that the space-wasting two column approach of titles/heading in one column & narrative in second column has a second penalty in kindle. a fun way to review &/or fill in gaps in a basic set of knowledge with lots of imbedded pictures. the fairly consistent pro/con or HS-vs-college expectations per listing can get a little tired.i thought it would be a good addition to my kindle library particularly since it said it was optimized for DX.
this means you have to hit next-page a lot. i find them to be very responsive to critique & they may fix these problems thereby making my review obsolete.
Table of Contents is not searchable; you cannot navigate to a specific chapter heading - in a reference book. Don't buy for Kindle. Previous favorable reviews were obviously referring to the hardcopy versions. Probably a great read or reference in hard copy, but the chart format for some topics are not fully displayed on the Kindle screen. You cannot see the entire entry for some subjects in a section. I would recommend it for print-on-paper reference reading, but not for Kindle users. How do I get a refund.
The "magic" still works 20 years later. We think we know all there is to know about all there is to know.My Daughter bought a copy of AN INCOMPLETE EDUCATION about 20 Years ago and I never have read it "page to page".But anytime I open the cover I learn something in spite of my Dummy mentality. Once in a while we get a little smug. My friend "called me" to rave about the "gift that keeps giving". For example in my edition I just randomly flipped open to page 251 to find a Greek Literature Discussion of the The Iliad and the Odyssey,on page 318 a synopsis of Schopenhauer's take on Philosophy,on page 560 the life and loves of Louis XIV, and on and on. These random examples in and of themselves may not be your idea of an "Education" but it showed me how much I had either "forgotten" or just never knew.I recently purchased a "newer" edition and sent to a good friend. I highly recommend this volume of over three thousand answers to trivia,substance and reference materials We are never so dumb as when we think we "know it all". [.].
There are 678 pages of subjects. However, it is an easy read because subjects can be covered in one page. Jones and Wilson cover almost every possible subject. The book appears intimidating in size and scope. Just open to any page and read for 15 minutes and put it down if you desire.
It might seem trivial to some, but if you want to write a book purporting to illuminate such topics, you better be up to the task, especially when your style is on the snide and cynical side. I was highly disappointed with the first edition - glaring omissions and inaccuracies abound. For example: Gerard Manley Hopkins is not even mentioned in the section concerning the British poets and in the chapter on religion, the authors make the boorish mistake of confusing the doctrine of the "Immaculate Conception" with that of the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ. Maybe corrections were made in later editions, but I wouldn't count on it. Certainly a better read for this purpose is "A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future" by Charles Van Doren, which Amazon also stocks.
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