More Information Than You Require (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“Pure comedy.”

• Rated 2 stars

“As stated in the review for his previous book...I didn't think it was that funny. I guess it's just not my type of humor. Some things DID make me laugh, but definitely not a majority. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“John Hodgman's reading in October at Second City Etc. was the best reading I've attended. It hurt to breath for almost two hours. I was thrilled to read his second book of complete world knowledge. I began the book the day it came out. It took five months to finish it. It became my bedside book, something I read in small doses. I think I made a mistake. I read Hodgman's first book in a few days. I loved it. This one, not so much.

Book two has a page a day calender, a novel idea. On each page is the days date and an interesting made up fact to go along with it. This little snippet on each page makes it a little difficult to concentrate on the text. I know I shouldn't be complaining about a page a day calender in a comedy book, but it does take away from the main jokes, if that's even possible.

Molemen names are not as funny as hobo names. I'll never figure out why.

You know this guy. He's the PC in the Mac Vs. PC commercials. He's also on "The Daily Show". He had a small role in "Baby Mama". He's a funny and smart guy. I like the guy a lot. I just didn't enjoy this one as much. ”

• Rated 2 stars

“While parts of this book were funny, there were also long sections that I skimmed and/or skipped completely. The list of 700 mole-man names (and any thing else about mole people) was boring. There were some very funny passages, but overall I ended up skipping a lot.”

• Rated 3 stars

“You may remember that fairly recently comedian and minor TV personality John Hodgman wrote a parody of reference books called The Areas of My Expertise, which [a href="http://www.jmadigan.net/2006/12/book_review_the_areas_of_my_ex.html"]I reviewed[/a]. Hodgman's dry wit and ability to generate random and sublimely absurd claims made that book funny enough, so when he released his follow-up More Information Than You Require I grabbed it up.

In just about every way, More Information is more of the same. Indeed, Hodgman even continues the page numbering from his prior book and claims that more volumes will follow, and that some day you will be able to combine them into some kind of Voltron-like omnibus full of jokes about hobos, mole men, and U.S. presidents with hooks for hands. The problem is, I feel like I've seen a lot of this before, and the freshness and absurdity of the first book is pretty worn off. As any carnival freak show owner who has spent too much time in one town will tell you, things get less absurd with repeat viewings. Hodgman even seems to be going back to the same well that watered his previous books. For example, instead of a list of 700 hobo names like in the first book, More Information the author includes an exhaustive list of mole men names, making use of pretty much the same kind of shtick.

That's not to say that the book isn't funny in places. Hodgman's dry wit still hits hard on occasion, and I did laugh out loud more than a few times. Most of the jokes are hidden in the footnotes of the text, as well as 365 little dated inserts that he includes so that when you're done with the book you can use it as a "fact a day" daily calendar.

The problem is that this is all starting to feel a little well worn. I also grew to hate Hodgman's habit of switching to all capital letters SEEMINGLY AT RANDOM throughout the BOOK, which was funny once or twice, but generally JUST BROKE UP THE FLOW and was ANNOYING. I'd like to see him tackle something in a little different style rather than than what seems to me to be stream of consciousness and joke making that just throws everything against the walls to see what sticks.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Funnier than Part I (“The Areas of My Expertise”). I'm no humor writer, so I can't put my finger on it, but I think its due the decreased emphasis on hobos in this volume; perhaps hobos are just too creepy for a reference work?

Bonus: The exercise of separating the slightly skewed facts from the implausible verities and entirely made-up surreal nonsense means that I learned more from this book and its predecessor than from many actual almanacs (Ben Franklin, I'm looking pointedly in your direction.)”