
The Areas of My Expertise
An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
John Hodgman
-
By:
-
John Hodgman
About this listen
In the great tradition of the American almanac,
The Areas of My Expertise is a brilliant and hilarious compendium of handy reference tables, fascinating trivia, and sage wisdom on all topics large and small. Although best sellers such as Poor Richard's Almanack and The Book of Lists were certainly valuable, they also were largely true. Here is a different kind of handy desk reference, one in which all of the historical oddities and amazing true facts are sifted through the singular, illuminating imagination of John Hodgman, which is the nice way of saying: He made it all up.
©2005 John Hodgman (P)2006 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
More Information Than You Require
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the paperless (or "audiobook") edition of More Information Than You Require, a further compendium of COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE assembled and illumined by John Hodgman, a Famous Minor Television Personality. It contains all of the half-truths, fake trivia, amazing made-up facts, and molemanic lore as the paper edition, narrated here by Resident Expert John Hodgman, occasionally interrupted by this veritable extravaganza of illustrious and sometimes presumptuous guests.
-
-
John Hodgman
- By Bobby on 11-01-09
By: John Hodgman
-
That Is All
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Hodgman completes his vision with That Is All, the last book in a trilogy of Complete World Knowledge. Like its predecessors, That Is All compiles incredibly handy made-up facts into brief articles, overlong lists, and beguiling narratives on new and familiar themes. It picks up exactly where More Information left off - specifically, at page 596 - and finally completes Complete World Knowledge, just in time for the return of Quetzalcoatl and the end of human history in 2012.
-
-
Great Highs, Weird Lows
- By Mathew on 12-04-12
By: John Hodgman
-
Medallion Status
- True Stories from Secret Rooms
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After spending most of his 20s pursuing a career as a literary agent, John Hodgman decided to try his own hand at writing. Following an appearance to promote one of his books on The Daily Show, he was invited to return as a contributor. This led to an unexpected and, frankly, implausible career in front of the camera that has lasted to this very day, or at least until 2016. In this audiobook, Hodgman explores the strangeness of his career, speaking plainly of fame, especially at the weird, marginal level he enjoyed it.
-
-
I like John Hodgman but....
- By Lili on 11-03-19
By: John Hodgman
-
Vacationland
- True Stories from Painful Beaches
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Hodgman - New York Times best-selling author, semifamous personality, deranged millionaire, increasingly elderly husband, father, and human of Earth - has written a memoir about his cursed travels through two wildernesses: from the woods of his home in Massachusetts, birthplace of rage, to his exile on the coast of Maine, so-called Vacationland, home to the most painful beaches on Earth.
-
-
Not your typical coming of age story
- By Tiffany Pearce on 11-02-17
By: John Hodgman
-
Starter Villain
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.
-
-
Volcanic Lairs, Death Rays & Cats… Oh My! 😼
- By C. White on 09-19-23
By: John Scalzi
-
Third Eye
- By: Felicia Day
- Narrated by: Sean Astin, Felicia Day, Neil Gaiman, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once upon a time, in the magical land of San Francisco, there lived a not-so-ordinary girl named Laurel Pettigrew. She was supposed to be the Chosen One. The plan was simple: She would vanquish the great evil Tybus in an epic battle. But destiny had other ideas, and Laurel's performance in the whole heroics department was a colossal flop. Now, instead of being a legendary hero, Laurel's the resident pariah of the magic realm. And what’s worse, the dark wizard Tybus swooped in, took over the realm, and forced all supernatural creatures to live under his tyrannical rule.
-
-
This has to be good, right?! Right?? Right......?
- By S. Apple on 10-11-23
By: Felicia Day
-
More Information Than You Require
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the paperless (or "audiobook") edition of More Information Than You Require, a further compendium of COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE assembled and illumined by John Hodgman, a Famous Minor Television Personality. It contains all of the half-truths, fake trivia, amazing made-up facts, and molemanic lore as the paper edition, narrated here by Resident Expert John Hodgman, occasionally interrupted by this veritable extravaganza of illustrious and sometimes presumptuous guests.
-
-
John Hodgman
- By Bobby on 11-01-09
By: John Hodgman
-
That Is All
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Hodgman completes his vision with That Is All, the last book in a trilogy of Complete World Knowledge. Like its predecessors, That Is All compiles incredibly handy made-up facts into brief articles, overlong lists, and beguiling narratives on new and familiar themes. It picks up exactly where More Information left off - specifically, at page 596 - and finally completes Complete World Knowledge, just in time for the return of Quetzalcoatl and the end of human history in 2012.
-
-
Great Highs, Weird Lows
- By Mathew on 12-04-12
By: John Hodgman
-
Medallion Status
- True Stories from Secret Rooms
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After spending most of his 20s pursuing a career as a literary agent, John Hodgman decided to try his own hand at writing. Following an appearance to promote one of his books on The Daily Show, he was invited to return as a contributor. This led to an unexpected and, frankly, implausible career in front of the camera that has lasted to this very day, or at least until 2016. In this audiobook, Hodgman explores the strangeness of his career, speaking plainly of fame, especially at the weird, marginal level he enjoyed it.
-
-
I like John Hodgman but....
- By Lili on 11-03-19
By: John Hodgman
-
Vacationland
- True Stories from Painful Beaches
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Hodgman - New York Times best-selling author, semifamous personality, deranged millionaire, increasingly elderly husband, father, and human of Earth - has written a memoir about his cursed travels through two wildernesses: from the woods of his home in Massachusetts, birthplace of rage, to his exile on the coast of Maine, so-called Vacationland, home to the most painful beaches on Earth.
-
-
Not your typical coming of age story
- By Tiffany Pearce on 11-02-17
By: John Hodgman
-
Starter Villain
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.
-
-
Volcanic Lairs, Death Rays & Cats… Oh My! 😼
- By C. White on 09-19-23
By: John Scalzi
-
Third Eye
- By: Felicia Day
- Narrated by: Sean Astin, Felicia Day, Neil Gaiman, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once upon a time, in the magical land of San Francisco, there lived a not-so-ordinary girl named Laurel Pettigrew. She was supposed to be the Chosen One. The plan was simple: She would vanquish the great evil Tybus in an epic battle. But destiny had other ideas, and Laurel's performance in the whole heroics department was a colossal flop. Now, instead of being a legendary hero, Laurel's the resident pariah of the magic realm. And what’s worse, the dark wizard Tybus swooped in, took over the realm, and forced all supernatural creatures to live under his tyrannical rule.
-
-
This has to be good, right?! Right?? Right......?
- By S. Apple on 10-11-23
By: Felicia Day
-
Sure, I'll Join Your Cult
- A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere
- By: Maria Bamford
- Narrated by: Maria Bamford
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it. In Bamford’s “trademark blend of disarming intimacy and dark whimsy” (Publishers Weekly), Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult brings us on a quest to participate in something.
-
-
Hilarious and sincere
- By B. Bazzell on 09-06-23
By: Maria Bamford
-
Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
- By: Sarah Vowell
- Narrated by: Sarah Vowell, John Slattery, Nick Offerman, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette - the one Frenchman we could all agree on - and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States is a humorous and insightful portrait of the famed Frenchman, the impact he had on our young country, and his ongoing relationship with instrumental Americans of the time.
-
-
You likely haven't heard it this way...
- By William L. Scott III on 06-04-16
By: Sarah Vowell
-
Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
-
-
Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
-
Dimension of Miracles
- By: Robert Sheckley
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dimension of Miracles is a satirical science fiction novel first published by Dell in 1968. It's about Tom Carmody, a New Yorker who, thanks to a computer error, wins the main prize in the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. Tom claims his prize before the error is discovered and is allowed to keep it. However, since Tom is a human from Earth without galactic status and no space traveling experience, he has no homing instinct that can guide him back to Earth once his odyssey begins - and the galactic lottery organizers cannot transport him home.
-
-
Easily The Best Title I've Encountered on Audible
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 07-02-13
By: Robert Sheckley
-
So Many Steves
- Afternoons with Steve Martin
- By: Steve Martin, Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Steve Martin, Adam Gopnik
- Length: 2 hrs and 46 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Steve Martin met his good friend Adam Gopnik three decades ago, and in that time, Gopnik has always marveled at Martin’s ability to flourish in a wide variety of artforms: magic, comedy, art collecting, writing, and music. In So Many Steves: Afternoons with Steve Martin, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik creates a new type of profile: a year’s worth of conversations with Martin where Gopnik pulls back the curtain on his friend’s illustrious career.
-
-
Perfection
- By M on 05-05-23
By: Steve Martin, and others
-
Unruly
- The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: David Mitchell
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.
-
-
Hugely Entertaining (If You Like English History)
- By Jean Ogg on 10-09-23
By: David Mitchell
-
Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama
- A Memoir
- By: Bob Odenkirk
- Narrated by: Bob Odenkirk, Steve Rudnick, Leo Benvenuti
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bob Odenkirk’s career is inexplicable. And yet he will try like hell to explicate it for you. Charting a “Homeric” decades-long “odyssey” from his origins in the seedy comedy clubs of Chicago to a dramatic career full of award nominations - with a side trip into the action-man world that is baffling to all who know him - it’s almost like there are many Bob Odenkirks! But there is just one and one is plenty. Featuring humorous tangents, wild characters, and Bob’s trademark unflinching drive, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama is a classic tale told by a determined idiot.
-
-
Not great
- By D. Moore on 04-12-22
By: Bob Odenkirk
-
Year Zero
- A Novel
- By: Rob Reid
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it's a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news. The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity's music ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang.
-
-
Fantastic Performance by Hodgman
- By Robert on 08-15-12
By: Rob Reid
-
Failure Is an Option
- An Attempted Memoir
- By: H. Jon Benjamin
- Narrated by: H. Jon Benjamin
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While he's not quite a household name, most people would consider H. Jon Benjamin, the voice-actor star of Archer and Bob's Burgers (and a sentient can of mixed vegetables in 2015's Wet Hot American Summer) a comedy show business success. But he'd like to remind everyone that as great as success can be, failure is also an option. In a hilarious, self-deprecating memoir, Jon lays out some of his many failures in all areas of life, from Work ("wherein I'm unable to deliver a sizzling fajita") to Family ("wherein a trip to PF Chang's fractures a family").
-
-
No joke, This book helped my marriage
- By Michelle on 05-07-18
By: H. Jon Benjamin
-
Unfamiliar Fishes
- By: Sarah Vowell
- Narrated by: Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, John Hodgman, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as crucial to our nation's identity, a year when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba and then the Philippines, becoming a meddling, self-serving, militaristic international superpower practically overnight. Of all the countries the United States invaded or colonized in 1898, Vowell considers the story of the Americanization of Hawaii to be the most intriguing.
-
-
Sarah Vowell does it again!
- By Kat on 03-23-11
By: Sarah Vowell
-
What If? 2
- Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
- By: Randall Munroe
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The millions of people around the world who loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the Moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone’s freezer door at the same time? Maybe it’s time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on an erupting geyser? Okay, if you insist.
-
-
Interesting book, horrible narrator
- By Peter on 02-18-24
By: Randall Munroe
-
Welcome to Night Vale
- A Novel
- By: Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor
- Narrated by: Cecil Baldwin, Dylan Marron, Retta, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.
-
-
This is so good, but
- By Christopher on 04-30-16
By: Joseph Fink, and others
Critic reviews
"Wonderfully absurd." (The New York Times)
"Hilarious ... Nabokov's Pale Fire as directed by Wes Anderson." (Time Out New York)
"If Borges and Ben Franklin got drunk and decided to write a book together, the result might have been something a lot like this freaky 'almanac.'" (Tom Perrotta)
Theater of the Absurd
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Audiobook is the ultimate version
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Simply Amazing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A bit too over the wall
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I wouldn't recommend this for anyone unfamiliar with his works, but for fans it's definitely a delightful trip into the mind of a comedic genius.
interesting listen, not for everyone
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
...I didn't really enjoy this book. I knew that it was made up facts but I had a hard time listening to it. Apparently I need more of a story. A lot of people love this book, I guess I just am not one of them.Love John Hodgman but...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I'm really curious to read the print version as well to compare them better; I expect it will be a very different experience.
Enhanced, not abridged!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Don't play it for anyone under 13; there is some risque language, and they won't get it anyway.
Wow!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Monty Python Silliness w/o the Quality
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
John Hodgman has gone to great lengths to make this audio book entertaining, evening adding musical accompaniment and plenty of skits making fun of himself, his musical accomplice, and the book itself.
Good but Overwhelming
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.