A pleasure. ... Suitable for beach reading or for mainlining before a dinner party." —Dan Piepenbring, New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) In The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird, comedian and co-host of the “No Such Thing as a Fish” podcast Dan Schreiber takes peculiar theories about some of life’s greatest mysteries and spins them into nonstop hilarity. Many of the ideas presented here are so implausible—such as the hypothesis that time travelers sank the Titanic—that Schreiber starts with a disclaimer, a suggestion that readers should “let the ideas alter your universe for a few seconds . . . but for God’s sake, don’t believe in a single one of them.” In fact, he uses the word batshit over and over to describe these unconventional beliefs and bizarre encounters, while also demonstrating that investigating such baffling notions (whether to solve them, prove them or disprove them) is often what leads people to discover something closer to the truth. Non-Fiction Books» Society & Culture» Popular Beliefs & Controversial Knowledge» Folklore Studies / Study of Myth (Mythology) thanks to Dan Shreiber, I hope the wrinkles on his 🍑 cheeks will continuously be responsible for writing books like this. Now I have a collection of theories to throw around at the people I know, like I’m throwing rare holo Pokémon cards at my opponents <3 5/5 precious stars ⭐️ A pleasure. ... Schreiber is at his best when he’s digging into renowned loci of weirdness. ... Suitable for beach reading or for mainlining before a dinner party. Schreiber brings a formidable amount of research to bear." — Dan Piepenbring, New York Times Book Review

There was a time when library shelves fairly sagged with strange reference works. Readers could peruse “The Best,” a 1974 hit that cataloged all things superlative, including bedsheets, sunscreens and life insurance policies. They could plunge into the RAND Corporation’s “A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates,” something of a bible among data scientists. Or they could cozy up with “The Dictionary of Imaginary Places,” containing entries on El Dorado and Jurassic Park. A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting. We don’t know the answers to any of these questions (that includes the shower-curtain one, which is a mystery that has eluded scientists for decades, and which they are still trying to solve). But don’t worry, no matter what questions you have, you can bet on the fact that there is someone (or something) out there, investigating it on your behalf – and this book collects their latest findings. Questo libro racchiude teorie che per fortuna al momento sono molto meno pericolose di questa che vi ho appena raccontato (quella di Rugiati, non la mia) ma che ai loro tempi hanno scatenato dibattiti infiniti di scienziati e improvvisati tali. Dan Schreiber, of QI & No Such Thing As A Fish brings us a love letter to the odder side of life, from Aliens to murder-solving plants, from time travellers on the Titanic to Native Americans on the English south coast - these facts and ‘facts’ will keep you laughing and gasping. You may just realise how weird you are, how weird we all are - and when we can all accept our weirdness and be weird together - that could be world changing.

But nonsense also emerges from less expected quarters. In professional sports, where superstition collides with lavish budgets, players and owners will indulge every whim in the name of victory. Between 2005 and 2010, the Los Angeles Dodgers secretly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Russian scientist named Vladimir Shpunt who believed he could “transmit powerful energy through his hands and thoughts,” thereby improving the team’s batting average. Quite fun. Some interesting “theories”, some anecdotes of weird shit happening, some really funny chapters. The rise of the search engine, reference text ad infinitum, spelled doom for many books such as these. So it’s a pleasure to encounter Dan Schreiber’s “The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird,” a willfully miscellaneous survey of the bizarre beliefs that people have held over the centuries: the kind of random, strange-for-the-sake-of-strange compendium that’s seldom published anymore. A collection of the world’s most mind-boggling, thought-provoking, and downright hilarious theories by the co-host of the hit podcast No Such Thing as a Fish, Dan Schreiber.

From the Silicon Valley tech billionaires currently trying to work out whether or not the universe is one giant video game simulation; to the self-proclaimed community of Italian time-travellers who are trying to save the world from destruction; The Theory of Everything Else will act as a handbook for those who want to think differently. It’s up to the reader, then, how closely to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Edison, who slept in his work clothes because he was convinced that “changing into pajamas at night messed with your body’s chemistry and gave you insomnia.” Or to support Kary Mullis — the chemist who invented the polymerase chain reaction that helped give us the Covid-19 PCR test — in his assertion that he was once politely greeted by a glowing raccoon outside his cabin in Northern California. We don’t know the answers to any of these questions (that includes the shower-curtain one, which is a mystery that has eluded scientists for decades, and which they are still trying to solve). But don’t worry, no matter what questions you have, you can bet on the fact that there is someone (or something) out there, investigating it on your behalf—and Dan Schreiber collects their latest findings. This book is a testament to how unorthodox thinking has often been at the forefront of science and the development of humanity. How some of the people regarded as our "greatest mind" had many crazy theories: some that brought innovation, and some that were arguably "bat shit" and maybe taken too far. Where would the world be without these eccentric thinkers? Dan Piepenbring is the co-author of “Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties.”Life is strange, and you never quite know how it’s going to play out nor where your big adventure may take place.” Insomma, il suggerimento iniziale di questo saggio è “Fate quello che volete nel vostro privato, ma quando le conseguenze delle vostre idee non riguardano soltanto voi, attenti a credere sulla fiducia.” Humans are fascinated with weird and unusual phenomena—hence the popularity of books, magazines, television shows and podcasts focusing on “unexplained” subjects such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire. All this to say, this book will have you exploring your own version of batshit in the most entertaining way.

We don't know the answers to any of these questions (that includes the shower-curtain one, which is a mystery that has eluded scientists for decades, and which they are still trying to solve). But don't worry, no matter what questions you have, you can bet on the fact that there is someone (or something) out there, investigating it on your behalf - and this book collects their latest findings.Let me also mention that the audiobook (read by the author himself) is a really fun way to experience this book. I'm a big fan of raccoons... and my jaw dropped to the floor of the bookstore when I saw the cover artwork. Io da piccola pensavo che di notte la Terra si scoperchiasse dal suo cappuccio celeste per lasciare spazio al cielo blu della notte e che per piovere la procedura fosse più o meno quella espressa dal cuoco neo climatologo, o meglio, ci fosse un cappuccio pieno di acqua. Poi non riuscendo mai ad assistere all’esatto momento del cambio di coperchio ho lasciato stare questa mirabolante idea.

As those examples suggest, scientists, mad and sane alike, are veritable fonts of absurdity: the natural byproduct of all their hypothesizing. Maybe it was only a matter of time before one of them proposed that drinking gin makes women spontaneously combust, or that life on Earth blossomed from aliens’ cosmic jetsam. Some of science’s wildest guesses achieve an elegance in their folly. In the 17th century, Charles Morton ventured that birds disappeared every winter because they migrated to the moon. And I did try a Ouija board once and definitely still kind of think it worked (it knew the name of my dead grandma which no one else in the room knew).

The writing was however under par, which I didn’t expect from Dan Schreiber, being a No Such Thing as a Fish fan. It felt like a book full of “have you heard of this? O wait, this is fun as well! And now I’m thinking of ghosts. And of presidents. Have you heard of …”. Many of the chapters and anecdotes did not really feel rounded, without a clear purpose. The Theory of Everything Else is a warm, charming light hearted look at the strange, the odd, the weird and well, the downright batshit.