Book Review: The Greatest Stories Never Told

Because I am an annoying person who derives great pleasure from correcting others and spouting off "Did you know..."'s, I really enjoy reading books that offer up the real story. I did some looking around online and off to the library I went. The Greatest Stories Never Told is made up of "100 tales from history to astonish, bewilder and stupefy". It's author, Rick Beyer, has written quite an assortment of these types of books. I'd like to point out that it is presented by the History Channel. The Introduction assures us that all the facts have been checked and checked again.


This book is a snoozefest. There seems to be a reason these stories aren't told and its because they're ass-boring. Beyer's writing does absolutely nothing to spice them up, although its clear that he's trying. The book has three main types of "story". The first type is if-then situations. For example, did you know that Annie Oakley shot the ash off of a cigarette in Kaiser Wilhelm's mouth at his request before WWI? Well, she did. I just told you. Beyer claims that the gunshot "could have prevented the War to End All Wars". Yes, the idea is that if only Oakley had missed her target and hit the Kaiser that maybe WWI wouldn't have started. The same goes for WWII, according to Beyer. The car carrying the Archduke made a wrong turn and then he was assassinated. Imagine what a peaceful world it would've been if only Annie Oakley wasn't such a good shot or if Mapquest had been around for Ferdinand's driver! I mean, come on.

The second type of story is about the discovery of something. It starts with an "unlikely" story and then we're hit with the dramatic last sentence that is supposed to shock us. For example, a guy on a farm in Kansas in 1928 built his own telescope. "Even though he had only a high school diploma", he went to work for an observatory continuing the now-dead founder's search for Planet X. Skepticism abounded! He looked and did all this crazy work and stuff and then... "The farm boy from Kansas became the first American to discover a planet...which was named Pluto". What's with the ellipses? Dramatic pause? Because Pluto doesn't really deliver a big shocking punch. There are all sorts of stories of inventions originally made by someone else and places originally discovered by different explorers than we typically hear of, but I can't help but think the reason we don't hear these stories is because there's nothing sexy or interesting about them.

One of the few things I found interesting falls into the third type of story (which is maybe more of a sub-type of the second). These stories have the reasons behind things, like QWERTY. Apparently, QWERTY came to be because on old typewriters the letters would stick and if they were next to each other you had to wait for it to un-stick to use the other key. The QWERTY keyboard was born after letter order was studied and the letters were placed far away from the letters they are most often used next to. Yes, this is one of the only things I thought was interesting. And its really not very interesting.

Many things I'd heard of before, like the invention of Ivory soap (but that could be because I'm in Cincinnati) and the "war with Russia you never knew we had" (unless you've taken a college level history course). The only thing I was surprised to read was about the Scopes trial, which was apparently nothing but a publicity stunt for Dayton, Tennessee.

Beyer's efforts are apparent but the book falls short. No amount of ellipses or dramatic last sentences can spice up the dull tales he's unearthed. It almost becomes annoying to read such unspectacular facts written in such a sensational manner. I've come out of reading this book no smarter than when I started and my plans to read Beyer's more specific books are officially canceled. I was promised tales to "astonish, bewilder, and stupefy", but I think "bore, annoy, and waste your time" is more accurate.

I give this book a disappointing 1 out of 5 stars. Womp womp.

(I just noticed the "Staff Pick" sticker on the side... Yeesh! Good thing this came in from a different branch!)