Mindset List of the Obscure, by Tom McBride and Ron Nief

Perhaps you have been reading an old novel or watching an old movie or TV show, and some cultural reference passes you by without your getting it.  It happens.  Ron Nief and Tom McBride want to help out citizens of the 21st century by bringing to their attention some long-forgotten tidbits of life and culture.  In The Mindset List of the Obscure: 74 Famously Forgotten Icons from A to Z, Nief and McBride have selected a few dozen of those tidbits, bringing them back to life, and placing them in their history and context.

As a reader in my 40s, some of these were quite familiar, either through first-hand experience or second-hand awareness.  I actually made collect calls, listened to 45s on my sister's record player, enjoyed the smell of mimeographed worksheets at school, played with my father's slide rule (although I never figured out how to actually use it), and saw Liberace on TV (with rabbit ears).  But kids today, well, they don't know what all those things are.

Most of the items on McBride and Nief's list were from well before my time, although the names might ring a bell.   The alphabetical arrangement gives The Mindset List the feel of a reference book, and it certainly can be, but I think I would rather have seen the items listed chronologically or by type.  Plus, although the list is wide ranging, it is by no means comprehensive enough for this to be considered a go-to cultural reference work.  Ironically, just as the authors say World Book Encyclopedia has been rendered obsolete by online alternatives, so their book may be already obselete because of Wikipedia and the like. Still, it's fun to read about these relics of the past.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!