The Mental Floss History of the World

January 26, 2009
Historical survey books can be a hard sell. Too often they invoke memories of mammoth textbooks for high school history class. Yet the swank and the hip at Mental Floss
magazine have attempted a more engaging world history filled with amusing tidbits and accurate and compelling information designed to explain the history of humankind. Unfortunately, without the glossy and dynamic print visuals, the text sounds like one long monologue of historical events, with some parts (such as chronologies) hard to follow or boring. Johnny Heller elicits some excitement with his reading, but not sufficient enough to keep listeners attentive for 15 hours. The single-narrator model fails for a text like this. Several narrators and some sound effects might have better evoked the kind of vibe that one typically associates with the book's amusing tone. A Collins hardcover.