The jacket text for this book suggests that it will be funny, and show the dangers of clinging to an idea in the face of contradictory evidence. It fails on both counts, at least for me.

I suspect the authors assumed all that the readers would find a kind of point-and-laugh humor in each tiny biography, just as he did. I didn't really see it, but it was the best I could figure he was going for. This book might be more amusing to someone with the authors sense of humor. I just fo More...

What an odd book! I grabbed it at the last minute off the New Book Shelf at the library on my way out; thinking I'd read some snippets of people's lives that made them certain of what they wanted and how they got there. I really love biography and figured this might give me a few ideas of whose to read. Some of my favorite people are in this book, such as Ann Lee and Emma Goldman, but the authors were too flip about it and really made the folks they gave a couple of paragraphs too almost soun More...