The Bedside Baccalaureate: A Handy Daily Cerebral Primer to Fill in the Gaps, Refresh Your Knowledge & Impress Yourself & Other Intellectuals,   ISBN:9781402756320

Customer Rating: 

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.

Customer Rating: 

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.

Customer Rating: 

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!

Customer Rating: 

Sorry folks, I was so excited about this book, however I found three typos within the first five minutes of reading it. I'm returning it tomorrow. By my standards typos are unacceptable, especially for this type of book... Inappropriate use of an apostrophe, Yikes! If that is not correct, how do we know that the contents of the book are? Already I know I'd be doing more proof-reading than learning.