New Jersey Trivia

Rating:
Summary: Question and Answer Format
Review: I like this book. It is a list of questions and answers in Q&A format. There is an order by general subject, but nothing individually. There is no index, so if you're looking for something specific, it's hunt and peck.

Still it is a good compilation of facts about New Jersey. Some of them are the commonly known facts, but most of are tidbits you don't know about the state.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and Fun
Review: Like a joke book of one-liners, NJ Trivia is not something you sit down and read in one sitting. Its full of a nice blend of famous people, places and events all born in, located at or centered around th e birthplace of Joe Piscapo, the home of the blueberry capital of the world (pg. 27) and the site of more than 100 battles and squirmishes during the Civil War (pg. 88).

The book is divided into 6 sections:Geography, Entertainment, History, Arts & Lit, Sports & Leise\ure, Science and Nature.

There are 2 main limitations to this book. First, written in the early 90's, some of the material is dated. For example, Who is the coach of the Seton Hall men's hoops team is no longer P.J. carlesimo and the NJ Nets star who lead the team in scoring during the 90-1 season is no longer relevant (if it ever was). And unfortunatley it has not been revised to include perhaps NJ pro sports brightest moments- the Devils winning the Stanley Cup in spectacular fashion.

2nd, for it to be more useful as a reference book, there needs to be some sort of index to look up specific information. The Pine Barrens, for example, has several entries and trying to find them all pretty much involves rereading the book several times.

The 1st point is inevitable with a trivia book and the 2nd seems to be beyond the scope the authors/editors intended for this book. Also, the answers are directly below each question so if you are trying to test your knowledge you need to read with an index card to cover up the answer.

Still, this is a nice little book. Highly ecommended. Also try NJ Firsts(ISBN: 0940159457).

Rating:
Summary: despite shortcomings, an excellent book
Review: Like the other reviewers, I too find there are 3 main troubles...

1) outdated material. It was written over 10 years ago and some questions are no longer accurate or even relevant
2) Questions are immediately followed by answers, making it difficult to test yourself.
3) organization is nill. there are some llosely defined "catagories" but many items appear in several catagories, such as questions about the Pine Barrens. There should've been some sort of reference in the back.

That said I still give this a 4 rating as there is a lot of material here, it covers lots of ground with a lot of information on almost every coneiveable topic in NJ. Despite the shortcomings, (most of which are merely annoying, not detrimental) it is quite interesting and worth the price, which is minimal.