I am fortunate to come from of a family of avid readers.  We always give books to each other for Christmas and it is an accepted practice to read them first.  Even secondhand books are an acceptable gift if the subject or Author are good enough.

This year I was given two books, "The Book of General Ignorance" by John LLoyd and John Mitchinson and "On Borrowed Time" by Evan Green.  Normally by this time I would have read both of these and several others but I have been working hard on this site and watching the 1st Test.

Consequently I have only read 1/2 of "General Ignorance" and a couple of chapters of "On Borrowed Time".  Yeah, I always read more than one book at a time, don’t you?

My initial critique of "General Ignorance" is that they use some fairly dodgy technicalities to make a point.  For example, they make the claim that King Henry the 8th only had 2 wives.  This is based on the legality of annulment stating the the marriage didn’t take place.  Regardless of the legality he did go through the marriage and, for a time at least, the marriage did exist.  You can only annull a marriage if one exists so that is a nonsense claim.

They also claim that a couple of his marriages were illegal based on various technicalities.  Also a BS argument.  A marriage cannot be illegal if it hasn’t taken place which means that those women were Henry’s wives illegal or not.

Despite the contortions and twisting of history I am enjoying the book, it is highly entertaining and there is a significant level of truth.  It is also a very easy read as it is made up of very short snippets.

The other book I haven’t read enough of to form an opinion yet but it seems to be starting well.