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    Non-Essential Mnemonics: An Unnecessary Journey into Senseless Knowledge
    Unavailable
    Non-Essential Mnemonics: An Unnecessary Journey into Senseless Knowledge
    Unavailable
    Non-Essential Mnemonics: An Unnecessary Journey into Senseless Knowledge
    Ebook170 pages52 minutes

    Non-Essential Mnemonics: An Unnecessary Journey into Senseless Knowledge

    By Kent Woodyard and Mark Downey

    2.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

  • From the popular column on McSweeney's Internet Tendency, the humor website from the literary darling publisher of the same name
  • Will be endorsed by McSweeney's web editor Chris Monks, as well as promised promotion on the acclaimed literature and humor site.
  • Along with collection of columns, includes new illustrations and an essay on the history of classic mnemonic devices
  • Perfect gift for writers, teachers, college students, and word lovers of all kinds
  • Comes in a small, beautiful, giftable hardcover format, unlike many of the cheaper paperbacks in its category
    • LanguageEnglish
    PublisherProspect Park Books
    Release dateAug 18, 2014
    ISBN9781938849299
    Unavailable
    Non-Essential Mnemonics: An Unnecessary Journey into Senseless Knowledge
    Author

    Kent Woodyard

    Kent Woodyard has been a columnist for McSweeney's Internet Tendency since 2009. He has also written for Relevant Magazine, The Big Jewel, and Yankee Pot Roast. Originally from Oklahoma City, OK, Kent now lives in Southern California. This is his first book.

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    Reviews for Non-Essential Mnemonics

    2.5/5

    4 ratings8 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I'm a huge fan of wordplay, so I had pretty high expectations for this book. Unfortunately, I felt it was more "meh" than masterful. It's a blisteringly quick read (as would be expected) and some of the mnemonics/acronyms were amusing (using the acronym for the Screen Actors Guild as a mnemonic for the members of Simon and Garfunkel got an actual guffaw out of me) but, most of them were like an SNL skit: only kind of funny to begin with, made worse by going on too long. It would make a cute "white elephant" gift though - especially with the illustration of the elephant on the cover.
    • 3/5
      The actual mnemonics were sometimes extremely amusing and I've actually tried to commit a couple to memory, because despit their silliness, I actually wanted to commit to memory what they might help me remember. However, there we're also "humorous" paragraphs after each mnemonic that I didn't find very funny and on occasion I found them downright boring.
    • 2/5
      There's no doubt the author is clever and funny. Beyond that, I can't guess how this book ever got published. As others here have mentioned, there are some very funny passages, but the lists that have been 'mnemonic-ized' are of little or no use. They offer only a jumping off point for Woodyard to be funny, but that wears thin pretty quickly. Two stars for a clever idea and some funny moments, but otherwise . . . not so great.
    • 3/5
      I was provided a copy of the book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program.This is a small, hardcover book, the kind of unusual format that sets it aside as a gift book. Indeed it is, though for a particular niche of geek. The title is pretty up front in establishing that the book is absolutely useless. It begins with a discussion of mnemonics that are used in school, like HOMES to remember the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior) or FACE for reading music. Then it gets into the heart of the book, the memory tricks to remember total garbage. Woodyard also creates a kind of wacky narrative through his explanation of mnemonics, exploring a rather lackluster progression from college student to work to wacky neighbors to a final bit about a disastrous class reunion.Most of the mnemonics are quite long, but as an example: Britney Spears poops solid gold.mnemonic to remember the Spice Girls: Baby, Sporty, Posh, Scary, GingerI didn't find the book laugh-out-loud. As a joke, it got old to me quite fast, but it's still an amusing concept.
    • 3/5
      Meh. I was hoping for interesting Mnemonics for lists of things of items you would want to remember- like maybe the Nobel Gasses, or the signers of the Declaration of Independence - things that are unnecessary to know, but awesome to be able to recite... instead, I get a book written by some guy who randomly makes mnemonics for all of sorts things that are not that interesting. On top if it, some of these lists will be old in a year or two as new movies or presidents or attorney generals come into office.Complete waste of time - half star extra for a couple of mnemonics that are actually interesting.
    • 3/5
      If I could, I would give this book two ratings, one for humor and one for content. I cannot deny that I laughed will reading it. Laughed a lot. I would give this an 4, maybe even a 5, for humor. At least a dozen times I had to set the book down so I could stop laughing long enough to breath. But as for content - I was hoping, among all the humor, there would be some useful mnemonics. Nope. I felt the title and description are misleading. Yes, it promises senseless knowledge, but I was hoping it would be help remembering said senseless knowledge. Sadly, it wasn't - just a string of odd narratives linked loosely together with no clear path. For content, I would give it a 2, maybe a 1. In the end, I settled for a 3, as it was amusing. But I wanted something useful as well. I received this free through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Program in exchange for my fair and honest opinion.
    • 2/5
      Here is what is so absolutely, positively, heartbreakingly painful about this book. In the Introduction and the first chapter ("The Little You Know About the Mnemonics You Know is Probably Wrong") of this book, Kent Woodyard proves himself to be a very funny man.The introduction has quite a few nice turns of phrase and some decent humor interspersed as Woodyard describes why we care about mnemonics. And the first chapter is veritable gold mine of laughs. In this chapter, Woodyard takes very well-known mnemonics (Every good boy does fine and Roy G. Biv as two examples) and then provides very strange twists to what they might really mean. (Best not describe what he does to the pie-in-the-sky belief expressed by the "every good boy does fine" myth.) And things end nicely, too. The epilogue (including "How to Write Mnemonic Devices Just Like the Ones in This Book") proves again that Wodyard is a talented humor writer.But after that first chapter, the entire project goes off the rails. And here is probably the greater sin. It appears that the entire purpose of this book was for purposes of delivering the rail-less content. What follows are mnemonics that have no use, have no bearing on anything of much interest to anyone, and feel as contrived as an analogy someone would put at the end of a list because they can't think of anything clever.Woodyard lists page after page of mnemonics and then provides pithy comments about each one (a literal translation of the mnemonic.) One quick example (after opening the book at random.) "Get Me Buses, Pizzas, Jim Carrey movies, & Cash.The bank robber issues an anachronistic list of demands.Also, a mnemonic for the members of The Brady Bunch family.Greg, Marcia, Bobby, Peter, Jan, Cindy, Mike, Carol"Now, when you see that by itself, it is rather clever writing. But it is quickly evident that the mnemonic may be harder to remember than the list itself.Now imagine page after page after page of this kind of thing. (And, by the way, most of the mnemonics are longer than this, of less use, and relating to a list that is even more useless.) It wears thin quickly.In the epilogue, Woodyard indicates that if, by the time you have gotten to the epilogue, you don't "get it", then you probably won't. "To the uninitiated...the tens of dozens of mnemonic devices preceding this epilogue were likely perceived as little more than a relentless stream of nonsense flowing from one horizon to the next."Unfortunately, I think he did far too good a job of describing 90% of his own book.
    • 1/5
      I received this book through a Librarything.com Early Reviewer giveaway. I should have focused on the "non-essential" part of the title. I'm a fan of mnemonics, but these are very contrived,, and harder to remember than what they are supposed to help you remember. I's a cute little gift book, but I wouldn't pay $14.95 for it. It's ok to open and read one or two entries, but it was impossible for me to stick with it. I understand that his point was not to actually offer helpful mnemonics. Maybe it was to be funny. I'm not sure. Again, very contrived.