Einstein's Refrigerator: And Other Stories from the Flip Side of History

I have enjoyed reading this sort of stuff ever since I was a kid and that's 60 years ago.This book is a bunch of short articles about people and things that have happened in somewhat recent history ,which will never appear in history textbooks,but very interesting nonetheless. If you read some of the other reviews,you'll see what some of these things are.There are about 30 weird items covered in the book.So,no need for me to repeat.
The interesting thing to someone like me who has enjoyed this sort of thing is what has changed so much by the people who dig up and publish this stuff.
I first got interested in this trivia by reading Ripley's Believe It or Not!.His cartoons were a daily and weekly sort of thing in newspapers and read by just about everyone.He was the real inventor of this popular interest;that is he more than anyone else ,made it so popular.He travelled the world searching out the unbelievable,and because of that he was known as "The Modern Day Marco Polo".I have several dozen of his books and there are many Ripley museums and now even TV shows.Ripley was one of the most well known people and most interesting characters in the western world.There were many others who published similar stuff ;but none even came close to the 'master'.

A couple of things are interesting about this book.First ,the author is a relatively unknown and in no sense the 'bigger than life character' that Ripley was.Ripley had to travel the globe or depend on people to send him material.No need to do that anymore.A person needs only access to the net ,and away he goes.If you read something in Ripley,s,that would be about the end of it.Further information would be very diffult to come by,especially if one lived in a small town.With the sories in this book the author gives a lot of references which would lead one on to many ,many more, all from your desk and the net.
The author has a terrific web site 'Steve Silverman's Useless Information'jam-packed with similar stories.Oh,by the way,even though your local newspaper probably no longer carries the Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoons ,there is an excellent Ripley's Website that does.
I am glad someone still publishes this stuff as I've had a ton of enjoyment over the years reading ;Stranger than Fiction,Greatest Inventions,World's Biggest Blunders,Weird but True,Did you Know?,World's Dumbest Inventions,World's dumbest Criminals,World's strangest Places,and on and on. However,Silverman has shown how the Net has made the amount of this information that is available,virtually limitless.
As with everything,when something new comes along, something old disappears.
With me,it's the characters like Ripley who are becoming the thing of the past,and I believe we are all a little poorer for it.

Einstein's Refrigerator: And Other Stories from the Flip Side of History