Significa

by Irving Wallace, David Wallechinsky, Amy Wallace

Gathers interesting and little known facts about people, history, America, the law, war, language, inventions, transportation, sports, money and food

Genres: Fiction

374 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Irving Wallace was an American bestselling author and screenwriter. His extensively researched books included such page-turners as The Chapman Report (1960), about human sexuality; The Prize (1962), a fictional behind-the-scenes account of the Nobel Prizes; The Man, about a black man becoming president of the U.S. in the 1960s; and The Word (1972), about the discovery of a new gospel.

Wallace was born in Chicago, Illinois. Wallace grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was the father of Olympic historian David Wallechinsky and author Amy Wallace.

Wallace began selling stories to magazines when he was a teenager. In World War II Wallace served in the Frank Capra unit in Fort Fox along with Theodor Seuss Geisel - more popularly known as Dr Seuss - and continued to write for magazines. He also served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Force. In the years immediately following World war II Wallace became a Hollywood screenwriter. He collaborated on such films as The West Point Story (1950), Split Second (1953),and Meet Me at the Fair (1953).

After several years in Hollywood, he devoted himself full-time to writing books. Wallace published 33 books during his lifetime.

Reviews

[Theresa]

This book is chock full of interesting facts and tidbits, some of which I might like to know more about, though there's so many I'm not sure where to start, and some of the stories might not have any more details that have survived. I found it to be a good book to read while traveling or otherwise likely to be interrupted because every half page or so is the start of something completely new. But I did have to mentally add "as of the mid 80s" to any fact referring something about the present day...

[Chris Ellis]

Pretty typical of the genre. Mostly stories or facts that i have encountered before, but some new and interesting content.

Not sure how "Significant" any of it is.......

[Jefferson]

I'd give it three stars--if I could figure out how to rate books on the mobile site.

I'd give it that rating because, on the downside, it's really old and has some (now) really obvious facts (did you know there's this thing called the NSA?). But on the upside, there are quite a few really interesting facts in here, too.

[Emily Jackson]

You can pretty much open it to any page and read something cool. Great for people who love useless knowledge.