Edison’s Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History’s Greatest Geniuses
$19.99
273 in stock
Refresh Stock LevelInformation
Shipping
We currently offer free shipping on all orders over $100. Standard media mail shipping is $7.50 plus $1 for each additional book. Electronics are $35 shipping on all items.
Books
We get our books from a national distributor and although we strive to present up to date stock counts, stock constantly fluctuates. We perform a stock check when you add your book to the cart to ensure that it is available for shipping from the distributor. You can also check stock status by clicking the refresh stock link on the product page for the most up to date stock at the distributor. If an item is on backorder, you may place an order and we will update you on the estimated ship date as soon as we can confirm with the distributor.
Return & exchange
If you are not satisfied with your purchase you can return it to us within 14 days for an exchange or refund. More info.
Assistance
Can’t find what you’re looking for? We have access to over 13 million titles, reach out and see if we can help!
Contact us on (575) 322-6867, or email us at business@rabsbooks.com.
| Weight | 0.7 lbs |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 8.2 × 5.4 × 1 in |
Description
Publishers Weekly Best Summer Reads
Overturn everything you knew about history’s greatest minds in this raucous and hilarious book, where it turns out there’s a finer line between “genius” and “idiot” than we’ve previously known.“As Albert Einstein almost certainly never said, everyone is a genius – but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” So begins Katie Spalding’s spunky takedown of the Western canon, and how genius may not be as irrefutably great as we commonly understand. While most of us may never become Einstein, it may surprise you to learn that there’s probably a bunch of stuff you can do that Einstein couldn’t. And, as Spalding shows, the famous prodigies she explores here were quite odd by any definition. For example:
- Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb, believed that he could communicate with the undead and built the world’s very first hotline to heaven: the Spirit Phone.
- Marie and Pierre Curie, famous for discovering radioactivity, slept next to a lump of radioactive material for years and strapped it to their arms to watch it burn them in real-time.
- Lord Byron, acclaimed British poet, literally took a bear with him to university.
- Isaac Newton discovered the laws of gravity and motion, but he also looked up at the sun without eye protection. The result? Three days of blindness.
- Tesla, whose scientific work led to the invention of the AC unit, fell in love with a pigeon.
Edison’s Ghosts is filled with examples of the so-called best of humanity doing, to put it bluntly, some really dumb shit. You’ll discover stories that deserve to be told but never are: the hilarious, regrettable, and downright bafflingly lesser-known achievements that never made it into our history books, until now.
Back Bay Books
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.