The Golden Treasury of Knowledge

Before Wikipedia, before Microsoft Encarta, and way before Google, my scientific, historical, and trivial queries had to be answered by my sole source of reference material, a set of texts that were recovered from a yard sale by my mother. It was a sixteen volume set of books collectively titled The Golden Treasury of Knowledge. And what a treasury it was. From the history of the firearm to Genghis Khan, almost anything you wanted to know was covered in an abbreviated fashion somewhere in these sixteen volumes. Emphasis on almost. You see, these books were published in 1961 so some things like space travel were mere speculations according to the Golden Treasury. This only presented a problem with roughly 25% of subjects I had to write reports on during my formative years of education, but by glossing over some of the finer details, chucking in some info gleaned from general knowledge, movies, and television, I could usually bullshit my way to victory. Last minute reports researched entirely with woefully outdated reference books aren't as hard as you would think. Official educational use was really not the forte of these books, I will admit that. However, they were perfect for recreational forms of education. The abbreviated nature of the articles and the wonderfully expressive illustrations were perfect for short bursts of information consumption. In other words, they were perfect crapper books. I can attribute roughly 90% of my trivia inventory to these books. In most cases, the information is still accurate. In cases where it is not, I can usually pepper some outdated info with some good old fashioned bullshit and fight my way out of a trivia pickle. I still have possession of four volumes, I have no idea what happened to the rest. I would love to piece a set back together for the sake of nostalgia, but I don't know if the cost to nostalgic entertainment ratio warrants the purchase. Oh well. There will always be the fond memories.