Friday, December 17, 2010

The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads / Ammon Shea / 216 pp.

The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads by Ammon Shea was a book I picked up because of its yellow cover. I could not put it down. While a book about phone books had the potential to be dry, this book is fascinating. It also discusses enough related topics to keep the book paced well; topics include sending mail via guided missile, old-time switchboards, making art out of phone books, and ripping phone books in half. This book explores it all. I would recommend this book and enjoyed Ammon Shea’s engaging writing so much that I have already checked out his other book, in which he reads through the Oxford English Dictionary.

Here are some parts of the book I found especially interesting:

  • In 1959, three thousand letters written by the postmaster general were delivered via missile. The missile was launched from a submarine 100 miles off the coast of Florida, took 22 minutes to arrive, and was remotely controlled. The postmaster is quoted as saying that mail would be delivered by guided missile before man reached the moon.

  • Ed Charon, at age 70, ripped fifty-six Portland white pages in half in three minutes.

  • Beginning in the mid-1960s, Bill Holland, a painting contractor in Los Angeles, decided it would be easier to tell people to look him up in the very back of the phone book rather than to use business cards. So he changed his name to Zachary Zzzra” (66). To stay in the back of the phone book, he had to add several more “z”s to his name when Vladimir Zzzzzzabakov appeared in 1978.

MOBIUS, Amazon

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