Depths of Wikipedia

Dispatches from the Last Good Place on the Internet

By: Annie Rauwerda

Narrated by: Annie Rauwerda

A guide to the world’s most delightful, useful, and useless information (and how it came to exist)—a hilarious and insightful book for fans of Randall Munroe’s WHAT IF?, from the creator of @depthsofwikipedia

Wikipedia is a splendidly extensive record of everything that matters, and also pretty much everything that doesn't. Plunge into its depths, and you will be surprised, delighted, and occasionally horrified by what you find. We all like to tumble down rabbit holes filled with fascinating details and unusual information. Who has literally died from laughter? (A whole bunch of people.) How many popes have been sexually active? (24 or so.) When was ciabatta invented? (In 1982, as a rival to French baguettes.) And more philosophically, why does anything exist at all? (No clear answer.)

When Annie Rauwerda began to document these unusual facts, she tapped into something universal. Now, millions of people have discovered an appetite for these esoteric extracts from Wikipedia's nether regions. On @DepthsOfWikipedia (2M followers) she shares the weird, the wild, and the wonderful—from stories about stolen moon rocks and having sex in space to the fateful day that a Dave Matthews Band tour bus dumped bathroom sludge on a ferry boat of tourists.

Depths of Wikipedia is the definitive cultural history of Wikipedia, collecting its nuttiest, most intriguing facts alongside stories of the encyclopedia itself. Full of surprises and insights into how humans have come to categorize our world, it will fill you with the starry-eyed sense of wonder that accompanies a late-night click of the “Random Article” button.