The Bedside Baccalaureate: A Handy Daily Cerebral Primer to Fill in the Gaps, Refresh Your Knowledge & Impress Yourself & Other Intellectuals

Book Overview

Many adults long to make up for an education they either never had or that seemed somehow lacking. Now they can fill in the gaps right at home with The Bedside Baccalaureate series, which speaks directly to this grown-up thirst for knowledge. Filled with color images, extremely readable, and with an appealing presentation, it provides a fun, no-pressure experience that everyone will enjoy. The goal of The Bedside Baccalaureate is not the simple accumulation of trivia, but the placement of facts within the framework of knowledge. The 20 courses--focused overviews of subjects with which any well-educated person would want to be familiar--are created by experts in their fields with the intention of making the topics accessible and entertaining. Each course consists of 18 one-page lectures that maximize clarity without compromising the integrity of the ideas. The lectures are rotated, rather than clumped together, to add variety to the reading experience and to mimic the heady mix of subjects one encounters in the world of the intellect. You can dip into an assortment of areas by reading a page at a time; or, if a course really grabs you, you can skip ahead. Learning is contagious--once you get started, it's difficult to stop. The courses are associated with one of 12 departmental "strands" as follows: ? Two courses each per volume?? ? *American History *Philosophy *World History *Economics *English and Comparative Literature *Classics *Art History *Environmental Science *Mathematics and Engineering *Physical Sciences *Social Science ?????????????????????

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1402756321
• ISBN13: 9781402756320
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Sterling
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 2.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Fantastic book

This is a fantastic book! Tons of information in here that I have either forgotten or never learned. It's a great read, as it provides just the necessary information on each topic. Very happy with this purchase. It also makes a great gift for others.

A Good Primer for the SAT or Grad School

This book would be excellent reading for any high school, college or aspiring graduate student. These are just some of the many topics: o Renaissance in Florence o the Stock Market o Electricity o The Trojan War o The Protestant Reformation o The Cold War o Game Theory o Climate Change o The History of China o Plato and Aristotle o Darwin o Shakespearian Tragedies- Titus , Romeo and Juliet , Anthony and Cleopatra o 10 most influential artists i.e. Childe Hassan, Weir, Benson et al. There is an excellent description of the evolution of the internet and the world wide web. The web is defined as an interlinked public document collection. In essence, the internet allows your computer to communicate with others. This book is highly recommended as an introductory compendium for college study. Every student should have one and read it carefully.

Exaggerated title, but still an excellent book

This book consists of 20 essays, each 18 pages, divided into 1-page units. I think this length works well: enough to go into reasonable depth, without dragging on too long. The essays cover the following wide range of relatively focused topics: - Ancient Greco-Roman Myths, Buddhism, Islam, Transcendentalism, and Empiricism - Astronomy/Cosmology, Relativity Theory, Earth History, Human Evolution, Rocket Science (literally!), and Alternative Energy - Hudson River School, Impressionism, and Russian Literature - US Civil War, French Revolution, Marxism, Holocaust, US Civil Rights Movement, and Globalization In my opinion, the writing is of high quality. It's clear yet fairly sophisticated, the information is accurate as far as I can tell, and I even found many of the essays to be surprisingly engrossing. The editor, David Rubel, seems to have done his job quite well. I can recommend this book to any general reader interested in broadening their knowledge. A single book like this can't possibly fulfill the expectations its hyped title might elicit, but it's still a fun and informative read. PS - Ignore the comment about typos by another reviewer. I haven't noticed any typos, and the comment is trivial anyway.

Sure to Improve Your Cultural Literacy

Although I love the Intellectual Devotional series by David S. Kidder, Noah D. Oppenheim, I find The Bedside Baccalaureate slightly superior. Like the Intellectual Devotional, the Bedside Baccalaureate presents small bites of information (one page - one lecture) that can be read daily throughout the year. The difference, and the reason I slightly prefer the Bedside Baccalaureate over the Intellectual Devotionals, is that in the former the subject is continued in more depth later on within a chapter. The individual lessons build upon each other and the reader is given a greater understood of each of the subjects. As result, the book gives you fast, but thorough knowledge of a subject. The distinction between these two series is the distinction between facts, i.e. trivia, on the one hand, and knowledge, on the other. The Intellectual Devotionals lean more towards specific fact, while the Bedside Baccalaureate leans more towards knowledge. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend both the Bedside Baccalaureate and the Intellectual Devotional series. Both series are sure to contribute to anyone's cultural and academic literacy whether you are an educated adult or a young eager student.

typos, shmypos... it's a great way to integrate knowledge and information

I'm sending this to my grandchildren who are thinking about college, because the way the information is presented (in chopped up lectures across a broad range of ideas and study) is the way they will learn if they choose a liberal arts foundation. I can't wait for the next volume. My field of study is anthropology so I think I'm in a position to make an evaluation of this book. The best thing about the book is the way it makes me want to know more (read more in the area of the lectures) and the way it's "available" to average readers. Face it, academic reading is not fun for the non expert... this book makes the reading easy. Frankly, it reminds me of a blog... young people should be able to relate!