If any regular column calls for a compilation, The Explainer is it. The Microsoft-funded online magazine Slate
has been doling out answers to offbeat questions for years, becoming king of the information-rich deadpan response. How do you figure out the odds of an asteroid hitting the earth? How did the U.S. get a naval base in Cuba? Slate
knows. And according to former editor Michael Kinsley (who pens the introduction), it's because its writers are willing to confess they don't know everything. "We don't like to admit, even to ourselves, that we often don't know what the hell others among us are talking about," Kinsley acknowledges. But "very little is beneath the dignity of Slate
," and so they take on the obvious queries that everyone wants to ask, but nobody ever does. For this volume, questions are arranged by quirky subject (like "Guns and Ammo"), and there's a special richness to its Washington-related queries, perhaps due to Kinsley's background as a D.C. pundit and general policy wonk. And though a rotating cast of writers has been behind the column, they manage a consistent tone. Alas, instead of always playing the straight man to the natural comedy of the questions, the editors don't have much fun with their answers (e.g., they refrain from ripping into Hollywood's fad du jour when facing a question like, "Where does Kabbalah come from?"). But the book has its own relentless charm, and the utilitarian premise makes it a winner. Besides, who else is going to tell readers what happens to recalled meat? (Mar.)
