Encyclopedia

The Blood Divine The Blood Divine was a British doom metal band, founded by Paul Allender and brothers Paul and Benjamin Ryan, after the three left Cradle of Filth during the recording of the Vempire (or Dark Faerytales in Phallustein) EP. They were soon joined by ousted Anathema singer Darren White, as well as drummer William A.
The Blood Donor "The Blood Donor" is an episode from the final series of the BBC television comedy series Hancock (formerly Hancock's Half Hour). First transmitted by BBC TV in 1961, it has become one of the most famous situation comedy half-hour programmes ever broadcast in the UK.
The Blood of Jesus The Blood of Jesus (1941) is a classic example of the "race film" genre of films by African-American directors and casts, geared exclusively for an African-American audience. This film, written and directed by Spencer Williams Jr.
The Blood-Horse magazine The Blood-Horse is an international weekly news magazine about Thoroughbred horses, horse breeding, and horseracing. It was founded in 1916, the oldest continually published North American Thoroughbred magazine.
The Bloody Banquet The Bloody Banquet is an early 17th-century play, a revenge tragedy generally comparable to The Revenger's Tragedy (a play variously ascribed to Cyril Tourneur and Thomas Middleton). The Bloody Banquet has attracted a substantial body of critical and scholarly commentary, chiefly for the challenging authorship problem it presents.
The Bloody Battle of Bayamon The Bloody Battle of Bayamon was a boxing fight held on January 28, 1978 at Juan Ramon Loubriel stadium in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, between defending WBC world Jr. Lightweight champion Alfredo Escalera, and former WBA world Featherweight champion Alexis Arguello of Nicaragua.
The Bloody Fists The Bloody Fists (), aka Deadly Buddhist Raiders or Death Beach, is an action movie directed by See-Yuen Ng and starring Chen Siu Sing and Kuan Tai Chen, released in 1972. The memorable fight scenes were choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping, better known for choreographing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix.
The Bloomsbury Review The Bloomsbury Review® is a 25-year-old "Book Magazine" published six times a year in Denver, Colorado by Owaissa Communications Company, Inc. and distributed nationally and internationally with a total circulation of 35,000.
The Blot The Blot is a social problem film directed by Lois Weber with her husband Phillips Smalley in 1921. The film tackles the social problem of genteel poverty, focussing on the family of a college professor who are honest and hardworking, yet are starving on their meagre income.
The Blow Like a Spark from a Stone The Blow Like a Spark from a Stone a philosophical method that had been employed by the legendary Miyamoto Musashi within the Gorin no sho during the Edo period (17th century) of Japan. If you are currently within a situation in which you and your opponent's swords are to clash, you must strike extremely hard without raising you sword to any extent.
The Blue and White The Blue and White is a magazine written by undergraduates at Columbia University. Founded in 1890, the magazine has dedicated itself throughout its existence to providing students an outlet for intellectual and political discussion, literary publication, and general parody.
The Blue Aeroplanes The Blue Aeroplanes are a Bristol-based rock group featuring Gerard Langley, whose poetic lyrics (largely spoken) were combined with a heavily guitar-influenced band to produce albums such as Swagger, Tolerance, and Beatsongs. After Cavaliers/Roundheads was released in 2000 they had a lengthy break before re-releasing Swagger as a 2-CD deluxe version in January 2006 and announcing a new album Altitude due in spring 2007.
The Blue Angel (Doctor Who) The Blue Angel is an original novel written by Paul Magrs and Jeremy Hoad and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Eighth Doctor, Fitz, Compassion and Iris Wildthyme.
The Blue Book On March 7, 1946 the Federal Communications Commission issued a report on Public Service Responsibility for Broadcast Licensees, nicknamed The Blue Book, reminding radio and television broadcasters of their commitment to public service. Even though the FCC's only weapon was to revoke broadcast licenses, which rarely happened, The Blue Book provoked some change in the networks' programming.
The Blue Gardenia (1953 film) The Blue Gardenia is a 1953 black-and-white film noir directed Fritz Lang. The first of Lang's "newspaper noir" movie trio (with While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt), The Blue Gardenia criticizes newspaper coverage of a sensational murder case.
The Blue Hearts The Blue Hearts (ブルーハーツ) was a popular Japanese upbeat punk rock band. Its members were Hiroto Kōmoto (vocalist), Masatoshi Mashima (guitarist), Jun'nosuke Kawaguchi (Bassist) and Tetsuya Kajiwara (Drummer).
The Blue Humans The Blue Humans is the name used by experimental guitarist Rudolph Grey for the improvised performances he leads with a variety of other musicians. Grey first came to notice in the late-1970s New York post punk and art scene which also produced Sonic Youth and Swans, and played in the influential no wave band Mars.
The Blue Kite The Blue Kite (藍風箏 Lan feng zheng) was a film directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang in 1993. Though banned by the Chinese government upon its completion (along with a six year ban on filmmaking imposed on Tian), the film soon found a receptive international audience.
The Blue Lady The Blue Lady is the ghost of a woman reportedly is seen in and around the Moss Beach Distillery Cafe in Moss Beach, California; she is so-named because she usually dressed all in blue. She is said to originate from the Prohibition era.
The Blue Lagoon (1949 film) The Blue Lagoon is a 1949 romance and adventure film produced and directed by Frank Launder, starring Jean Simmons and Donald Houston. The screenplay was adapted by John Baines, Michael Hogan and Frank Launder from the novel The Blue Lagoon by Henry De Vere Stacpoole.
The Blue Lagoon (1980 film) The Blue Lagoon is a 1980 English language romance and adventure film starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins, produced and directed by Randal Kleiser. The plot is about two young children stranded on a tropical island after a shipwreck.
The Blue Lagoon (novel) The Blue Lagoon is a romance novel by Henry De Vere Stacpoole, first published in 1908. The novel is the first of the Blue Lagoon trilogy, the second being The Garden of God (1923) and the third being The Gates of Morning (1925).
The Blue Light The Blue Light is a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. It shares many features with the story of Aladdin and his magic lamp, probably because the teller was exposed to the story, and simply altered the details to fit his or her background.
The Blue Lotus The Blue Lotus (Le Lotus bleu), first published in 1936, is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is the second half of a story, the first half being told in Cigars of the Pharaoh.
The Blue Marble The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth taken on 7 December 1972 by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft at a distance of about 45,000 kilometers or about 28,000 miles.It is one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence.
The Blue Max The Blue Max is a 1966 United Kingdom World War I film, directed by John Guillermin, filmed in Ireland, starring George Peppard, James Mason, Ursula Andress and Jeremy Kemp. The screenplay was written by David Pursall, Jack Seddon and Gerald Hanley, based on the novel by Jack D.
The Blue Notes The Blue Notes were a South African jazz sextet, whose definitive line up featured Chris McGregor on piano, Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto saxophone, Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone, Johnny Dyani on bass, and Louis Moholo on drums. After moving away from their home country in 1964, they established themselves on the European jazz circuit, where they continued to play and record through the 1970s.
The Blue Ox Babes The Blue Ox Babes was a pop group formed in 1981 by former Dexys Midnight Runners guitarist Kevin Archer together with his girlfriend Yasmin Saleh and former Dexy's keyboard player Andy Leek. Archer was keen to mix the soul sounds of his previous group with folk styles.
The Blue Raincoats The Blue Raincoats are a Canadian pop rock band from Toronto, Ontario. The Blue Raincoats' self-titled debut album was set for release September 27 2005 through Popguru Sound & Vision and distributed by Outside Music.
The Blue Room The Blue Room is a 1998 play by David Hare, adapted from La Ronde The play (Blue Room) was originally written by Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) to be first performed in 1897. The 1950 movie "La Ronde" was based on "The Blue room".
The Blue Series The Blue Series is the name of one of the series' of the Suske en Wiske books (Spike and Suzy in English), written by Willy Vandersteen. The Blue Series is shorter than the other two series - The Red Series and the specials - but is possibly the most popular.
The Blue Stingrays The Blue Stingrays were a late 1990s rock band that played surf rock, incorporating some country and western elements, with an overall Hawaiian atmosphere. The band was composed of the members of The Heartbreakers, Tom Petty's backup band, who took a short break from their work with Petty to record one album, Surf-N-Burn.
The Blue Veil The Blue Veil is a 1951 film drama made by Wald/Krasna Productions and RKO Radio Pictures. The film was directed by Curtis Bernhardt and produced by Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna with Raymond Hakim as associate producer.
The Bluegrass Sessions The Bluegrass Sessions is a name of a 2004 Bluegrass album made by 1970s Country Music artist Lynn Anderson. The Country Pop singer Lynn Anderson is best-known for her 1970 crossover hit "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden", which won her a Grammy award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1971.
The Blues (film) The Blues is a 2003 documentary film series produced by Martin Scorsese, dedicated to the history of blues music. In each of the seven episodes, a different director explores a stage in the development of the blues.
The Blues (Guns n' Roses Song) The Blues is a song by the rock band Guns N' Roses and is scheduled to appear on their upcoming album Chinese Democracy. Like well-known Guns N' Roses' songs Estranged and November Rain, The Blues could be described as a rock n' roll epic--as it is in the style of the previously mentioned songs.
The Blues Band The Blues Band were formed in Britain in 1979 by Paul Jones, former lead vocalist and harmonica player with Manfred Mann in the 1960s, and vocalist/slide guitarist Dave Kelly, who had formerly played with the John Dummer Blues Band, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker among others. Also in the band’s first line-up were bassist Gary Fletcher, Jones’s former Manfred Mann colleague, guitarist Tom McGuinness, and drummer Hughie Flint, the two latter having been the mainstay of McGuinness Flint.
The Blues Brothers The Blues Brothers are an American rhythm and blues band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on Saturday Night Live. Belushi and Aykroyd, respectively in character as lead vocalist "Joliet" Jake Blues and harpist/vocalist Elwood Blues, fronted the band, which was composed of well-known and respected musicians.
The Blues Brothers (video game) The Blues Brothers is a computer game where the object is to evade police in order to make it to a rock and roll show. The game was released for IBM PC, Amiga and Atari ST in 1991 and was ported for NES in 1992.
The Blueshirts The Army Comrades Association (ACA), later named National Guard and better known by its nickname The Blueshirts, was an Irish political organisation set up by General Eoin O'Duffy, a former guerrilla leader in the IRA (before the Treaty), Irish Army general (during the Irish Civil War), Garda commissioner (1922 to 1933) in 1932.
The Bluest Eye The Bluest Eye is a 1970 novel by Toni Morrison which details a year in the life of a young black girl in Lorain, Ohio named Pecola. The story is told from five perspectives: Pecola's, her mother's, her father's, her friend Claudia's, and Soaphead Church's.
The Bluetones The Bluetones are an English indie rock band, formed in Hounslow, Greater London, in 1994. The band are comprised of Mark Morriss on vocals, Adam Devlin on guitar, Scott Morriss on bass guitar, and Eds Chesters on drums.
The Bluff Point Stoneworks The Bluff Point Stoneworks are a prehistoric structure located at the crux of Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes Region, Western New York. Though they were studied many times throughout the Twentieth Century, the structure has been mostly destroyed, and it is still uncertain as to who built the structure.
The Bluffers The Bluffers was a children's cartoon series which originated in The Netherlands, it was first screened in 1984. The stories revolved around the inhabitants of the fictitious world of 'Bluffoonia' & their ongoing struggle against the evil tyrant 'Clandestino' & his plans to destroy the forest in which they live.
The Blunkett Tapes The Blunkett Tapes: My life in the bear pit is a book version of the audio diaries of the British MP David Blunkett. The diary details his time as a cabinet minister in the Labour government from 1997 to 2004.
The Blur of Insanity The Blur of Insanity is a 1999 independent college comedy drug slacker film staring Joshua Leonard of The Blair Witch Project fame. The film's webpage is a collection of rough off-color humor, in the vein of CollegeHumor.
The Boat of a Million Years The Boat of a Million Years is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson first published in 1989 and nominated for the the Nebula Award for Best Novel that same year. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Prometheus Award in 1990.
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" Glossary Reading William Hope Hodgson's novel The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" now, one can imagine that he or she is looking through a spyglass backwards through two lenses. First, it has been about 100 years since Hodgson wrote this novel.
The Bob & Tom Show The BOB & TOM Show is a syndicated US radio program established by Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold at radio station WFBQ in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1983, and syndicated nationally since 1995. Being owned by ClearChannel Communications, a media conglomerate which owns more than a thousand radio stations, the program enjoys extensive market penetration.
The Bob and Sheri Show The Bob and Sheri Show is a syndicated US radio program hosted by Bob Lacey and Sheri Lynch at radio station WLNK in Charlotte, North Carolina. The show is owned by Lincoln Financial Media and runs live on over 60 nationwide affiliates from 6 to 10 AM ET.
The Bob Cummings Show The Bob Cummings Show was an American television sitcom which was produced from 1955 to 1959. The program began with a half-season run on NBC, then ran for two full seasons on CBS, and returned to NBC for its final two seasons.
The Bod Squad (ABC) The Bod Squad was the collective title for a series of short public service announcements broadcast on Saturday mornings on the ABC television network, from the late 1970s through the first half of the 1990s. These thirty-second and one-minute segments promoted healthy nutrition and personal hygiene through humorous animation and catchy music with clever lyrics.
The Bodacious Adventures of Biff Thundersaur The Bodacious Adventures of Biff Thundersaur was a single comic book episode written by David Campiti and published by Innovation Publishing in 1991 as a pilot for possible series. It consisted of 27 black and white pages focusing around the fictional anthropomorphic dinosaur, Biff Thundersaur, and his quest for the black eye of Kwyta Shyna.
The Body Acoustic The Body Acoustic is a career retrospective released by Cyndi Lauper in 2005. It consists of ten previously released tracks which have been re-recorded and re-arranged acoustically, as well as two entirely new songs.
The Body of Christ The Body of Christ, also known as the Attleboro cult, was a small religious group founded in Attleboro, Massachusetts, which began as a Bible study group in the late 70's but became a cult. It was broken up in the late 1990s after the beliefs of the group directly caused the death of two infant children, who were then secretly buried in Baxter State Park in Maine.
The Body of Jonah Boyd The Body of Jonah Boyd is a novel by David Leavitt, published in 2004, that depicts various consequences of the theft of a manuscript. It tells a story about the life of a common American family dealing with ethical principles, relationships and fairness (and unfairness) today.
The Body Shop The Body Shop International plc, known as The Body Shop, is a British chain of cosmetics stores, now found all over the world. On 17 March 2006, The Body Shop agreed to a £652 million takeover offer by L'Oréal, the French cosmetics group.
The Body Snatcher (film) The Body Snatcher (also known as Robert Louis Stevenson's The Body Snatcher) is a 1945 horror film directed by Robert Wise based on the short story The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film's producer Val Lewton helped adapt the story for the screen, writing under the pen name of Carlos Keith.
The Body Snatchers The Body Snatchers is a 1955 science fiction novel by Jack Finney, originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954, which describes Earth being invaded by seeds which have drifted to Earth from space. The seeds take over human bodies and replace them with simulations grown from plantlike pods, perfect physical duplicates who kill and dispose of their human victims.
The Body Soul & Spirit Expo The Body Soul & Spirit Expo is an exposition of exhibits, ranging from an array of products for wellness, alternative therapies, healing arts, aromatherapy, natural healing, to intuitive arts, esoteric philosophy, metaphysics, astrology and holistic health. The expo is held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The Bodyguard (2004 film) The Bodyguard is a 2004 wire fu action-comedy written and directed by Thai comedian and actor Petchtai Wongkamlao and featuring martial-arts choreography by Panna Ritikrai. It is followed by the 2007 sequel, The Bodyguard 2.
The Bodysnatchers (Doctor Who) The Bodysnatchers is an original novel written by Mark Morris and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Eighth Doctor, Sam and the Zygons from the 1975 television serial Terror of the Zygons.
The Bohemian The Bohemian is a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau completed in 1890. It depicts a young woman sitting on a concrete bench on the south bank of the Seine across from Notre Dame de Paris, barefooted, her hands folded across her knee, resting a violin in her lap.
The Bohemian Girl (1936 film) The Bohemian Girl is a 1936 feature film version of the operetta The Bohemian Girl by Michael William Balfe. It was produced at the Hal Roach Studios, and stars Laurel and Hardy and Thelma Todd in her last role before her mysterious death.
The Bojeffries Saga The Bojeffries Saga was a series of comic book stories written by Alan Moore and drawn by Steve Parkhouse, and which started life in 1983 in Warrior. Described as a "soap opera of the paranormal" it features an eccentric English family of werewolves, vampires and monsters in various peculiar tales.
The Boleyn Inheritance The Boleyn Inheritance is a novel by British author Philippa Gregory, which was first published in 2006. It is a direct sequel to her previous novel The Other Boleyn Girl, and the most recent addition to her five-part series on the Tudor royals.
The Bollweevils (band) The Bollweevils were a punk band from Chicago which was active during the 1990s. The members consisted of Daryl Wilson on vocals, Bob Skwerski on bass, Ken Fitzner on guitar, and Brian Czarnik (who played simultaneously in Oblivion) on drums.
The Bollywood Saga The Bollywood Saga: Indian Cinema (ISBN 81-7436-285-1) is a concise overview of the history of Bollywood. It was written by Dinesh Raheja and Jitendra Kothari, with a foreword by Ismail Merchant, and published in 2004 by Roli Books.
The Bolton News The Bolton News - formerly the Bolton Evening News - is a daily newspaper covering the towns of Bolton, Bury and Leigh in north-western England. Coming out every morning Monday to Saturday, it is part of the Newsquest media group, a company of the U.
The Bomb-itty of Errors The Bomb-itty of Errors is a hip hop theatre retelling of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. Written and performed by Jordan Allen-Dutton, Jason Catalano, GQ, and Erik Weiner, the show has been performed in New York City (Off-Broadway), London (West End), Chicago, Dublin, Scotland, Florida, Aspen, and Los Angeles.
The Bombie Samba "The Bombie Samba" is a song and big dance number created especially for the stage musical production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was written by Robert and Richard Sherman in 2002 and premiered at the London Palladium on April 16, 2002.
The Bon Marché The Bon Marché, roughly translated as "the good market", was the name chosen for a Seattle, Washington department store launched in 1890 by the Nordhoff family. The name comes from Le Bon Marché, a noted Paris retailer and one of the world's first department stores, founded 40 years earlier.
The Bonding "The Bonding" was the 53rd episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the fifth episode of the show's third season. It was first broadcast on October 23, 1989.
The Bone of Contention The Bone of Contention is a Big Finish Productions audio drama featuring Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield, a character from the spin-off media based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
The Bonfire of the Vanities The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1987 novel by Tom Wolfe. The story, a satire about ambition, racism, and greed in 1980s New York City, centers on three main characters: the successful, arrogant, and very self-conscious bond trader Sherman McCoy, Jewish Assistant District Attorney Larry Kramer, and British expatriate journalist Peter Fallow.
The Bonfire of the Vanities (film) The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1990 film adaptation of a novel by Tom Wolfe, also called The Bonfire of the Vanities. The film was directed by Brian De Palma and stars Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, Bruce Willis as Peter Fallow, Melanie Griffith as Maria Ruskin, and Kim Cattrall as Judy McCoy, Sherman's wife.
The Bongos The Bongos, formed in Hoboken, New Jersey, were a pop band active in the eighties. Led by Richard Barone (vocals, guitar), the band also included Rob Norris (bass), James Mastro (guitar) and Frank Giannini (drums).
The Bonnie Blue Flag The Bonnie Blue Flag, also known as We Are a Band of Brothers, is an 1861 marching song associated with the Confederate States of America. The words were written by Ulster born Harry McCarthy, with the melody taken from The Irish Jaunting Car.
The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie is a Scottish folk song about a thwarted romance between a soldier and a girl. Like many folk songs, the authorship is unattributed, there is no strict version of the lyrics, and it is often referred to by its opening line There once was a troop o' Irish dragoons.
The Boo Radleys The Boo Radleys were a British rock band of the 1990s who were associated with the shoegazing and Britpop movements. They were formed in Wallasey, England in 1988, with singer/guitarist Sice, guitarist/songwriter Martin Carr, bassist Timothy Brown and drummer Steve Hewitt.
The Book and the Brotherhood The Book and the Brotherhood (1983), considered by some critics to be among Iris Murdoch's best novels, is the story of a group of close friends living in England in the 1980s. The book of the title is a theoretical work on Marxism, supposed to have been written by David Crimond, an exile from this circle of friends.
The Book and the Sword The Book and the Sword () is a wuxia novel by Jinyong, first published in 1955. Set in early Qing China during the rule of the Qianlong emperor, The Book and the Sword details the quest of the Red Flower Society (红花會), an organisation aiming to overturn the ruling Manchu government.
The Book Club Companion The Book Club Companion is a book written by Westport, Connecticut resident Diana Loevy, with the focus on book clubs and what they are made of. The purpose of this book is to share people's love for books and to strengthen friendships in that way.
The Book Group The Book Group was a situation comedy, aired on Channel 4 between 2001 and 2002, and ran for two series. It was written and directed by the American-born Glasgow resident Annie Griffin, who also wrote and directed Festival.
The Book of Abraham The Book of Abraham is a historical novel written by Marek Halter that documents the history (both factual and fictional) of his Jewish family. Although the early parts of the book are fictional, those parts taking place after the fifteenth century factually document the history of Marek Halter's family.
The Book of Blotar The Book of Blotar is a book of rituals published by the Odinic Rite for the purposes of celebrating Odinism. It was the first of its kind in the Western world and is thought to be the best on the subject by adherants worldwide.
The Book of Dust The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman will be a companion novel to His Dark Materials, focusing on the stories of the secondary characters of the trilogy, such as how the balloonist aeronaut Lee Scoresby met the armored bear Iorek Byrnison.
The Book of Evidence The Book of Evidence is a 1989 novel by the Irish author John Banville. The book is narrated by Freddie Montgomery, a 38 year old scientist, who murders a servant girl during an attempt to steal a painting from a neighbour.
The Book of Jesse The Book of Jesse is an online graphic novel and print comic written by Thomas Foster and Ron Morgan and illustrated by Takis Simon, first published in April 2004. It tells the story of Jesse Whitethorne, daughter of the President of the United States, and how one fateful night in Tokyo irrevocably changes the course of her life.
The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table "The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table" had been originated with the title "The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table" by Sir Thomas Malory from 1450s to 1470. William Caxton published it with the title "Le Morte Darthur"(Middle French for la mort d'Arthur, "the death of Arthur") at 1485.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is a novel by Milan Kundera, published in 1979. Unusually, the book does not comprise a single narrative progression, but instead is composed of seven separate narratives united by common themes.
The Book of Life The Book of Life is a movie that was released in 1998, and was made by Hal Hartley. In the film, Jesus returns to earth on the eve of the new millennium planning to bring about the apocalypse, but finds himself surprisingly enamored of humanity.
The Book of Lists The Book of Lists refers to any one of a series of books compiled by bestselling author Irving Wallace, his son David Wallechinsky, and daughter Amy Wallace. Each book contains hundreds of lists (many accompanied by textual explanations) on unusual or esoteric topics, for example:
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights The Book of One Thousand and One Nights ( Kitāb 'Alf Layla wa-Layla, Hazār-o Yak Šab; also known as The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, One Thousand and One Nights, 1001 Arabian Nights, Arabian Nights, The Nightly Entertainments or simply The Nights) is a medieval Persian literary epic which tells the story of Scheherazade (Persian: شهرزاد Šahrzād), a Sassanid Queen, who must relate a series of stories to her malevolent husband, King Shahryar (شهريار Šahryār), to delay her execution. The stories are told over a period of one thousand and one nights, and every night she ends the story with a suspenseful situation, forcing the King to keep her alive for another day.
The Book of Prefaces The Book of Prefaces, "Edited and Glossed" by the Scottish artist and novelist Alasdair Gray, provides a history of how literature spread and developed through the nations of England, Ireland, Scotland, and the United States. Its subtitle "A Short History of Literate Thought in Words by Great Writers Of Four Nations From The 7th To The 20th Century" outlines its scope.
The Book of Sand "The Book of Sand" ("El libro de arena") is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. It has parallels to "The Zahir", continuing the themes of self-reference, harmful sensation and attempting to abandon the terribly infinite.
The Book of Squares The Book of Squares (Liber Quadratorum in the original Latin) is a book on algebra by Leonardo Fibonacci, published in 1225. Fibonacci's identity, establishing that the set of all sums of two squares is closed under multiplication, appears in it.
The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays is a Hadith collections, collected by Sulaym ibn Qays who entrusted it to Aban ibn abi-Ayyash. The collection is known among Shi'as as one of the earliest and most trusted collections.
The Book of the Apple The Book of the Apple (Arabic: Risālat al-Tuffāha; Latin: Tractatus de pomo et morte incliti principi philosophorum Aristotelis) was a medieval neoplatonic Arabic work of unknown authorship. It was spuriously ascribed to Aristotle; its date of composition is unknown although it predates the 10th century CE.
The Book of the Courtier The Book of the Courtier (Italian: Il Cortegiano) was written by Baldassare Castiglione in 1528. Baldassare was inspired to write the Courtier by debates that occurred in Urbino on what makes a well rounded person (l'uomo universale).

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