The Book of Common Fallacies

Falsehoods, Misconceptions, Flawed Facts, and Half-Truths That Are Ruining Your Life

By: Phillip Ward, Julia Edwards

Narrated by: Traber Burns

Length: 21 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Everything you thought you knew was wrong!

Long before Snopes.com and Wikipedia, The Book of Common Fallacies set out to debunk popular beliefs and set the record straight. By tracking down the facts and citing experts in a multitude of fields, Philip Ward points out the senseless ideas that we have come to accept as fact. Newly updated with today’s common misconceptions, The Book of Common Fallacies exposes the truth behind hundreds of commonly held false beliefs.

©1978, 1980, 2012 Philip Ward and The Oleander Press. Additional content 2012 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

A few good entries, but most are obscure

Was The Book of Common Fallacies worth the listening time?

I felt the urge to fast-forward often! I would say that more than half of these "common fallacies" are ones that I have never heard of. It should have been called "Very Obscure Fallacies". I thought it was going to have more "old wives tales" and things you hear every day. Most of these I can't believe that people would have thought was true, except maybe 1000 years ago! There are LOTS of common fallacies that I hear all the time in the general public that were not even mentioned, but yet very trivial things that no one would ever say or think of like "A phrase always means what it says", I mean huh? Also, quite a few of the "Fallacies" were merely opinions, or things that cannot even be proven or disproven - so how can those be fallacies?? I found myself saying "what the....??" a lot while listening to this book. Every now and then, however, I did hear something familiar, and it was neat to hear the origins behind the fallacy.

Any additional comments?

Just a weird book, so many trivial and uninteresting things that are passed off as being common. I'd love to know where on the planet most of these are common.

Just Don't.

the information might have been fun if I was actually reading it, but the narrators voice was soooooooo monotonous I couldn't even tell when we'd switched topics. I tried to tough it out, but I just can't do it.

All bases are covered: I misuse, HATE, or disagree with everything

(As posted in GoodReads)
It took me all the way till he"E" to realize that it was, actually, divided into alphabet initialization's, but even still, it was not always clear what word was actually being referred to. Certain terms, like "fallacy" were used numerous times despite the apparently appropriate letter. Even still, it was a kind of nice collection; of some of the words/phrases I was guilty; some of them have been particular annoyances of mine for sometime; with some of them I just didn't agree. I guess that means that all bases are covered :-)

Tough Slog

After listening for a while, I figured this books was 20 years older than it is. The delivery is very flat and the majority of highlighted common fallacies are known, obvious, or self-evident. I may switch over to it for very short car rides, but it will take a LONG time to get through all 21+ hours. Do not attempt to listen straight through on a long car drive - you'll be dozy and hazardous in 30 minutes.

There are a million fallacies covered. I was hoping for a smaller number, but explored more deeply. Instead of just stating that some commonly held assumption is fallacious, a little more background on how the false assumption or logic came about, and perhaps some historical context could have been a lot more fun.

I give myself a 30% chance of ever making it through all 21hr 35minutes of this audio book.

Good idea. Badly done. Subject matter wandered,

What would have made The Book of Common Fallacies better?

It should have better researched. Also a closer match of the material to the title of the book.

What do you think your next listen will be?

The next 'Empires Corp' book.

Have you listened to any of Traber Burns’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

Buy a Physical Copy

This book is a list of interesting facts. Hard to follow in an audiobook. Better as a bathroom reader. A few bits here and there over time.

Boring

Would you try another book from Phillip Ward and Julia Edwards and/or Traber Burns?

No

Has The Book of Common Fallacies turned you off from other books in this genre?

Yes

How did the narrator detract from the book?

No

Any additional comments?

This book doesn't lend itself to the audiobook form. It's made up of small snippets of information and hearing one after the other is boring. It would have been much better if it included some longer pieces.

I do think it would be fine as an actual book that you pick up and read for a few minutes as a time, but listening to it for extended periods tedious.

Not so hot.

Reader's voice is somewhat monotonous, cant listen to this any more. A lot of old stuff re-hashed.

Not what you think

This book is nothing more than a compilation of seemingly random facts thrown together in this book. Not much interesting content here.

Uninteresting and semi informative

This is not a book of common fallacies. This is a book of fallacies people believed in before science. I had thought I would learn interesting nuggets that I may use but nope. This is talking about how talismans don’t really work. You don’t need a book to tell you 95% of this book is not common and it’s ancient history.