It certainly seems uncontaminated by cheese.
They’re in the hard copy version. Apparently they do make Brie in Wisconsin:
I think it was a joke about “hard” and “soft” cheese.
I’ve only seen the ebook (on the Project Gutenberg website), but I always enjoy the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. It features two different terms for holding someone upside-down and shaking them until their money falls out of their pockets.
Are field guides encyclopedic?
Disapointed!
Ah but its the cleanest Cheese book in the area guv.
[slight hijack] I remember a class that included a bunch of literary stuff from the zenith of the Arab era (Umayyad period maybe). IIRC there were many examples of wildly hubristic attempts to compose Encyclopedias Of All Human Knowledge (with contents that were often about as accurate as Columbus’s geography). I can imagine some of that also went on in Europe in the Renaissance or whenever but don’t have a specific example to cite.
I note, from your link, that five used copies are available from Amazon Marketplace, with prices ranging from $69.15 to $0.16 (in ‘good’ condition). Sounds like a bargain to me.
There was a copy of this book in my high school library. I once attempted to leaf through it. Had the phrase “ponderous tome” not already existed in the English language, I’d have coined it after giving Ukers that glance.
I can’t beat Jim Fixx’s Second Book of Running: The All-New Companion Volume to The Complete Book of Running.
I do not know if this counts as encyclopedic, but the mention of high school libraries reminds me that, for some unfathomable reason, my high school library had a set of Spon’s Workshop Receipts. Apparently it runs to at least 4 volumes. I think they had them all.
Apparently, the book covers only the things you were afraid to ask. The things you actually asked aren’t covered.
Mine has some pretty extensive water damage/warping. I’m afraid it’s probably closer to $0.16. But I’m not selling.
I don’t know if this one counts as absurd. I have it and think it’s interesting.
An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton: anthology of collective nouns.
the hite report on female sexuality? not that it’s absurd, just useless for most guys.
the peter principle and all of its codicils.
I wasn’t prepared for its shocking cannibalism twist when seven ate nine.
You should’ve kept it in the fridge.
Barbed Wire: An Ecology of Modernity
Even the reviews sound pretentious.