Biggest Secrets

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Insatiable curiosity--his own and his readers'--powers Poundstone's ( Big Secrets ) pursuit of such carefully concealed data as the ages of celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Estee Lauder, queen of the youth preservation business. Equally intriguing are revelations about why magicians use rabbits for hat tricks, and about the contrasts between the classic ``cheap gimmicks'' employed by Houdini and the $25 million spent in 1990 in Las Vegas by the magician team of Siegfried and Roy to make an elephant disappear by means of special effects. Poundstone further unveils secret signs and numbers used to defeat counterfeiters of Treasury bills and lottery tickets, and codes aired by hospitals and airlines to signal doctors, emergencies and flight delays. Illustrations not seen by PW. (May)

Library Journal

Librarians probably remember when the author's Big Secrets: The Uncensored Truth About All Sorts of Stuff You Are Never Supposed To Know (Quill: Morrow, 1983) was published. The explanation Poundstone gave about the detection ``tattletape'' in library books meant that--at least in this reviewer's library--the book disappeared. Poundstone's other title in the series is Bigger Secrets: More Than One Hundred Twenty-Five Things They Prayed You'd Never Find Out (Houghton, 1989). Like the People's Almanac ``Book of Lists'' series by Irving Wallace, Poundstone's works plow into an apparently bottomless source of odd, quirky gossip and trivia. He includes a chapter on the true ages of celebrities and another on the alleged recorded messages that are imbedded in some rock'n'roll songs. Poundstone also gives the inside scoop on the actual recipes for Mrs. Field's cookies and Play-Doh. Overall, the book is well written and researched. Purchase if your library needs more trivia or caters to inquiring patrons. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/93.-- J. Sara Paulk, Concord P.L., N.H.