The Explainer
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3.8 • 6 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
What happens to recalled meat?
What’s the difference between a serial killer and a spree killer?
How do you stop a lava flow?
Does homeowner’s insurance cover murder?
And what is Ovaltine anyway?
Answers to these and other fascinating questions you never thought to ask, from the writers at Slate Magazine
An entertaining and genuinely informative compilation of answers to some of life's most improbable questions, from the writers of the online magazine Slate. Often inspired by events in the news, the “Explainer” column asks the questions we never think to ask, or that we’re too embarrassed to admit we don’t know how to answer. Filling in these overlooked blanks of our daily lives, the book provides memorable tidbits for conversations, further rumination, or important context as we follow current events from day to day. Full of fascinating information about unlikely but important subjects, The Explainer will entertain and inform anyone who has ever stopped to wonder who runs Antarctica, how cell phones can reveal your location, or whether one can live off lizard meat.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
If any regular column calls for a compilation, The Explainer is it. The Microsoft-funded online magazine Slate has been doling out answers to offbeat questions for years, becoming king of the information-rich deadpan response. How do you figure out the odds of an asteroid hitting the earth? How did the U.S. get a naval base in Cuba? Slate knows. And according to former editor Michael Kinsley (who pens the introduction), it's because its writers are willing to confess they don't know everything. "We don't like to admit, even to ourselves, that we often don't know what the hell others among us are talking about," Kinsley acknowledges. But "very little is beneath the dignity of Slate," and so they take on the obvious queries that everyone wants to ask, but nobody ever does. For this volume, questions are arranged by quirky subject (like "Guns and Ammo"), and there's a special richness to its Washington-related queries, perhaps due to Kinsley's background as a D.C. pundit and general policy wonk. And though a rotating cast of writers has been behind the column, they manage a consistent tone. Alas, instead of always playing the straight man to the natural comedy of the questions, the editors don't have much fun with their answers (e.g., they refrain from ripping into Hollywood's fad du jour when facing a question like, "Where does Kabbalah come from?"). But the book has its own relentless charm, and the utilitarian premise makes it a winner. Besides, who else is going to tell readers what happens to recalled meat?
